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20 / A Life-and-Death Drama 10 March 1969 The night before last was both tense and frustrating. We are now on high alert, with ground attacks expected in our area from 8 March to 15 March. Two battalions of NVA are threatening in our area, and FLC is expected to be challenged with rocket and mortar attacks. With contact imminent, I decided to accompany Sergeant Parker’s squad, which was patrolling the northernmost portion of our area and the region adjacent to the tactical area where First Battalion, Twenty-sixth Marines operates. The patrol moved out. Although I think highly of the abilities of Sergeant Parker, I noticed that his men were tense and showed the effects of their ten nights on ambush duty. We crossed the rice paddy area and gradually moved into an old pagoda and graveyard area located on a small hill to set up an ambush site. In the moonlight we checked the area first for booby traps and then treaded our way up a small path to the top of the hill where patrol headquarters was set up. The other elements moved to their positions from there. About 11:00 pm there was a loud explosion in the darkness as a claymore mine was detonated; then two more bangs came in a rapid succession. A patrol from First Battalion, Twenty-sixth Marines had sprung its ambush about eight hundred meters west of us. We watched their machine-gun tracers move lazily back and forth through the paddies, probing with red fingers for A Life-and-Death Drama 133 the enemy. M-79 grenades were fired into the area, along with small-arms fire and a host of illumination rounds. After seven or eight minutes of firing, we could hear voices from the Marine sweep team as they came through the area searching for the enemy, and by the light of the flares, I could clearly observe the Marines with my field glasses. Then came the surprise as Sergeant Parker and I watched the Marines who were on line and sweeping the area. In the light of the flares, I saw a young VC crawling low in the rice paddy, carrying his AK-47. I could see the tension in his face as a big Marine walked just past him with his M-16 at the ready, but the Marine was looking away and did not see him. While the young Vietnamese slowly crawled away to safety, the Marines continued their sweep, calling to each other and covering the area ahead of them with fire. In the glare of the flares, the VC looked young and scared, and the Marines looked big and strong. Life or death was a matter of a few feet. I was simply an onlooker, and we could not risk firing at the VC for fear of hitting the Marines in the area. I also feared that the Marines would mistake us for the enemy and return the fire. Due to a problem with our radio, we were unable to coordinate with the Marine patrol to get them to search farther to their east. Because the VC was crawling in our direction, we alerted our people to prepare a welcome for him. One fire team leader, Corporal Hughes, had just been up to get directions for his fire team from Sergeant Parker and was moving back down the path when a loud explosion split the air, throwing dust and debris over us. Corporal Hughes had stepped on a mine. I heard him moan twice, and then in a voice that sounded almost normal, he repeated over and over that he was all right. I kept my eyes on the VC and sent the corpsman and Sergeant Parker to see what had happened to Hughes. Retracing his steps over the same path that every one of us had treaded as we filed into the ambush site, Corporal Hughes had the bad luck of stepping on a pressure device. A chunk of earth was scooped out, and fragmentation wounds tore through his body. A flak jacket probably saved his life. A bandoleer of bullets draped across his chest also helped stop the projectiles from hitting his heart. As the first shock of the injury wore off, Hughes lay there, softly repeating how much he hurt. We called in a helicopter medivac for him, and shortly thereafter I watched four Marines, bent double, carry Hughes on his poncho to the chopper. The next day...

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