Page 128 - Stand Down Vietnam

I got my purple heart when I was in a firefight; I had
an automatic rifle in front of me and I had to dive
somewhere; I dove the wrong way and landed on a punji
stick.

We spent thirty days in the field then thirty days
within the company perimeter, wherever that might be.

We were in a place called An Hoa. We had the only
icehouse in that part of Vietnam. We got cold beer
every day, and two cold Cokes. Sometimes, we got the
beer and the Cokes before we got ammo.

We did our patrols out of An Hoa. We’d keep going out
farther and farther. If you got into trouble – you
were in big trouble.

We had a Captain that was fantastic; Captain Cooper, I
would have followed him into hell if he’d said go. He
let me do my thing. I was up for a Bronze Star when I
got my orders to come home, but it never went through.
I just tried to do my job and keep people alive. My job
was to lead a platoon, and that’s what I did.