BINH CHAU, Vietnam — This is flat country, where a man can see for miles and where an enemy can almost make death more welcome than continued marching.

It is tough country. A. soldier marches for miles in mud and muck, one minute under a blistering sun, the next in torrential rain.

He watches for the enemy, who could be only feet away in the tall grass.

And he goes on, marching to a battle that may never come.

To a soldier, this land is a little bit of hell. "We might go like this for four or five days, and never see the Viet Cong. Then again, there might be it whole battalion of them 20 feet away.

"You never know."

Sgt. Wayne Whightsil, attached to the Special Forces team at Moc Hoa about 10 miles to the south, adjusted his pack as he marched through the mud.

"It's tough. They can see you coming. They know we're here. Now it's a question of whether or not they'll attack."

Almost as he spoke, a drum began sounding about a mile away.

Intelligence told the patrol later that it was the Viet Cong, signalling that a company of the Vietnamese Strike Force, accompanied by American Special Forces men, was on the way.

The patrol — on a five-day operation — was marching to the north near the Cambodian border. There were rumors that the Viet Cong was gathering strength in this area. The mission was to find this force — if it was there — and crush it.

This was a five-hour march to get to an isolated Vietnamese village that often comes under Viet Cong attack. From there, small patrols would search.

Whightsil and the other Special Forces man, Sgt. Joe E. Jasper, were on this mission as advisers.

They are experienced soldiers, but experience doesn't make it march like this much easier.

Your belt is weighed down with ammunition, for firepower is the only thing the VC understands.

"You travel as light as you can," Jasper said.

"After a while, a book of matches feels like a pound."

Step-after-step, mile-after-mile, then, the village.

Jasper, who has already brought a thousand laughs to this patrol, says in an authoritative voice:

"They better have a cold beer in this, town, or I'm going back."

Jasper makes Vietnam and the war easier for the men around him, just as other "Jaspers" made wars easier in Europe, the Pacific and Korea.

He had his cold beer, and he stayed.