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When I arrived in Vietnam, I had orders to go to the 173rd Airborne Brigade. While I was waiting for travel orders, a team of Army Rangers visited the soldiers who had just arrived in Vietnam from the United States. They were there to recruit volunteers for the 75th Airborne Ranger Battalion. The Ranger Battalion had a company of about 150 men attached to each army division throughout Vietnam, tasked with providing up to date enemy information. I went along to listen to what they had to say. They explained the purpose of Ranger Teams was to conduct reconnaissance missions. A Ranger team consisted of six men sent out deep into enemy territory, in their back yard, usually for four days and three nights, very quietly exploring an area of about 4 to 6 square miles. Each mission had three possible outcomes, different ways. Ideally, it would be concluded peacefully and the Rangers would be extracted peacefully at the end of four days. We could set up an ambush in an attempt to capture a P. O. W. which would compromise our location, and we would need to be extracted immediately. Finally, the most dangerous way to end a mission would result from a Ranger team being ambushed. In such a scenario, we would run like crazy until we could communicate our situation by radio and request support from F-4 Jet Air-strikes and/or helicopter gunships so that we could be extracted to relative safety. Once a Ranger teamâ€™s mission is compromised, they need to be extracted. They may need any combination of support and fire power, we just discussed, to get extracted. Extract means a single helicopter making a fast approach to an open landing zone swooping to the ground. The only protection the chopper had for those long seconds of open exposure while approaching, hovering and taking back off from an open landing zone, was two M-60 machine guns, one on each side of the chopper. The chopper would swoop in (hovering up and down from 2 to 5 feet from the ground for just a brief moment) while six Rangers would run and jump in through the open doors of the chopper, then it would lift off as fast as possible to avoid being hit by enemy gunfire. The most feared end to a mission for a Ranger team was being ambushed at night while sleeping. To avoid such a nasty surprise, we always set up trip flares to warn us of an enemy pursuing us and claymore mines aimed at covering the area where the flares were set. When a flare went up, we would detonate the claymore mines and, as quiet as possible, run using a preplanned escape route. The rule of engagement at night was not to use our rifles, as the muzzle flash would give our location away.