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exposed to probing questions re. information they were supposed to know—just as they would back in garrison.
Chapter 11
The Bee Attack
Our platoon was on patrol deep in the mountains near Qui Nhon—we were tired and thirsty and running out of water. Our mission was to patrol the mountainous region assigned to us to prevent possible enemy infiltration into that high country overlooking the Qui Nhon supply base. We had been on the move for a couple of days and finally were traversing a ridge line. We noticed that there did indeed appear to have been some heavy foot traffic on that trail we were on. Villagers tended to stay in the lowlands—tending their crops, etc.—they had very little reason to be moving on that ridge line so we believed the VC were indeed operating up there to avoid the patrols in the valleys below. The platoon was exhausted from climbing the high terrain and we were low on water ( two canteens per Marine when we started )—we had not been resupplied since leaving Co. HQ the day before and it wasn’t likely we would be in position to be
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