Hey, long time listener. My wife finally convinced me to call, so here I am. This happened in sixty-nine, and I've never really talked about it outside the guys who were there with me. I was with the 173rd out in the Central Highlands. We'd been humping through triple canopy jungle for three days straight, and let me tell you, that terrain will break you down if you let it. Mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds. Heat that sits on you like a wet blanket. I'd burned my hand pretty bad on a cooking pot the morning before, which sounds stupid, but that's the kind of thing you remember, you know? Anyway, we were taking a break on this ridge, maybe ten miles south of Hue City. Six of us. Just trying to catch our breath and not die from the humidity. The jungle was quiet. Too quiet, actually. That's usually when Charlie would hit you.
So we're sitting there, and the trees about fifteen yards uphill start shaking. Violent shaking. Not wind, because there wasn't any. Everyone grabs their rifles, hearts pounding. We're thinking ambush. NVA. I'm staring at those trees waiting for muzzle flashes. But what came out wasn't Vietnamese. It wasn't human at all. This head emerges from the brush. Oblong shaped, covered in reddish hair. A face with these deep-set dark eyes and a mouth that seemed way too wide. Then the whole thing steps into a clearing, and we can see it clearly. Couldn't have been more than five feet tall, but built like a wrestler. Muscular. Thick through the chest. Walked upright on two legs like you or me. The hair covered everything except its knees and the palms of its hands. It just stood there, looking at us. And that's the thing, it wasn't scared at all.
Carver, he was from Oklahoma, he whispers, 'What the hell is that?' And somebody else says, 'It's an orangutan.' But Nguyen, our interpreter, he shakes his head. He says, 'No orangutans in Vietnam. Not for thousands of years.' Then more of them appeared. Seven, maybe eight total, coming down this trail single file. Different sizes. Some smaller, probably young ones. One really big one bringing up the rear. We just froze. They froze. For maybe ten seconds, nobody moved. freeze up around wild animals too - Pete' Then the big one, the one in back, it rushes forward. Not at us exactly, but between us and the others. Making this noise, this barking sound deep in its chest. Carver nearly shot it. I grabbed his barrel and pushed it down. Don't ask me why. The creature just held its ground while the rest of them disappeared into the jungle.
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