My time in country had been only four months, and I had already seen and been part of many firefights. I had always been a kid playing army and had figured I would be a soldier one day. The glory of listening to older men talk of the battles and victories from world war two was many around our home. My first absolute terror of war came from a man when I was eight or so, and his story was not so glorious; he was missing a leg and hand and was scarred for life from burns on his face and body. His story was of fear and hopelessness as he lay on the battlefield dying, how if he had had the strength, he would have killed himself to end the pain and suffering. I now realized for the rest of my childhood that not the glory of war was for all, and some paid a heavy price. (this man killed himself later that year my dad told me)

My father, a world war two navy man who had witnessed the horrors of war, refused to sign me up for the military. I went from Picayune to my Uncle Gene’s house in Memphis, Tn had him sign me into the army; ( the story of my sign up in the military. We went to the navy first, but they were not taking anyone that hadn’t graduated high school, so that was out, the marines, for some reason, were closed, but the army had two wide open doors. My uncle Gene signed all the papers, and they told him it would be two or three weeks before I would go to basic training and that I would take all my test today. He left for work with the idea he would pick me up after work when going home. I was sent to this room to take some placement test and was reading each question and answer, but I had indeed just begun when this mountain of a man sergeant major bust into the room asking me what the f ‘’’k are you doing? Taking a test! Have you been sworn in? No. Where is your recruiter?I have no idea. He left the room, and I started working on the test again. I could hear men being sworn in at the room next to me when the recruiter suddenly came into my room and told me to make all answers c and to hurry up to get sworn in to leave for fort Campbell, KY. My response was that I thought it would be a couple of weeks; no, you are going in five minutes; finish the dam test now. I had barely finished marking my c answers when the sergeant major came into the room screaming are you done? I said yes; he grabbed me by the shirt and took me into the other room where the lieutenant had just sworn everybody in; Sir, swear this new to be soldier in now, the bus is leaving. Two hours after arriving to join the army and I am on my way to training. (my test scores were so low as to hurt me in every duty station I had to explain why and what what happened. It never seemed to be very convincing story)

now the story;

I say two days before Christmas, but it could have been three or four days, but to my memory, it was two. Night ambush squad size on a trail far away from the company. No smoking, no fires at all, no talking except whispering. It is hard to sleep knowing you are a tiny outfit and can be destroyed quickly. Trip flares claymore mines all laid out my M-60 machine gun pointed down the trail we were set-up for a fight if one came. I had just went to sleep when a trip flare lit up the night sky followed by a claymore mine was exploding, the sounds of the wounded and dying we louder than I had ever heard before, there was chaos everywhere. We could hear NVA soldiers running in every directions with my machine gun blasing away. We called in mortor attack, after awhile only the moaning of the dying and that itself ended.

Waiting for daylight, as not a single soul can sleep to see how many men we had caught and killed in our ambush, there was always the possibility that they would set up a reversed ambush, so we had to be careful. As daylight came peaking into our position, the captain radioed for us to be alert and see if any were still alive. I borrowed another soldier’s M-16; me and my assistant gunner walked out to see the carnage; it was awful, we had slaughtered at least a dozen full-grown pigs in front of us, and many of the ones trying to get away were killed by gunfire.

Note: months later, when I was back in my regular company, a tiger hit a trip flare and was killed. When the soldiers were investigating one soldier stepped on another flare, and someone blew claymore mine, killing two if I remember right and wounding two severely. (Vietnam very dangerous place)