”I had not seen A Company, 1st Battalion (Airborne) 506th Infantry leave the firebase that morning, so I was surprised when a fire fight broke out only 7 or 8 hundred meters southwest of the firebase. Shortly after, we were informed by the platoon sergeant, SSG Edward Elliot, that A Company had been ambushed and that our platoon was being sent to assist them. Since A Company was pinned down just outside the village, a mounted quad 50 would be going with us. I was to the rear of the platoon as we moved down the road into the village. As we made our way on the road going southeast out of the village, one of the men in our platoon sustained a gunshot wound to the hand (I don’t remember his name). I heard the quad 50 open up on the road ahead, and then it stopped. As we got closer, we were told the quad 50 had gone ahead of the platoon and was knocked out by an rocket propelled grenade (RPG) round. As we joined the rest of the platoon, which was spread out across an open area just southeast of the village, we could see SSG Elliot moving from position to position, directing fire into a bamboo thicket approximately 50-60 meters ahead of us.
SSG Elliott saw me and pointed to the left flank hollering that we had wounded over there. I moved in that direction, and saw Dave Bidart lying wounded in an open area maybe 10 meters in front of our left flank position. When I got to him, I dressed a wound to his upper right leg. Bidart was conscious and talking to me. He was wounded while attacking enemy positions with SGT Fred Larson and SGT Gary Burnett and had gotten back this far on his own. Mike Langer crawled up and helped Bidart back to safety. I dropped into an old foxhole to get out of the line of fire, when I heard SSG Elliot holler for me again and he pointed towards the bamboo thicket, about 15 meters from me. I could see SGT Larsen and SGT Burnett, though I didn’t know who it was until I reached them. SGT Larsen was face down with SGT Burnett lying on top of him. Larsen was dead and SFT Gary Burnett was alive, though he had a very critical head wound. Apparently Burnett was trying to help Larsen when he himself was wounded. I put dressing on SGT Burnett’s head wound and then looked for help.
It was chaos, heavy firing! There was no one at all to my left, and to my right the platoon was moving up towards the thicket but they were not yet close enough for help. There was one dead NVA soldier in a spider hole 4 or 5 feet to my left, and two more dead NVA a few feet in front of me side by side in spider holes, obviously all killed by Larsen and Burnett. Mike Langer showed up again, crawling up next to me, asking if he could help. As we grabbed Burnett’s shoulder straps, Langer was hit as well as Burnett getting hit for at least the 2nd time. Burnett was hit this time in the lower right chest area. When I leaned over him, Burnett was still breathing. Langer was hit in the inner thigh area on the inside of his right leg. I asked him if he could crawl back on his own, he said yes and started out. I never saw him alive again and I don’t know if he was hit again or what. By the time I got back to where the medevacs were taking off (maybe 15 minutes), Langer was already gone. By this time, the platoon was moving past me on my right and two of our guys crawled over and dragged SGT Burnett back. Things began to die down as the remaining NVA had jumped from their spider holes and run. A CO apparently had moved up behind us, and medevaced our wounded as well as their own.
I was told Dave Bidart was smoking a cigarette when he was medevaced so I was stunned that night when informed he had died. Langer was also dead, Larsen dead, and SGT Burnett died the next day. I dressed one NVA prisoner’s arm wound and a Major from the 1/506th came by chopper to get him. Later that afternoon, our platoon made a sweep southeast along the road and found one dead Vietnamese man in a bunker built below the hooch. It was unknown how he died, killed by NVA crossfire or what? Finally, I believe our guys counted 57 spider holes. Being that our unit was caught in the open, the decision to attack must have surprised this NVA unit. It probably also saved a lot of our lives. I believe Larson, Burnett and Bidart got the 1st line of spider holes so fast that the NVA began to panic. Their courage and sacrifice gave the rest of us a much better chance to live.”
CPT Williams, 1SG Humphries, and SSG Elliott had been trying to teach me how to be a platoon leader for about a month. When I first arrived, SSG Elliott remained in command at the front of the platoon and I became the platoon SGT at the rear. We left it like that for about 2 weeks while all three of them worked on my map reading and combat organization skills. When we agreed that I would assume command, SSG Elliott told me I still wasn’t ready, that “only a real bad fire fight” would complete my education, but it was time for to “step up.”