VIETNAM - July 20, 1968
USS Carlington
Outside Dong Tam
Time: 19:00

Op order comes down. One day operation, no VC in area, lots of Booby traps. Board tangos at 0700, beach 0730. Class given Tonight on VC booby traps.

An easy operation. So everyone stays up late tonight playing cards. Operation takes place on VC island, right outside Dong Tam. Battalion operation.


July 21, 1968

Load tangos. No one sweating the operation. Everyone traveling light. The whole bn beaches at the same time from all sides of the island. Echo company gets ambushed from Snipers in trees. We unload with no problem. We head for Echo company but the firing stops and we start back on our own sweep. We later secure a small village while national police search the hooches and question the people. C company gets ambushed but only lasts a few minutes. A few minutes later we start sweeping in another direction. Our squad walking point for the company. I'm third man. We enter into the wood line well spread out, more than usually. VC flags are on all the trees. We find a VC hooch with more flags in it.

I felt my foot pull on something like a vine. I looked behind me and saw a grenade about 2 inches from my right heel. At first I couldn't believe. But my reflexes made me run forward about three steps and hit the ground. I was about a foot off the ground when the grenade went off. I felt the concussion slightly and felt like someone socked me in the lower back right leg. Beach, my squad leader, yelled up front to ask anyone was hurt. I yelled back that I didn't think so but come on up anyway. Doc came up the trail slowly towards me. I was rolling up my pant leg to see if I was hit or not. Doc was there then, sure enough I had a shrapnel in my leg. I was surprised at how little it hurt. All it felt like was a charley horse. I took off my clothes to look for more wounds, that was the only one. A Dust off was called. I walked back to the P.Z. The "Coronels" chopper came down to pick me up. I was taken to the aid boat. There one of the doctors looked at it and told the pilot to take me to the Carlington. When I arrived at the Carlington, I was set up on a medical table. There I was given a shot and the hair around my wound shaven off. The doctors were then given word that they had four serious patients coming in. So they asked me to sit outside until they got through with the others. These guys were in bad shape, all from booby traps. I guess I'd be in pretty bad shape myself if I hadn't seen that grenade. After they were done with the other patients, I came in. They took an x-ray of my leg, there were two pieces of shrapnel in it. The piece that hit me broke in two. I was set back on the table. They numbed the area and cut it open. About an 1 ½ , dug down to the shrapnel but not all the way. They said they were going to leave the wound open and let the shrapnel work its way out. Put a bandage on it and let me go.
To Be Continued.

P.S. Any questions you have, or if you think anything has been left out, please ask.
P.S.S Keep writing.
Dan