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The earliest we had recorded history on Snake Eyes is during the Tet offensive in Vietnam. We are told the basic story through flashbacks, in issues 94 and 96, during Snake Eyes first attempt at surgery on his scared face. The story opens with Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, and Stalker arriving in Saigon, driven in a jeep by a fellow named Corky Barnett. We find that it is January 31st, 1968, and Corky is about to fly out just as the others are arriving. Admist the small talk, a burst of bullets ring out from the motorcycle behind them. Corky is dead, Stalker is caught in the arm, and Storm Shadow is hit bad... saying he needs surgery. He urges Snake Eyes to go after those "Saigon Cowboys"; Snake Eyes jumps in the jeep and does just that.  A gunfight ensues between the speeding cycle, and the jeep and its passenger, until the terrain changes from the friendly zone into what is referred to as "Cholon" where the 6th VC LF battalion is in force. Another soldier yells for Snake Eyes to come back; he ignores the advice and continues in pursuit.
Eventually, the VC shooter hits his mark and the jeep goes crashing after it does a flip on it's side and lands completely upside down. The two outlaws on the bike start laughing as they speed away, and we see Snake Eyes landing face first in the ground. The next time we see our villians, they have arrived at an empty wharehouse, only to be greeted by the waiting Baron Eugen DeCobray and his 15 year old sister Anastasia, who was on her Christmas break from her Swiss boarding school. The Baron seems angry with the two natives, and so he asks his sister to step into an office so he can talk to "Mr Tran" for a moment. Suddenly we get a glimpse of Snake Eyes, creeping on the outside window ledge, overhearing the conversation, with his .45 in hand. He overhears the heated words between the baron and the criminals. The Baron had apparently solicited funds in the name of world peace, to gather medical supplies, on a pure humanitarian mission. The supplies were then sold on the black market and the money used to purchase guns and explosives. Eugen DeCobray is outraged and begins to raise his voice; the two VC outlaws imply raise their AK-47 and take out the Baron. The next thing we know, Snake Eyes is bursting through the window blasting his .45, and he manages to take out both of the VC. Anastasia, after hearing the gunfire, comes out of the room she was put in, only to find her brother's body, and that of the two VC, laying motionless on the ground, with one American soldier standing admist it all, with a smoking gun. She accuses him of murder. As the MP's and medic's arrive on the scene, Anastasia is carried out, while a gentleman, covered in shiny metalic face walks in, accompinied by his son. Someone is questioning Snake Eyes, asking him if he took out all three of the corpse's with his .45. The masked man interrupts the conversation by pointing out that the very wealthy Baron was used to threats on his person, and always wore a bullet proof vest. A vest would easily stop the shots from a .45, although the high-velocity AK-47 would be no match. The masked man then reveals himself as James McCullen Destro, twenty-third laird of Castle Destro. He explains that he was there to meet with the dead criminals, who had passed themselves off as representatives of the South Vietnamese government. He further remarks that they would have probably intended to kill him as they did the poor Baron DeCobray. This clears Snake Eyes from any accusations; although Anastasia herself had already left the room before she was given an explanation. From this point on she blames the silent man in the G.I. uniform for the death of her brother. Little else is told of Snake Eyes tour of duty in Vietnam, until the very end. We find that he was assigned as part of a 6 man LRRP, or Long Range Recon Patrol team. The LRRP operated both on reconnaissance and combat patrols, to obtain highly vital intelligence, or perform highly dangerous raids and ambushes. Dropped off by helicopter, and then picked up days or weeks later after tramping through the jungles, team members would often go days without saying a word, using only hand signals. The tactical employment of LRRP's was later evaluated to be generally used too dangerously by strategic commanders, who were pleased by the extraordinary kill ratios for LRRP teams (sometimes reported as high as 400 enemy troops for every LRRP killed). Today, the role of the LRRP was reconsidered and restructured into what is now known as Long Range Surveillance units, or LRS. Snake Eyes LRRP team was led by Lonzo Wilkenson, later known as Stalker. Tommy Arashikage was also on the team as well as Wade Collins (Later Fred II), Dickie Saperstein, and Ramon Escobedo. What happened is told in issues 26, 43, and again in the end of the marvel series, issue 155. Little is ever told about Dickie and Ramon, except that they die during a gunfight with the VC in a valley in the central highlands. Wade Collins was also though to be dead, and so he was left behind. Only the remaining three members of the team made it out. During the extraction, there was trouble at the landing zone. When the huey came down, Stalker got on first with the communication gear and code books. Tommy was next in line while Snake Eyes was covering from the tree line. Suddenly, the sky filled with "red tracer" and Snake Eyes "went down like a rag doll". Sure that Snake Eyes was dead, and afraid that the helicopter was now a sitting duck in the line of fire, Stalker ordered Tommy to leave Snake Eyes behind. Tommy, who had become very close to Snake Eyes during their tour together, would do no such thing. In some unexplainable trick of superhuman skill, Tommy dodged bullets like "slow pigeons" back to Snake Eyes body and carried him back to the huey alive. This was the end of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow's tour of Vietnam.  This story has been referred to in other alternate Joe universes as the "Conflict in Southeast Asia". This is done to avoid time stamping the characters, and prevent them from aging in a realistic timeline. Regardless, this is how the story was originally set and told. There are two small important facts that are often referred to during this time period. The first, was that during their travels in Vietnam together, Tommy often talked about his "family business" back in Japan, and offered Snake Eyes a job there if he ever so chose, once the war was over. The second is the fact that Snake Eyes always carried around a picture of his twin sister, Terri, as a good luck charm. During the final day in the field when he was shot, the bullet went through the picture of his sister. Tommy knew the importance of the keepsake to Snake Eyes, and when he rescued him from the bullet soaked field, he carried the photograph back with him as well. |
Snake Eyes
the last man offered the job. A military title was not seen as a likely success at the time, so all of the more seasoned and acclaimed writers wanted nothing to do with it.
