[Troy]

1. First night in country and incoming rockets hit the base. Run with all the other newbies from the barracks building into the sandbagged culverts. Turns out there was no real danger in our particular location. One guy cuts his knee ... and gets a Purple Heart medal... outrageous. Welcome to Vietnam! (for crying out loud, *tears, why wud they give this joker a medal when the heroes were falling all over the country without recognition or honor).

2. RPG - rocket propelled grenade -- A rocket isn't very big. Kind of like a grenade with after burners. Arrives with a Whooooooshhhhhh. Puts a rush of adrenelin through your entire body. And before you can react, the explosion sends an impact that can knock you down even if you're not hit by shrapnel. Energizing. Takes awhile for the effect to wear off.

3. A small patrol moves out just before sundown. The Vn memorial in D.C. has a bronze showing some soldiers ... very realisitic as they step out of the woodline and start their patrol. Not more than 50 steps outside the perimeter, they get ambushed. From my position on the mountain side, I can see the fight, flashes of weapons fire, the explosions, the smoke from some of the rounds. Before the rest of that small unit has a chance to react and help their patrol, the fight is over. The enemy hastily runs into the growing darkness. My radio comes alive and I'm told three soldiers killed. The first round fired was a rocket ... hit a soldier who had just arrived in country...blew his head off. *tears *panic

4. Jungle patrol. Find a stash of Viet Cong supplies. Huge. Food. Clothing. Propaganda documents. Weapons. Ammunition. Booby traps. Medical supplies. The whole place was well booby trapped, but no GI's were injured. It was not guarded even though our presence in the area was known to enemy. Maybe the guards skipped out. And lots of RPG weapons and ammo. Helicopters arrived to airlift all of this stuff to the rear area. Took all day. Then there were no more helicopters to airlift our troops -- only the supplies. Keep walking you dumb infantry soldiers, and be sure to watch out for Charlie cause he'll be plenty mad that you captured all that stuff that they hand carried dwon from N. Vn. Hope you're alive tomorrow so you can find some more stuff....sucker!

T.

[sabby]

Breathing with you (((((((((((( Troy )))))))))))))) slowly in and slowly out.


sabby