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maps, correspondence—anything. I examined the dead NVA soldier—found a wallet—opened it—saw his ID—he was indeed an NVA soldier and I saw something else—a picture of this soldier , his wife and a baby girl. I stared at this picture and tears came to my eyes—I realized that if our roles had been reversed —he could be looking down at me and finding a picture exactly like his—a picture of me, Kay and Kimmie! It reminded me of the oft asked question ‘why are we here’? This scene was repeated often over the next several months.
From time to time our Battalion would conduct ‘search and destroy’ operations aimed at preventing an enemy buildup in our ‘Tactical Area of Responsibility’. These operations were most often based upon intelligence being provided by the South Vietnamese Army ( the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam) and local intelligence developed by friendly villagers. Again, these operations often produced sporadic enemy contact in the early weeks of our occupation of Qui Nhon and the surrounding TAOR. Each platoon in E Company had assigned areas of responsibility—we were given our patrol routes by the Company CO who often received them from Battalion S-2 and S-3 ( Intelligence and operations )—these were often given to us as overlays for our maps showing coordinates we were to stay within. The terrain we traversed was as diverse as could be—from mountainous, steep and hilly to flat, wet and open. We often had to maneuver around and thru villages and hamlets and at other times we were in thick and seemingly unpopulated jungle brush . Our uniforms and equipment took a beating —from wet to dry and always dirty and soaked with sweat.
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