The red arrow on the left points at a small open patch (it's a lighter green). This is the area where I beleive the fighting of August 23rd thru the 26th took place. A small area, all of the activity of those four days took place in an area no more than 1,500 feet on a side at most. I can still see it all in my mind's eye. I've never had what I would think of as a flashback, but I have not forgotten either. I can remember being under fire, crawling down a burned slope breathing in the ash after we tried to recover Steve Cunningham and Sgt. William Adams bodies. I remember seeing the mortar round land that killed Joseph Pinto and robbed Darryl Smith of his legs. I remember seeing George Terry sort of stagger past me, his face and shoulders covered in blood. I remember laying in the open playing dead, hoping not to draw more fire. I remember the night Bobby Roberts died. He was in a position maybe 50-60 feet from me. That morning, when they told me he was dead I went over and got my watch of off him. He had borrowed it the previous evening because nobody he was standing watch with had one.
I remember lying behind a small paddy dike holding a grenade in one hand with a finger in the ring peering desperatly into the night for any movement. Out of nowhere a large black shape comes flying at me, landing with a heavy thud only inches from my face. I made a lunge away and thought for a second that I was a dead man and then realized that it was only a frog.
One night, it was probably October or November I had a dream. We were in a firefight, I was standing behind a large tree. I would lean around it and fire then lean against it while I dropped my empty magazine and pulled a new one from a bandolier. Just as I started to put a new one in my rifle I looked up to see a gook walk around a tree about 10-15 feet from me. He saw me at the same time I saw him. As I finished reloading and pulled my rifle down he brought his up. I could see him fire and could see the first round leave his rifle. As I Iooked down I could see the dust flying off my flack jacket as he shot me in the chest three times, pop, pop, pop - three little puffs of dust jumped off my flackjacket. . I remember thinking, "I'm a dead man." I woke up at this point and laid there the rest of the night and shook. I have never had this dream again, but obviously have never forgotten it either.
The X marks the approximate area were we were August 23-26, 1969.
David Nisse Loaned me this picture. He served in this area with the Army in 1969-70.