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whom was John Kessling.
I had known John since the 1950s and had worked for him at one time. All
the men were from our same company back on Okinawa. They needed help and
pronto. And it was up to us to provide that help. By sheer
luck there was one Huey Helicopter at the camp. The call went out for more
helicopter support. I took seven Strikers and Mark Chase, who had
to obtain special permission from Captain Moon. Mark was on
camp restriction for shooting a tin can off the top of the Vietnamese flagpole
and causing Major Reed to have a tizzy fit. Captain Moon regrets that decision
to this day, but it was the right one at the time.
So, loaded down with only ammo and water, we climbed
in the chopper and took off. Only a few miles away by air, the stricken
team was located and as the chopper circled we began to take enemy ground
fire. Were we flying into a deliberate trap? It was a favorite trick of
the enemy - use US troops in trouble as bait. for they knew we would try
to get them out. The pilot decided to go in anyhow in spite of the incoming
fire, and we went in "hot" and tumbled out as soon as the chopper neared
the ground. Then it went back to camp to bring in other troops. I put my
men in a defense position and went over to talk to Haley and Ice, they
told me what had happened and where the fire was coming from. Ice gave me
a can of pineapple and I stuck it in the cargo pocket of my pants. When
I looked at John, he was very pale and was unable to move his legs. He
had been shot through the gut and was in bad shape. At that point no one
thought he would make it.
I bit back my anger, and with my men started up the
slope to the wood line where the bad guys were. I wanted to establish a
line between the patrol and the North Vietnamese. It was a decent
plan, but Mr. Charles was not to allow it. As we moved up in line,
we were met with heavy automatic weapons fire. The first burst struck me
and shot down all three strikers to my left side. I felt a hard blow on
my left leg and felt something warm and wet running down my leg.
Ahead of me I saw an enemy soldier in a foxhoIe firing at me. I gave
him a burst of tire with my M 16 and as he went down in the hole I tossed
in a hand grenade for good measure. I was yelling for Mark to come
to me. I turned to look for him, and saw him kneeling down and firing at
the enemy soldiers . He ejected an empty magazine, reloaded and stood
up and incredibly he vaulted over a downed tree trunk and took off
running after the retreating enemy. He got maybe eight steps and went down.
I finally got control of my other three strikers and
began laying down fire on any thing we could see. Very soon I was joined
by other team members, Frank Henry, Garry Stamm and Bob Lammers and
about 20 more strikers. It was then that Frank found Marks body. I went
over to where he lay and knelt down and cradled his head, and to my horror
my hand went completely into his skull. There was a very large hole where
the back of his
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