Letter Home
26 SEP 1968


Dear Mom and Dad,

Well I really had a scare the other day; one of my four man, short range patrols (SRP's) went out about six kilometers through some real rough terrain to observe enemy movement and when they set up we got two sit rep's (situation reports) from them when we lost radio contact. I call them every 30 min at night and every hr. in the day, to see if they are alright or saw anything. Well 32 hours passed and I hadn't heard a word from them. I knew if the radio went dead, they would come back ASAP (as soon as possible), but it only takes about six hours to get back , so I really got worried. I prepared to take some people and go look for them, when we got a call from Dak To, saying they were safe and on their way back to 29.

What had happened was a one in a million piece of bad luck. The radio man had fallen down a 15' embankment and ruined the radio, so they started back, since they had no commo, but about 200 meters further on the point man slipped on a muddy rock slope and fell on the compass, breaking it. There they were, no compass, no radio, four men alone, completely alone, in enemy territory. They still had the map and tried for almost a day to use terrain features, such as hills and streams to find their way back to us at Firebase-29, but finally became lost in a dense jungle swamp. The patrol leader made a real smart decision and started north, finally finding highway 512, the only one for a hundred miles. There they were picked up by a friendly convoy and got back.

Boy, were we glad to see them. We all had almost written them off as KIA, although no one spoke about it.

We have been expecting a mortar attack any day now, and last night some of our people heard movement outside our perimeter, so we fired at it. The next morning a patrol sent to search the area found fresh tracks, commo wire, and a "d" handle shovel. We figure it was an NVA FO (forward observer, who directs the mortar attacks), who was trying to get set up. I'm really surprised though, because yesterday "C" Company went on a mission (CA...Combat Assault) and I had only about 70 men defending the whole fire base, but "Charlie" didn't even probe us.

I have to go now, so bye

Love,
Homer


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