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Amtrak Patrol
—then patrolling these islands. we often found booby traps and IEDs there along with occasional sniper rounds- We wanted to deny the VC an area near the sand ramp where they could set up mortars and attack the LSTs that were docked there. On one such sweep later on one of my Marines stepped on one of those IEDs—an 81 mm mortar round that was wired and triggered remotely—he was killed instantly and was a reminder that every single step we took—every single day could be our last.
This Marine was a conscientious, dedicated Marine Sgt. with a family. He had approached me earlier before leaving on the patrol with a concern—he had a premonition—a dream that he would be killed that day. As we talked —he realized he couldn’t ‘skip’ the patrol ‘because of a dream’—this was something we all had experienced. He just needed to ‘talk about it’—he was on a sweep—a line moving across the sand dunes of the island when the explosion occurred—it
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