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prepare for our first night completely cut off from the rest of the Company and Battalion. Our troops were understandably skittish—we had been trained on guerrilla warfare and what to expect from the VC.—The junglelike terrain surrounded us and at night was ominous indeed. Forty Four Marines, a Marine rifle platoon never feels ‘outnumbered’—we knew our perimeter was sound—we knew we could fend off whatever the VC sent after us but still, this was the first night in a combat zone for any of us and the ‘unexpected’ was on everyone’s mind. There is ‘dark’ and there is —-‘dark’! When the Sun went down we settled into our positions for the night—50% security—one Marine awake in every position. I established my position near the center of our perimeter—my platoon Sgt., radioman and myself dug our positions in close proximity to each other for communications’ purpose. I rested from time to time but checked on squad leaders and various positions throughout the night.
The platoon sergeants and squad leaders did the same. We were all tired—from the initial landing, the extreme heat ( 90-100 degrees ), the constant movement, the preparation of our positions and admittedly a little anxiety! The first night or two was pretty much like you would expect—a lot of false alarms—the troops were having to get used to noises they hadn’t heard before and on everyone’s mind was when Mr. VC would come calling on his new neighbors. The nights and days were hot and we tried to sleep when we could in between patrols to cover our assigned region and maintaining security at our position. The days were spent improving our positions, cleaning our weapons, eating our c-rations, drinking plenty of water that was helicoptered in five gal. ‘jerry’ cans. We literally
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