guess I put too much detail into the above cmment for most of you to like or dislike or even comment, but that's the way it was, men. If you reember, the LZ was about 1000meters from the place that intelligene had said a VC mortar crew was going to hit Firebase Bandit that night. It was a very open area that we had to move through to get to the objective [maybe four square km]. The gooks must have seen us and got ready. When we hit thick brush, Mark McGinty just in front of me as point squad leader said, "Hold up, LT" and started to move toward what he saw. Almost simultaneiously, the gooks opened up and shot him in the elbow and collarbone ; I fired in tht irection, but couldn't see any gooks. Koonce went to help him and was shot in the forehead and fell back on a tree in the sitting poisition -- his eyes were looking stratght at me. Then Vesey came running up to me and was hit in the left temple and fell over my legs. Please excuse the "rambling" but all those details are vivid in my memory because at the time, I said to myself, "Don't you ever forget every detail of this and thje brave men who fought here." Later, saw Doc Herrara giving mouth-to-mouth resutation to Malcolm with Chuck Schopp right there, too, but John died in the medevac chopper. Worst day in my life and since the leader/coimmander is responsible for everything that happens or fails to happen to his unit, it was my fault. Like John Wayne said in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon": 'Only he who is in command can be blamed, it rests on me.'
