TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

A Tour of Duty in Vietnam
whenever they found cached weapons. The villagers ran right up
to our M­16 muzzles while pointing back toward the pressing
Koreans and gesturing that the Koreans were going to “cut off
their heads.”
Consequently we did our best to win the hearts and minds of the
people. We gave them food from our C­rations. The corpsman
played doctor for several with medical problems. There was an
able bodied looking man about in his 30s with a tiny baby in his
arms that looked near death. The baby had a terrible skin problem
that was far above the corpsman’s expertise. I told the man to take
the baby to the compound and gave him instructions on how to
request the regimental surgeon. The corpsman could only give him
some soothing ointment, but the man seemed very grateful.
Finally, as the afternoon approached evening, the Korean sweep
ended, and the civilians went back to their village. As per the
patrol plan, we moved several clicks to a rendezvous point with
three Marine tanks. We were late, and we had several more clicks
to go to reach the farm planned for us to be our bivouac for the
night; so the whole platoon jumped aboard the tanks for a quick
ride to make our destination before dark. As we tracked onto the
farm at high speed during nautical twilight, we encountered a
Vietnamese family still tending their crops despite the late hour
and waning sunlight. It looked as though they had a cooking fire
in the field with them, but there were several other small fires
smoking in the field with nobody tending them. This probably
should have been a red flag had we not been so tired and naively
sure there was nothing afoot that needed to be suspect.
We placed a triangular perimeter around the modest farm house
with a tank pointing outbound at each corner. I didn’t think that
preplanned protective artillery fires from my battery would be
necessary, but it was something I had learned to do as a
professional Marine artillery officer, and I did it anyway.
However, I did quite arrogantly fail to dig myself a fox hole in
which to sleep. After dark I remember being upset with the tankers
who were making a lot of horseplay type noise, and the lieutenant
tank commander was not very cooperative in controlling them, so
I just went to sleep on the ground near a side of the family’s little
farm hooch. I don’t know what happened to the family who lived
there. I never saw them again. I think they had left, which
probably should have been another red flag. A shelter trench had
been dug in front of their hooch about ten yards from where I
chose to sleep.
Soon after total darkness set in, I was awakened by a loud
explosion which later proved to be a rocket propelled grenade
slamming into the turret of one of the tanks. It was immediately
followed by a heavy mass crashing against my body, which was
my radio operator bent on waking me. This was quickly followed
by automatic weapons fire coming through a hedgerow and
passing just inches above us. We stayed glued to the ground as we
crawled toward the shelter trench with my operator dragging his
radio. A Chi Com grenade came from over the hedge and bounced
a few feet from me. It was too far away to pick up and throw back,
so I pointed the bottom of my boots at it and covered my face.
Amazingly enough, it never detonated. The Marines on the
perimeter were firing back at muzzle flashes and the noise was
deafening. We proceeded on to the trench.
I saw what appeared to be an armed Vietnamese soldier in the
trench and immediately thought it must be one of the attackers. I
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