Right now I'm waiting at the airport to fly to Can Tho.
Last night we moved out for "practice" patrol in the middle of the afternoon. We were to set up a day perimeter next to a village. There were 80 or 90 of us, about a company here, and when we got off the trucks we were swamped by kids.They milled around shoving and pushing and at any one time there would be three hands in your pockets. It was strange to see hundreds of kids molesting soldiers armed with grenades, rifles, claymores and machine guns, and stranger still to have rations, watches and cigarette lighters stolen without our noticing it. They got half my rations and cigarettes and unstrapped my watch band three times before I put it in my shirt pocket. We set up the perimeter and played with the kids a couple hours waiting for nightfall. During those two hours or so we had a lot of fun. A ten-year-old kid carrying a baby tried to teach me the language using a pamphlet of phrases.
I picked up the pronunciaton pretty easy. One of the kids came by after awhile, thumbed through the book and came up with two phrases. The first was "I am only looking." The second was "When are you leaving." I also heard there were 3 VC companies in the area and where we were was the same locaton that 6 machine guns opened up on the patrol the night before. As it started to get dark the kids left. There had been 15 with the 4 of us at my foxhole. Few people kept watch while the kids were there because VC don't want to hurt their own children.
When it was dark we moved 500 meters down the road and set up along the road in a rubber plantation for ambush. We set up about 9:00. It was kind of spooky without any cover except sparse trees and with only a few people with combat experience.
At 3 o'clock in the morning I woke up for my watch. Most people were asleep. 5 minutes later a fire fight broke out a few hundred feet to my front. We heard grenades, automatic weapons and saw flares. The units involved seemed small, according to the sound, but the sleepers got up as one and took up positions anywhere they could be found. We couldn't see anything but the battle seemed to get closer. Before long there was fighting on two sides of us, sporadic shots on a third and occasional rounds whistling low overhead from all four sides. So far no shots had been fired by us and none directly at us but a few later claimed to have seen soldiers. It seemed that battle for us would be short in coming, and us with little cover and no experience. I was reasonably cool headed but had some difficulty holding my rifle steady. I was scared shitless. These symptoms I later found were universal. After half an hour since the first shots and grenades were heard we pulled out swiftly, hauled ass you might say. After awhile we met the reaction force, some men only partly dressed, who had come out to escort us to the base. They lined the road running through the village we went through, watching the sides.
When we got back to the base we found we had been without communications for three hours. That's why they pulled us back. We also found out there were no friendly forces in the area. The assumption is that the combatants were two Charlies who met accidently, probably I believe, while looking for us. Shortly after arriving back at Bearcat we heard and felt the Long Binh ammo dump blow up ten miles away. A lot of the replacements lost their bravado that night.
My planes coming now so I'll stop. Write me and let me know what's happening. Note that my APO number has changed.
Bob
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