looked over the wall. "Hey, we're under attack from the east wall."

Naturally, neither of us had our weapon. Mine was hanging on my chair and his was by his radio. I could see movement across the street where the smoke was clearing.

Without much thought, I said, "Get the weapons and alert Crysel and the troops." I climbed in the 3/4 and rammed it into the hole in the wall, plugging most of the hole. Sutter came flying out with my Car 15 and web gear. I had taken Tom Kemmer's Car 15 when he had rotated back to the world. Us Headquarters wimps were not authorized Car 15's - they were for recon - but all the high brass had them, along with complete survival kits. Really looked great in the offices.

When I rammed the 3/4 in the hole I found myself on the wrong side of the wall. As I climbed up on the frame to get back on my side of the wall, the windshield disintegrated under a burst of what could only be AK fire.

.Sutter came up the steps with my gear. All the troops were now heading for the wall. No VNSF were in sight except Major Nyguen who seemed as surprised as anyone. He didn't get the word either. Crouching and peering over the wall I saw people running all over the place, but some were heading straight for me. I dropped 2 in the street with a long burst and then saw a naked man run up with a pack on his back. He leaned against the wall and was about to pull on a lanyard when I literally took his head off with the car 15.

Sutter was banging away down the wall. We realized that sappers were attacking the wall with satchel charges, trying to breech it. Only after the fight did we find out that the charges, approximately 40 pounds, 16 blocks of C-4, US Army issue, were wired to their bodies so they could not be removed. When it went, they went. I call that total dedication to your cause and don't, for moment, believe they were high on dope - they believed in their cause - and died for it.

It went on like that, every few minutes a burst of fire would come from an alleyway or from one of the stalls or store fronts across the street. It had been a row of shops with living quarters upstairs, now it was a smoldering wreck. Some were burning, but all seemed full of enemy troops. Twice they fired an RPG at the gate. The first simply blew a hole in the steel, the second impacted on the wall, doing no damage. Evidently, they were running short of dedicated sappers.

One of the radio operators ran up and said that 1st Field Force Headquarters was sending a Korean unit to clean out the NVA and clear the area. By now, there were several VNSF troops back on the wall. All had a heavy volume of outgoing fire that was not helping the building across the street. The merchants, as usual, were