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within their TAOR ( Tactical Area of Responsibility ). They contained our positions by coordinates and often, outlines of patrols being run by each platoon in each company in our Bn. As such, I was able to nail down certain specific things that I write about. Over the years I’ve shared some of these stories / vignettes with my family and friends on certain occasions. As time has passed I realized that, unless I wrote these memories down, they may be forgotten. My family has often encouraged me to ‘write a book’. This isn’t that book! Rather it’s a ‘collection’ of selective memories’ that I’ve tried to tie together in a coherent fashion to tell my story. This project wasn’t intended to be a story about ‘me’ so much as it was a story about the job—platoon leader! I purposely try not to mention names at certain times since I couldn’t possibly remember everyone who came and went during our time——- the endless patrols and sweeps—time has eroded many of those details. My ‘Story’ is written from a perspective of a young Marine officer as I relate it to other officers I knew at the time. In this ‘story’ I talk about our troops over and over—from time to time I mention names but for the most part I focus upon the fellow officers in my Company and our Battalion. It would not be possible to list all of men in the First Platoon—E Company or the Battalion. This isn’t a ‘journal’, as such, since I didn’t write down events as they occurred. My journey consisted of daily patrols, perimeter defense, operations and sweeps that provided little time for the luxury of writing and keeping a journal. We literally lived ‘out of the pack on our back‘ and the pack was intentionally kept ‘light‘ carrying only our essential needs, poncho, C-
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