STARTING PAGE 5 (V),

      Before I go further I should explain the structure of the 3/60th. It's made up of four companies Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Echo. This forms a battalion. When I came in there were about 70 in Bravo Co. and 28 in my platoon, the 1st platoon. There's four platoons in a company normally, I think we have three.
      On the 26th of February, the 3/60th moved out on what was my fourth mission, Choi's second. It was to be an eagle flight which is dangerous but nobody seemed worried that day at all, there had been lots of them the last few missions. Bravo was to go first which is always choice and about 10 choppers came to pick us up, about 6 per helicopter (the other ten men were on sick call, R&R, etc.)
      We landed about where the Xs are on the map ((see page 6 VI)), my location is circled. When we came in the door machine gunners started shooting but I didn't think anything of it, it's sop. I got off into an uncultivated paddie with tall rice shoots and moved away and got down lest I get shot by the helicopters. It wasn't till they lifted off and moved away that I could hear enemy carbines firing at us. The woodlines it seems were loaded with VC bunkers and we had landed in the middle of their crossfire. If the rice had not been tall they could have killed all of us.
      We tried to get organized but we didn't dare get up so we found what groups we could. Every five minutes or so someone would scream and hollor medic. Bullets cracked overhead and schrapnel (sic) fell everywhere. We tried to fire back with our thump guns, grenade launchers, one of which I carry instead of a rifle but it was damned hard to see their dug-in bunkers which are nothing more than hollow mounds, and we were pinpointing our positions so we gave it up. Some idiot lieutenant wanted us to get on line and charge the woodline at 'C' while he went to get a radio. Fortunately nobody listened. There were about 15 in our little pinned down group, several wounded, from all different platoons, we were really disorganized. We finally decided we weren't going to get into the woodline so we started moving to 'A' which, by the way, wouldn't let us in either. To make a long long story short I spent the entire day sitting in a muddy canal at B, wet to my armpits. There were about 22 of us in the canal, counting 11 wounded and one dead.There was a lot of shooting going on but we didn't know who was doing it and we didn't shoot indiscriminately for fear of hitting our own, which happens often. Echo, I guess landed across the river and secured the dike to 'A', and the VC simply left the other. As it started getting late I was watching some guys moving around at A to see if it was alright to get out of the water, we were pretty well chilled. I heard carbines fire and then the guys I'd been watching were yelling "medic." Some guys are foolish asses.
      As the sun went down I got out of the canal and moved to A. There were wounded everywhere. Everybody was hit someway it seemed, including our C.O. who'd been shot in the leg.
      It was dark now I was lying on the dike when my squad leader climbed up saying, "Choi's dead." Someone asked if he was sure and he said he could cross the canal and see for himself if he wanted. That was the last straw for my overworked psyche and I just lay there and cried as quietly in the dark as I could.
      Finally my platoon moved across the paddie and set up along C, stepping around a couple of bodies lying in the water nobodied (sic) got to yet and clusters of abandoned equipment along the way.
      I slept on the dike that night. I was soaking wet and muddy and very uncomfortable. Around 4 in the morning Charlie attacked our position at 'A' Charlies green and yellow tracers were coming my way while, I guess, our red tracers went the other probably very pretty from the air. It lasted about five minutes and a few minutes later a misplaced artillery round fell on one of our positions a little ways up the dike from me, wounding 3 in my platoon, one criticaly, I heard they doubted he'd live.
      The next day we ate breakfast and waited a couple hours while abandoned equipment was cleared away. Those hours I spent mostly by myself, as did others, worried a little about McKechnie in 3rd platoon. I'd heard only 7 from 3rd would be walking out. For that matter the 1st only had 13 left out of 25-28. Nobody had much to say. They tried to be cheerful and actually one cannot lament the dead too long in war. To stay healthy one should close the mind to death as much as possible. It comes naturally, in fact.
      All in all out of 60 to 65 men in Bravo Co who were in that ambush 11 died and 30-40 wounded. About 65% casualties.
      That firing in the morning was one of our positions being overrun. Then Charlie turned our own machine gun on us. It seems we had a few guys sleeping on guard.
      There's more I want to say but I'll mail this now and send more later. I was glad to receive your letter it was very interesting and I like especially the part about living together in the mountains. We can think about that about 17 months from the time you receive this. Not such a long time really.
Bob

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