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the firing we heard Marines who had arrived at the foxhole where the the firing had been directed yell for the corpsman. I ran to that position and found that two of my Marines had been shot—and it was bad! We did everything we could to save them but both were gone—the shots had left no chance for either of them to survive and the corpsman, had to declare that they were officially dead. A med evacuation was called at daybreak and our two KIA were choppered back to Battalion HQ. The ‘friendly fire’ tragedy resulted in the first KIA casualties in the Battalion since landing at Qui Nhon! As I later stated in a written report of the incident this was an accident that should never have happened. The Marine shooter had apparently been facing in the proper direction in his fox hole — observing his sector of responsibility—had become sleepy, dozed off and unconsciously rotated his body back and to the right side of his position When he woke up he was actually now facing down the perimeter looking directly towards the next position on his left—approximately ten yards. Meanwhile the two Marines in that fox hole had broken a platoon rule by sitting on the lip of the hole instead of inside the hole—this couldn’t be seen by the squad leader in the darkness from his position—so the Marine shooter woke up from dozing off— looked at the movement he saw—thinking it was in front of his position which he had been facing—he saw movement—thinking the VC were breeching the perimeter and opened fire—emptying his magazine into the other two Marines. There was nothing we could do. We took the errant shooter’s weapon and placed him under arrest until we could transport him back to HQ for disposition.
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