Page 48 - Echo 127

lbs. —after a couple of months of climbing the hilly terrain, losing sleep, dealing with dysentery I found myself weighing approx. 155 -160 lbs.
A week before 2/7 landed at Qui Nhon—3/7 had also landed there—my former Basic School Colleague and Pine Avenue neighbor , Lt. Hugh Doss, landed there with L Co., 3/7 and participated in the first ever ‘helicopter assault’ launched from ships off shore. Hugh was the XO of L Company—their first mission was to fly into a hostile landing zone to rescue I Company, third Bn., third Marines which had been mauled by the VC in Operation Starlight—most of the officers had been killed. L Co. was attempting to reach the besieged I Company when they were also ambushed—the lead platoon commander was killed. Lt. Doss moved forward to rally the troops in that platoon—they could not reach I Co. because they had to set up a defensive perimeter and evacuate the Marines killed and wounded in that ambush. Later, the next day L Company continued their efforts to reach I Co.—the heat was extreme and several of Hugh’s Marines had heat stroke and had to be evacuated—including the Company Commander—Hugh took over the Company and led them safely back to the 3/3 base camp. 2/7 landed a couple of days later and relieved 3/7 of the TAOR.@ 8 More about Lt. Doss and our ‘brother battalion’—3/7 later.
A few weeks later our uniforms were literally rotting off our backs—we kept hearing about the new, lightweight uniforms we were going to get—that would dry quickly and were lighter and didn’t retain the sweat but helped evaporate it—with
48