Page 107 - Stand Down Vietnam

This may sound strange, but we had secured a beachfront
property where we could go and relax. We’d go diving
for lobster. I’d take the army officers out in the
boat and we’d go to what was called a free-fire zone;
that meant the area had been secured and was free of
enemy combatants. That area was supposed to be secure.

We went there one day and saw this guy walking around;

he didn’t have no ID card. We started looking around
and saw a whole bunch of punji sticks. It looked like
he’d set up those punji pins for us to walk in. When
we caught up with him, I told him, I told him to halt.
I told the guys that were with me that we were not
going to take him back.

I told my guy to punch him with a punji stick and let
him run. He took off running and I shot him. I didn’t
think it was right tying up two or three of our guys to
take him back to base and leaving our patrol.

They jeopardize him while he was in the loop. They
would hide grenades and all at once they’d set the
grenades off; they’d kill themselves, but that was the
way it was. By doing that, they’d get five or six
Americans at a time.

Living conditions for us wasn’t bad. We got lumber
from the air force and built us a house. We built it

high up on concrete to prevent flooding during the
monsoon season. It would rain six months out of the
year. It might be a pretty day outside, then clouds
would form, and it would rain for days on end.

We erected a gravity fed shower facility using 55-
gallon drums. The water temperature matched the
weather; if it was hot outside, so was the water. If
it was cold, you took a cold shower.