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By Root 880 0

set of log birds in an area where the bomb craters gave way to more jungled hillsides. Under full rucks and full bandoliers of ammunition, they moved on into the woods with two platoons up and one back: Lieutenant Nelson had the left file and Lieutenant Downing the right, with Captain McBride's command group in the middle behind them and Lieutenant Janowitz1 bringing up the rear. As the column threaded through the trees toward the ridge, the point man on the right stopped and pointed to his right front: A hootch was visible in the vegetation ahead. Lieutenant Nelson, who'd been walking behind the point man in his column, moved up and over to crouch beside Lieutenant Downing. They radioed McBride that they appeared to have stumbled into an NVA rest area, and Downing called his M60 gunner up the platoon file. He pumped a quick burst toward the hootch. They waited. Nothing. They pushed forward through the underbrush. The hootch was deserted. The line rose again and had moved another thirty feet when the point spotted four more hootches. Both platoons brought their M60 gunners forward for another recon by fire.

Again, nothing. Helmets bobbed above rucksacks as each man followed the man ahead for another hundred feet.

Lieutenant Nelson must have had a bad feeling. He crouched at the point of his platoon and handed Spec Four Anders his M16, taking the kid's M60 in return. He wanted to fire into a few specific areas.

Nelson opened fire with the machine gun, and a score of AK47s abruptly jackhammered back from the brush. Nelson poured M60 fire at the muzzle flashes that he saw through the vines until the gun jammed. He grappled with it for a few frantic moments before rolling five feet to his right to get his RTO to fire into a certain spot. A squad of NVA were firing from several angles, and the brush flickered above the grunts' head. Boom! Stunned by the concussion of the RPG explosion and scratched by shrapnel, Nelson got back to his feet. Anders, the machine gunner, had been hit in the head. The assistant gunner and the radioman had also been peppered. Nelson grabbed Anders's foot and dragged him back thirty feet to where Doc Thompson, from the other platoon, had scrambled.

Captain McBride ordered them to fall back.

Nelson made his way forward again, and began to pull back the assistant gunner and radioman. A grunt grabbed the wounded gunner from him, and the RTO recovered enough to crawl on his own, so Lieutenant Nelson picked up the radio that his RTO had unshouldered when hit and ducked over to Lieutenant Downing. Downing's platoon had fired cover for Nelson's to get out, and now preparing to do the same, Doc Thompson hefted Anders onto his back. It was already hazy dusk amid the trees. Doc Thompson was up and moving.

Four RPGs suddenly slammed in.

Everyone was knocked flat. Screams. Confusion. GIs returned up the file and hauled back Doc Thompson, who was seriously wounded. A private named Fryer had shrapnel in his legs and hips, and they dragged him back next. Lieutenant Downing, dazed and stung with shrapnel, saw to it that his wounded squad leader was also hustled back, then he shepherded the last of his men back to where Captain McBride and Lieutenant Janowitz had moved. Heads were counted. They came up one short.

Spec Four John Anders had been lost in the darkness.

On his own volition, Lieutenant Downing went back into the ambush zone with several volunteers. It was too dark to see anything. When they finally pulled back, McBride chewed Downing out, “You jerks, don't be heading off all by yourselves up there like that, or you're gonna be the next MIAs.”

He also put Downing in for the Silver Star.

A dozen men had been wounded by shrapnel, and McBride tried to arrange a medevac. They were down between two ridge lines, so the signal faded, and the wounded spent the night in a bomb crater.

At first light, McBride accompanied a squad back to where helicopters had spotted a small opening in the canopy. The wounded were carried in ponchos, and the first one was strapped into the litter lowered by the Huey hovering