There are many ways to die in combat, none are pleasant, but there are other ways to die that are as far from what the average person would think about and it almost happened this way to a USMC "grunt."

     It was in the Ashau Valley in 1965 ......... while on a routine recon patrol of squad strength, the "point" was braking through the tall elephant grass at twilight with a few others trailing when they came under heavy automatic weapons fire from a tree line, green tracers flying over head and a few RPGs fired in their general direction.

     Everyone hit the deck, no place to hide except those fortunate enough to still be in the elephant grass .. one of the grunts figured he was safe and would stay in the tall grass until it was safe to move forward and determine what the situation was.

     Feeling relatively safe lying as low in the grass as one could be, the grunt looked up after straightening his helmet and came face-to-face with a deadly Bamboo Viper, quite common in Southeast Asia.

     Thoughts raced quickly through his mind, "Christ ........ here I am not more than 18 inches from a miserable death, not even a purple heart, or a bronze star, or anything but a g#dd%m body bag to send home.  What will they tell my folks?  Your son died in action from a snake bite, we are sorry ........... while bullets still ripping overhead, the grunt knew he was in a world of sh@t ...........

     He couldn't move, couldn't return fire, couldn't bring his M14 to bear, couldn't help at all while the coiled snake eyed him warily ........"was it going to strike or not?"  

     He could hear one of the lead guys firing his M79 and another his M60 and wanted to go forward to participate in the fire fight.  But this godd$m reptile would not permit it, waving his tongue from a tightly coiled position in his direction to detect the scent of a possible threat to strike at.  "I could see the color of his eyes and count every scale on his nose."

     "Why me?  Why does this thing have to be here NOW, with me, face to face? Why doesn't he slither off?   Oh, God, why me?"

     Suddenly, the fight broke off to dead silence, the snake decided to back away and crawl off.  The toll was no WIA or KIA, everyone was safe.