Vern, a Tiger?! That is insane! And with the 87 grain bullet?! HAHA.
I never said he was sane.
But his story went like this; he had hired a Malay guide who built a shooting platform in a teak tree, then staked a goat out near the foot of the tree.
"And just before he climbed down, he gave me a hard look and said something that was like a cold hand closing around my heart, 'Many time, Tuan, you think you hear the tiger. But when the tiger come, you know.'"
He would always point to the old Savage that hung over the door. "I had my old .250-3000, with a flashlight taped to the barrel, and I sat there all night, eat up by bugs."
"I couldn't relax. The bugs were all over me, and I was sweating like a pig. Every five minutes or so, I'd suddenly get cold chills and start to imagine a tiger coming up from behind me.
"It was like that all night. And then, about three o'clock in the morning, it got suddenly quiet. Even the bugs stopped humming. I couldn't see a damned thing, but I switched on my flashlight, and there he was, looking up at me, his eyes glowing like lanterns."
Nearly 40 years later, I woke up in a cold sweat -- and ordered my FO to shoot the defensive concentrations on my command. I alerted my platoons and ordered my OPs to blow their claymores and come into the permimeter at a run -- with them telling me there was nothing out there. When the defensive concentrations hit, I had everyone open fire.
The next morning, we had over 30 NVA dead in the single strand of concertina I had around the company. One sapper squad had got through the wire and were lying dead in front of the 2nd platoon.
When my brigade commander asked me how I knew the NVA were there, all I could say was, "The bugs stopped humming."
