Page 127 - Stand Down Vietnam

My section was out of the killing zone of the ambush;
we didn’t lose anybody. They let us get out of it. We
tried to flank it, but there weren’t enough of us. We
called in airstrikes. They were dropping 500-pound
bombs right in front of us. I don’t think any of our
guys were hurt by the bombing, but several farmers got
killed. I guess I can’t say technically that nobody
got hurt; the bombs were real close, the closest I ever

saw.

I did not get my purple heart there. I got it three
days before I left Vietnam; on my last patrol while I
was trying to keep two seventeen-year-old kids alive.

They didn’t have an idea or a clue where they were.
They were just too young to be there. They were, I’d
say, almost in diapers. They couldn’t shoot and thought
they were playing Cowboys and Indians, they were kids.

It wasn’t that they didn’t do their jobs, I’m not
saying that I had to teach them their jobs over there.
That was one of the problems; all that stuff they teach
you in the states was not worth a nickel. It’s a whole
different thing; a combat thing.

The combat medics were well trained and very good at
keeping us alive. I saw a lot of people in bad shape,
thinking they’d never make it, but the medics brought

them through. They were good. I had a friend that was
a medic in a different outfit.

It’s hard to describe, I saw a lot of people die and I
killed a lot of people; that bothers me, always will.
It bothers me that our guys got killed.