A cold chill ran all through my body and I felt as if my blood jelled.  My hands started to sweat and I responded, “You’re both crazy, the three of us are going home alive and in one piece.”  Laughter broke out among us but deep down inside, we all trembled and I knew they weren’t kidding.

At that instant Lt. James appeared on deck and said, “Get the men up, we have our orders.”  Williams looked straight into the Lt.’s eyes and said, “Does it have anything to do with a ‘Double Eagle’ Lieutenant?”

“Where did you hear that?” retorted the Lt.  “That’s top secret classified information.”  We all turned and stared at each other blankly for a moment and fear just welled up inside each one of us once again.

Miller broke the silence, “Hanoi Hanna, just told us on the radio, who we were, where we are going to land, who our commanders are and she played us a song entitled, “Under the Double Eagle” for all you American boys on those ships off Chu Lai.

“It can’t be,” said the Lt. “It can’t be, this is the biggest amphibious operation since Inchon Korea.  There are literally thousands of men and hundreds units involved. We are going to hit an ‘R & R’ camp of hard core North Vietnamese troops. How could they find all this out?”

I answered, “Some crumb sold us out for a few bucks and a cold beer!”

“Maybe it’s all just a coincidence,” said Miller.

“Coincidence! Coincidence!” said the Lt., “The name of the operation is, “Double Eagle!”

At that moment my heart stopped beating.  It was no coincidence, we had been sold out, and they knew we were coming, they knew, and they would be armed, ready and waiting for us!

We briefed the men, made last minute checks of all our equipment and strapped on our gear.  Within the next two hours we were slipping over the side of the ship in silence and total darkness into waiting Papa boats.  We shoved off from the ship and kept going in circles waiting to head for the beach. It seemed like an eternity before we would hit the beach.

As I stood in the boat my mind wandered back to all the training, all the maneuvers we had been through on Okinawa and the Philippines, especially the ‘Raider Training’  but this was the real thing.  I wondered what it would be like to actually kill a man.  Could I do it?  That was the one thing I never bragged about.  Although many men did, but talk is cheap.  I had shot at a lot of targets but they never shot back, never!  I was afraid I would know the answer to my question within a few minutes.

Naval gun fire started pounding the beach really heavy.  The Air Force was strafing the beach with rockets and napalm.  The Papa boat suddenly straightened out and took off with its full power straight for the beach.  “This is it!” Shouted the boat commander!

The Lt. said, “Hold on, we’re going in!” My heart was pounding in my ears, I had a lump in my throat and my stomach was in knots.  I was scared but I couldn’t show my fear because I was a leader and the men looked to me for guidance.  One of the men next to me threw up in his helmet and another Marine asked, “Now what are you going to do with that?”  That kind of broke the tension.  I kept thinking of Cpl. Williams’ statement, “I’m gonna be the first one to git it.” I could still see those cold steel eyes and hear that deep southern drawl of his, “And you ‘Bo’ will be the…..”                    ‘Between The Lines’