John Doe..., page 1

Your post brought many long forgotten memories.
With your permission I would like to add this as well.
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Waiting for the MP's to open up the gates,
All gassed up and lined out, each one with its load
Drivers and their shotguns waiting for the go ahead,
Up endless klicks of highway that we call the Thunder Road
Have you written home today? Have you made your will out, troop?
Are you the lucky bastards with the ordnance in your load?
Are you hauling mogas, diesel fuel, or JP-4?
God ain't riding any truck that's running Thunder Road
Black smoke coughing skyward, multi-fuelers rumbling,
Passing through the gates you hear the shotguns lock and load.
Helmets weighing heads down, flack vests zipped to sit upon,
Sandbags on the floorboards 'cause they're running Thunder Road.
When the war was younger, wasn't any open road,
Jungle brushed the side stakes and blocked out the overhead.
Set up in the brush nearby, ambushes were hard to spot,
Troopers running Thunder Road too often wound up dead.
Enter high technology, Monsanto, Dow and chemistry,
Sprayed it with defoliants that burned the jungle back.
Agent Orange, Agent White, one of them will work just right,
Turn the Thunder Road into an open, safer track.
Next the Rome Plows came along, tore the dying jungle down,
Opened up the land one hundred meters either side,
Left an open area of stunted brush and head high grass,
200 open meters for the ambush teams to hide.
From Lai Khe up to Loc Ninh, anxious damned kilometers,
Ain't a single klick that can't be ambushed, sniped or mined.
Lead off with a jeep that mounts a single .50 caliber,
Close the convoy with another .50 back behind.
Every single pothole is the one that hides a waiting mine,
Lots of ruts and potholes form in Asian laterite
Follow in the tire tracks of the truck that's just ahead in line
If we make it through, we'll sleep in Loc Ninh's wire tonight
Paddies line the lower road, water boo and wooden plows,
Slow down through the hamlets where they try to steal the loads,
Children running after us, "Souvenir me C rats, Joe!"
All of them are VC and they're watching Thunder Road
Women mob the market place, old men squatting in the shade,
Counting 4 by's, 6 by's and the fuel trucks as we go,
Accelerating, roaring north, up highway 13 toward Loc Ninh
Bound to where the mines are buried out on Thunder Road
Trying to relax a bit, hands and arms are cramped and sore,
Tension and the road ruts knot the muscles in our backs,
Someone plays a radio, barely heard above the noise,
Of diesel engines crawling up the twisting, climbing track.
Quon Loi turn-off falls behind, heading for Cambodia
Defoliants have lost their grip; the jungle's closing in,
Rolling through the Michelin, Rome plows never made it here,
Can't upset the planters who still live outside Loc Ninh.
Haggard faces in the trucks caked with thick red laterite
Sweat trails turning dust to mud and not a breath of wind,
To blow the dust away from us as the truck tires churn it up,
It clogs our mouths and noses and it infiltrates our skin.
Every one is twitchy now. If they ambush, should be soon.
Road is down to just one lane and daylight's getting thin
Thunder Road is nearly run; we've survived another day,
Stop! The tanker has to back and fill to make the bend.
Jungle slowly falls behind, sudden tropic nightfall near,
Racing up the final klicks while fading daylight shows.
Road has opened out again, lifting tension from our minds,
Flash! The fuel truck up ahead is blown right off the road
Windshield shatters suddenly, fragments slashing into skin,
#! He's hauling mogas; see the fire consume the load.
Driver never had a chance, torn and burned, cremated there,
The thunder of the mines was why we named it Thunder Road.
Black smoke blowing over us, brings the stench of burning flesh,
B-40 from the tree line detonates another load
Popping of the 16's as we crouch in weed-choked ditches,
Firing 'cross the evil ground that borders Thunder Road.
Choppers strafe the tree lines but Charlie isn't hanging round,
He's killed some long-nosed devils and destroyed a couple loads.
Heading back to safety he can hear the secondary sounds,
Of ammo cooking off in dying trucks on Thunder Road.
Policing up the dead then, nothing left that looks like men
Zip 'em in a body bag and write the letters home.
"Sorry 'bout that, folks, your son got greased below Loc Ninh
On a convoy running highway 13 known as Thunder Road."
Have you written home today? Have you made your will out, troop?
Are you the lucky bastards with the ordnance in your load?
Are you hauling mogas, diesel fuel or JP-4?
Listen to the mines exploding out on Thunder Road

Buck
Thunder4