I was raised in an environment that if you if you agreed to do something basically
on a handshake you have an obligation to do it because you said you do it
Not only obligation do it but to do it the best that you know how
or can possibly do
I know in the prep I was only told what I needed to know to do whatever does and
I was told maybe you know take a lot of extra medical stuff
and I could observe and in talking to the guys that they were carrying a lot
more ammo than they ever ever ever do and I knew we were going deep into
the Laos because Dak To is five minutes from the border by air and we flew about 45 minutes.
From the get-go after we crossed a certain line we started taking ground fire.
We hit the ground. We were skirmishing from the first day
we started taking injuries
We took a B40 round and that's when I got in hole blown through my foot about
the size of my thumb. It took a piece in my hand and peppered me with metal and bamboo.
So we continued to fight. We weren't getting much sleep. We weren't eating. We were
constantly getting hit and probed. It kept going on like that day in and day out.
Until the fourth day when we were we were running out of ammunition. We were out of food.
We got to the LZ. The first chopper came in. We got the wounded up on the first
chopper and the yards were itching to get out of there so more got on the first
helicopter than we thought should have. The second one came in picked up some
more and that left about 35 of us on the ground.
The third one came in to get us and that helicopter was taken a pounding as it
came in to get us. By the time we got to the tail end of the helicopter we got up
on the tailgate and he lifted off and we still kept taking rounds. You could hear
the popping and I remember sitting on the tailgate at that point with
Bernie Bright. Sergeant First Class Bernie Bright.
and all of a sudden the helicopter went quiet and
well that's because the engine quit. To this day I'm not sure which one of us
said it but Bernie and I were talking and one of us said we're gonna crash.
And the other one said yep we're going down. And we just sat there arm and arm
looking at the ground coming up.
The next thing I know a marine tapped on the shoulder. He'd gotten hit in the
throat. I can tell you this much God decided that he was not going to die
that day because his throat looked like somebody had taken a sharp
eggbeater and just chewed up the front of his neck. He was just bleeding like a stuffed pig.
At that time I was out of anything so I think I stiffened his
neck up by pulling some bandanas and that's what I was using to help him with.
And then the next thing I know he and I were on a riverbank looking at this
giant thing coming at us which was the helicopter.
And it stopped about maybe it could be ten feet could have been five feet. I
don't know. But the next thought that I knew was I had to get back on a
helicopter because there was probably hurt so I climbed back on and by then I
noticed that all the equipment was on top of people so I started throwing
equipment out and I remember is we were pulling people out if we found out a
weapon we would sling it over their neck. A lot of good it did because I
don't think there were probably 20 rounds but by then between the rest of us.
The fourth ship pulled up and the next thing I can consciously remember is
standing at our launch point at Dak To and I know I didn't walk there and
I know I had to get on that fourth helicopter but I honestly can look you
in the eye and tell you I cannot remember I can't even remember getting
back off that downed helicopter myself.
I'm a religious individual and I honestly believe that somebody up there decided
that those of us have survived that crash and he decided that we
weren't gonna die that day
And I can tell you that our raids and our reconnaissance into Laos tied up
some forty to fifty thousand NVA troops that were originally sent going south to
fight the American unit. There's fifty eight thousand names on that wall and I
don't know if without our unit doing what we did would that wall have a
hundred thousand names on it. On that operation it just wasn't the Army. It's a
collective medal from my perspective. All the courage and honor and the dedication to
duty that those men served and went for thirty years not even being acknowledged
let alone recognized. It points to the fact that the men and
women that served in that timeframe were honorable and they deserve some type
of recognition and I think this medal somewhat points to the fact that you
could say faithful servant well done.