The world of Bullets and Bandages 9/27/2017 12:02:47 PM
What would I do, could I have survived? I often thought about this.... as I listened to my brother, and his stories about his tour in Vietnam. The next attack came again late in the night, hitting us all along the perimeter with mortar fire and rockets. A wave of NVA and VC started for the hill, tripping our flares and claymores as they tried to cut their way through the wire. Green and I were in one of the small sandbagged trenches that lined the perimeter.
I looked over at Green, “Here was go again!”
I could see the tense look in his eyes, “When are we gone a get a break Doc?”
We could see the front of the hillside and the fields below it from our position. They kept on coming at us despite devastating losses. We just kept firing our weapons and reloading. My gun barrel was smoking hot as the empty bullet casings littered the ground nearby. The machine gun tracer bullets streaked down into the advancing enemy as they struggled to get through the wire. Green and I kept firing and firing at the enemy until they finally started to pull back.
Before long another wave of VC attacked. What a scene! It’s hard to describe a night battle. A full blown firefight at night with our red tracers flashing down across the wire and the enemies green tracers flying everywhere. The sights and the sounds of over two hundred of our troops shooting down the hill. The rockets, trip flares and mortar rounds lit up the sky like the Fourth of July! It got my adrenaline pumping; it was both exhilarating and frightening. My hands were shaking as I fired wildly into the advancing enemy. After a while the firing finally slowed down some.
Sarge called, “Cease fire! Hold your fire!”
Green said. “Doc I’m out of ammo. Sit tight, I’ll go get us some.” He started crawling his way to the ammo bunker after the shooting stopped. Charlie just kept attacking, their seemed to be no end to it. I made my way to some of the wounded troops. The platoon lost eight men to mortar and rocket fire, including one of the replacements. He died in my arms as I was trying to patch him up. A sapper that got through the wire shot him. They must have fired at each other at the same time. The sapper was lying dead caug
