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Phantom Warriors The Beginning and Mission One
The Amazon Jungle
By Charles Welch
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Charles Welch
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4634-3623-0
Chapter One
To say becoming a multi-millionaire overnight was a stressful event would be an understatement. Not stressful financially of course, but stressful in ways such as what do you do with all that money?
I called the out processing center and told them to change my appointment until tomorrow afternoon.
Then I went home and Sam met me at the door and asked, "What are you doing Captain? You should be out processing."
"I got great news Sam! You're not going to believe it!"
She got serious and said, "What is it Dad?"
"You better come inside and sit down honey. This is important."
We went into the house and sat at the kitchen table.
"What's up, Dad?"
"Remember those lottery ticket's I told you I bought yesterday?"
"Don't tell me you won something on them."
"Sam, were rich!"
"Define rich, Dad."
"Fifty-nine million dollars! I won the lottery! Every number matched!"
"What? I don't believe it Dad!"
"Believe it honey. We won!"
"What are we going to do?" Sam asked.
"Well, first I need to go to the bank and get a safe deposit box to put this ticket in until I turn it in. Then when I get out of the Army, you and me can sit down and discuss the future."
"That's great Dad. I can't believe it!"
"Believe it Sam. We won! And I want this to be our secret for now. Don't tell anyone yet."
"Don't tell anyone? Dad, were rich! I want to tell everyone I know!"
"In time, Sam. In time. Just for a few days, don't say anything."
"Okay, I'll try."
"Thanks Sam. Don't worry, in a few days you can tell all your friends."
After I left Sam, I drove over to my bank and waited for them to open. I was standing at the door, first in line to go in when the doors open. At 10:00 am, a lady from the inside came to the doors, unlocked them and said, "Good morning, come on in." I followed her to her desk and noticed her name plate read "Holly Mason," Manager.
"Can I help you?" She asked.
With a calm voice I said, "I would like to rent a safe deposit box for one month. How much do they cost?"
"The small one is twenty dollars a month," she said.
"I would like to rent a small one for one month, please."
"Do you have an account with us?"
I pulled out my check book and said, "Yes, I do." Then I handed her the check book so she could get the account number.
She ran up my account number and said, "Okay, Mr. Stone, no problem."
I filled out the forms she gave me for the safe deposit box then she walked me over to the vault were the boxes' were and gave me the key to box 117. I asked her for a moment of privacy and she walked away.
I pulled the ticket out of my wallet and placed it in the box. I made sure that the box was secure and then I walked out with biggest smile on my face and told her, "Thank you." She just stared at me and said, "You're welcome."
I placed the key on my car key ring and went to my car and sat in disbelief what was happening to me. I had become a multi-millionaire with probably less than four thousand dollars in current bills I owed. Subtracting four thousand from the fifty-nine million was like dropping a dollar on the ground and not picking it up. I was rich!
They say the brain can process a lot of information at any one time and whatever that was; I think my brain was doubling that.
I thought, what am I going to do with the money? Where am I going to live? What kind of car do I want? What am I going to give Sam? Should I work or maybe start a business? Maybe I'll just sit back and enjoy the rest of my life. The questions just kept bombarding my mind. It felt like my head was going to explode.
I thought about the payments that the lottery would give me. In Washington State you had two choices. You could either choose taking all the money at once, but the catch is you only get half of the winnings, or you could elect to have the full amount after taxes, given to you over a period of twenty-five years. I made some dumb choices in my life but this wasn't going to be one of them. There was no way I was giving back to the state half of my winnings. I was definitely going to take the money over twenty-five years. I had sixty days to claim the money.
The next thing I thought about was am I going to live for another twenty-five or fifty years? Who knows? But I knew one thing; Sam and I could increase our chances of a longer life if we would start eating right. I thought I might hire a personal chief. Man, my mind was racing.
I thought about getting a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and an Attorney. I figure an accountant firm would be able to take care of all my expenses and accounts because I'm sure there's no doubt that once the IRS finds out I am a multi-millionaire they will be watching me all the time.
Figuring I should do that first, I went home, got the yellow pages and looked for the biggest ad I could fine for Public Accountants. I wanted the best and I figure that if a business could afford a full page ad, then they are most likely not some "fly by night" company that would be here one day and gone tomorrow. I wanted someone with credibility.
After locating a firm in Tacoma, I decided to drive downtown and check them out. I know I probably should have called to make in appointment but when you're sitting on fifty-nine million dollars, you can't wait to tell someone. I thought I would just walk in, that way, I could also see how they treat their clients with or without an appointment.
I walked into the office building and looked at the directory on the wall for England and Hart Accountants. It showed they were on the eleventh floor. I got on the elevator and went to the eleventh floor. When I got out of the elevator, I saw the sign that pointed that the office was to the left. I walked into the office and approached the secretary at the desk.
"Hi, I would like to talk to Mr. Hart or Mr. England."
"Do you have an appointment?"
"No."
"Mr. Hart is out of the office and Mr. England asked not to be disturbed."
"Miss," I said. "I think your boss wouldn't mind being disturbed after he hears what I might be able to offer him. I promise you this is very important and it will make his day."
She looked at me and said, "Well, first of all, he's not my boss, he's my husband. And secondly ..."
Before she could finish, the big wooden door in the back of the office opened up and I noticed a big bald man walk out with an upside down U-shape moustache. He approached the desk and looked at his secretary and asked, "Is everything okay, Stephanie?"
She said, "This gentleman ..."
I interrupted and said, "Brett Stone."
Stephanie continued, "Mr. Stone wanted to see you but he doesn't have an appointment. He said it would probably make your day if you allowed him to talk to you."
Mr. England looked at me for a moment and I swear he was at least six and a half feet tall and he was built like a professional football player playing center. He then smiled and said, "Well then, I sure would like to hear some good news that would make my day, let's go to my office."
I followed him to his office and there was no doubt I was dealing with an ex-military man. He had numerous diplomas and certificates on the wall but the one that stood out the most, was the prestige Congressional Medal of Honor Certificate which hung directly behind his chair in what looked like a million dollar glass frame. He saw my eyes were on that award, ignoring all the others and he asked, "Military man?"
"Yes," I said. Captain, U.S. Army Special Forces."
"I figured you were. You have that unique military bearing about you. Truthfully, that's why I agreed to see you. I have the highest regards for military men and women."
"Thanks."
"Seen a lot of action, Mr. Stone?"
"Oh, I've seen my share. Looking at your medals and awards, apparently you have too. Miss the action?" I asked.
"Sometimes I guess I do. It gets in your blood, you know what I mean?"
"Yea, I know exactly what you mean."
He smiled.
"So," I said, "you were in the Air Force?" Noticing all the Air Force paraphernalia in his office.
"Yea, I was a pilot. I flew F-105's. Vietnam."
"I don't seem to recall many Air Force soldiers receiving the Medal of Honor."
"Well, if you're wondering if the award is real, believe me, it is. I still got the scars to prove it."
He then opened up his desk drawer and pulled out a blue case. I recognized the blue case from my military awards. This case though was bigger than the cases I had received my awards in. He turned the case to me, opened the lid and there was the Medal of Honor. My military training just took over and I snapped to attention and saluted the medal. He looked at me and smiled, then said, "Thanks Mr. Stone. Not many people give that kind of respect anymore."
"Anyone having the Medal of Honor deserves the salute. I'm sure whatever it was you done Mr. England, you most definitely deserve it."
"Please, call me Scott."
"Ok Scott. Congratulations on the medal. And call me Brett."
"Ok Brett."
"Mind if I ask how you earned it?"
He looked at me for moment and said, "I hardly ever talk about it now. It's been over forty years since I got it, but you being Special Forces, I don't mind. Please, have a seat."
We both sat down and he unloosen his tie, unbuttoned his top two buttons on his shirt and showed me a rope burn scar that wrapped all the way around his neck.
"Holy macro!" I said. "It looks like you got hung!"
"I almost did. The Vietnamese (VC) aren't too kind to POW's."
"If you're up to it, I'd like to hear about it."
He stared in space for almost a minute and I was about to tell him to forget it, then he spoke.
"Well, like I said, I flew F-105's called Thunder Chief Planes. I was on a "Rolling Thunder" bombing mission deep in North Vietnam. My target was a surface-to-air-missile (SAM) site that protected an important steel factory. My job was to destroy the SAM's so other American bombers could destroy the steel factory without being fired at.
Anyway, my team and I flew the mission, hit the target, but the VC had an Artillery Company there also guarding the factory and they got lucky and hit my plane. We were forced down a few miles away from the target and crashed landed. Six out of seven of us survived. Where we had crashed was just outside a village that some VC hard core regulars were at."
"What happened?" I asked.
"They were on us instantly. They took my five men and me to the village where they tied our hands behind our back. They tried to interrogate us, but the language barrier was there. None of us spoke Vietnamese and none of them spoke English except for a few cuss words. They put us in the middle of the village and as the villagers watched, they started beating us while our hands were tied together. The villagers formed a circle around us so we couldn't run and they started hitting us with anything they could get their hands on. They used whips, boards, sticks, ropes, their fists and their weapons. I started yelling at them and without them knowing it; I was able to get my hands untied. I grabbed one of the VC soldiers who was using his weapon to beat one of my men to death. I took his weapon and before the other VC realized what was happening, I started shooting at them. There were eleven of them and I killed seven.
One of the villagers had a rope in his hand with a noose already made and he threw the rope around my neck. Then a VC soldier grabbed the rope and threw me to the ground. He and another soldier started dragging me all around the enclosed circle for the villagers could watch. Then they threw the rope around a tree branch and started pulling me up to hang me. I was literally choking and being strangle to death.
Then one of the other VC soldiers stopped them because apparently he had received orders to take us somewhere. My guess was they were walking us to a POW camp, because they were able to say "camp" in English to us.
They dropped me to the ground and when they took the rope off my neck, I was sill choking and gasping for air. It felt like all my muscles in my neck were torn. My men couldn't help me up because they were still tied up. Slowly and painfully I got up. The VC soldier started pushing me towards the jungle and he was still saying, "camp." We started walking though the jungle in a single file with the VC on both of our sides. I could tell they were ticked off. I had just killed seven of their men and they weren't going to let us forget that.
Suddenly, one of the VC pulled out his knife, grabbed me from behind, kicked the bend of my knee and force me to my knees on the ground. He then placed his knife against my swollen throat to cut me. The other VC who I think was in charge stopped him.
We started walking again and when we got a few clicks from the village, the four VC started hitting us. I guess we were moving too slow. I figured we would probably be tortured pretty bad since we killed their guys, so when I saw one of them starting to hit my co-pilot some more, I just lost it and some how I got my strength again to break my ties behind my back.
I grabbed the VC, took his knife and slit his throat. The same guy who wanted to slit mine earlier. My co-pilot also broke free and he grabbed one of the VC's rifles and shot two of the guards then the weapon jammed. We both jumped the last two before they had a chance to shoot us and I killed one of them with my bare hands choking him to death.
I saw my co-pilot was losing his fight with his guy and I went to help him. The VC soldier turned and stabbed me in the leg with his knife and then he pulled it out of my leg and swiped his knife across my stomach, but not deep enough to kill me. I fell on the ground next to my co-pilot who was so bloody and beat up that he hardly looked alive. I knew he was though, because I could see him breathing, but I knew another encounter with the VC would kill him. The VC then stood over my co-pilot and raised his knife and was coming down with a fatal blow to him. I quickly rolled on top of my co-pilot and took the hit from the knife. He stabbed me in my left shoulder.
By then, some of my men got free and they jumped the VC and smashed his head in with the rifle my co-pilot had dropped. After bandaging ourselves up, we took the VC's weapons, ammo and grenades and hid during the day time trying to heal our wounds and at night we tried to make our way back to our lines.
On the second night while walking through the jungle we suddenly heard a firefight starting and we realized we were almost right on top of it. We discovered some Army guys walked into an ambush. We located where a platoon size of VC was hiding and I could see by the muzzle flash were the GI's were. My men and I were in no position to fight, so I took three of the grenades I took off the VC on the trail and tossed them at the VC platoon that was firing on the patrol. I killed nineteen VC that night. The Army recon patrol took us back to their base camp and we were later med-a-vac back to the rear area. All my men that survived the plane crash were back stateside within two weeks.
I was awarded the Medal of Honor for saving my co-pilots life when I crawled on him to prevent him from being stabbed and for saving the life of six Army Infantry recon men who were in the ambush. I had killed twenty-eight VC; Seven in the village, two during the fight on the trail in the jungle and nineteen with the grenades in the ambush."
I just sat there staring at Scott. He was amazing I thought.
I saw pain and grief in his eyes. The man had cheated death many times, including the plane crash. He was now staring at the wall in his office, lost in time, lost in Vietnam, 1969.
Just then his wife, Stephanie beeped his intercom.
I watched him snap out of it and just as calm as he could be, he answered her. "Yes, what is it?"
"I just wanted to remind you of your other appointment this afternoon."
"Okay, thanks."
Scott then said, "Now Brett, what can I help you with that will make my day?"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Phantom Warriors The Beginning and Mission One by Charles Welch Copyright © 2011 by Charles Welch. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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