It was a tense moment. Just simply tense. Sweat glistened off my forehead forming bigger and bigger blobs until, unabated, it formed a torrent of rivulets streaking my camouflage skin paint. Sweat stung my red-rimmed eyes as I lay pressed into the surrounding clumps of grass, leaves, debris and tropical plant-life. There were no sounds of life. No sounds of monkeys, birds or even insects.
The two men I watched were less than 30-meters away. I knew they were talking, albeit in low voices, but the sound of their words seemed to die as the words left their lips. The oppressive humidity and heat made every effort to become part of my surroundings futile. If just a bird had flown by, the movement of air from its wings could have spelled welcome relief. Instead, nothing.
One man lit a Chinese cigarette. The acrid, bitter smoke enveloped his head like an ethereal cloud. Even he could not stand the fumes and moved out of the way of the smoke-screen. His companion teased his buddy. Both men side-stepped away from the gray cloud.
We’d been watching a hut where a huge shipment of drugs was supposed to be transferred. Guards changed every 4 hours or so. Unfortunately, each change brought no improvement to the hot, humid weather. Then a small, skinny man who I called the Little Boss came from the hut and shouted orders to the two men performing guard duties. One of the guards had previously placed his rust-encrusted, poorly maintained rifle against a support post of the hut. He was entertaining himself by throwing small pebbles into the jungle.
The Little Boss moved quickly toward the empty-handed guard timing his arrival with an almost fluid motion round-kick. The surprised, hapless guard landed in a heap. Little Boss shouted out something and another man appeared from inside the hut. The new guard came out and stood in the place of the wayward guard. Anger filled the replacement guard’s eyes as he had to replace the errant man. I thought this must be nothing new.
Forced into the hut, the errant guard’s high-pitched cries and the wood-on-flesh cracks heralded the administration of remedial guard procedures using the “bamboo-cane-on-flesh” method. The bleeding, errant guard stumbled from the hut. He made his way toward the jungle edge.
Staggering to the grassy vegetation, he dropped his bloomer-like pants and relieved himself. A loud scream from the hut caught the trouser-less man in mid-stream. Apparently the use of the jungle-fringe toilet and its proximity to the hut was being objected to. No one wanted to smell the man’s leavings. The Little Boss obviously did not. He then entered the jungle fringe with the obvious intent of relieving his now weakened bowels as well.
As if on cue, several men filed from the jungle into the clearing from the opposite side of the hut. A very vicious-looking, one-eyed man with a large scar that started at his left scalp line and ended at his lower left jaw led these men. The empty left eye socket, while partially covered with a homemade patch, made the entire left side of his face seem to droop. His clothing showed severe wear only adding to his wretched overall appearance. I called him the Big Boss.
He shouted some form of greeting, or maybe a curse, but it brought all hands on deck. When the balance of his men followed him out of the jungle, they were leading 11 very dazed young girls tied together with worn, hemp ropes. Some of the girls had shreds of clothing, but most were naked. The ropes had so much wear that anyone with any semblance of strength could have easily broken them. From the blank stares and stumbling gait, the girls were anything but strong. Their feet were cut and bleeding. They could not even cry due to their state of lethargy or possibly drug-induced, fearful sleeplessness.
The Big Boss again shouted something in Laotian. The girls stumblingly fell down. The Little Boss exited the hut in a very quick and subservient manner. At the top of his voice, the Big Boss counted the guards who followed Little Boss from the hut. He then recounted and stopped. At that point, the errant guard that had gone to relieve himself ambled out of the jungle’s fringe hiking up his pants, a sublime look of personal relief shone from his face. His grin was instantly replaced by a look of abject terror. The Big Boss punctuated his shouted curse with two shots from his AK-47 into the chest of the hapless man. His body was violently thrown back against the waist-high grass. Any signs of life were quickly drowned out by his gurgling, exhaled gasp. All movement ceased.
The other men became confused as fear filled their eyes. Confusion quickly was replaced by horror. They went down on one knee, their rifles at the ready. At first they probably thought they were under attack. They could not believe the Big Boss had shot their comrade. Rapidly coming to their senses, they were ready just in case. In case of what, they did not know, but better to look ready to fight than flee.
The Big Boss shouted a curse and the men jumped up and started to organize a column of their captives; the 11 girls from the Big Boss’ group and 7 more from the hut. All appeared to be in a dazed drugged state. No doubt it would be easier to contain them, but it spoke of a depraved curse forced on them by an equally depraved society that demanded their soon-to-be learned services.
The group moved down the trail to an improvised landing in the river, where a squad of SEALS met them with a well-executed divide and conquer approach to vermin extermination. None of the girls were hurt and all of the 14 enemy combatants were eliminated. Fortunately these young girls were saved from a life of drugs, disease and further exploitation.
Current estimates worldwide are that over 250,000 young boys and girls between the ages of 8 and 18 are kidnapped, sold and placed in bondage every year. The mortality rate is equally grim; from 80-83% before they reach age 20. Forced slavery of children worldwide is a blight and curse of mankind. Teams of military forces sometimes find themselves in the role of rescuing these children. In my 35 years with various U.S. Special Forces units, I was involved with many operations to free children. I can proudly say that my contribution of saving lives was among the greatest part of my experiences. When people smugly talk of Hollywood’s version of SEAL Teams, I’m proud to say I engineered the saving of more lives than I was ever forced to take.
