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which had taken a direct hit from one of the mortars—he died without ever knowing what hit him.
After living outside the perimeters in Qui Nhon and Chu Lai with my platoon this HQ strategy for evading a mortar attack seemed simple enough—except there weren’t too many options other than jumping in a hole.
I reviewed each of the company and platoon situation reports ( sit. reps. ) and gleaned what I could about enemy activity in our TAOR—we also established communication channels with our South Vietnam partners —the ARVN. Within a couple of days I had established contact with Regimental and Division HQ and my counterparts in the intelligence ops. there— Info. obtained from enemy combatants—POW’s was also an invaluable source of intelligence for us. My initial problem was simply finding ways to organize my time to get it all done—the info. was streaming in from a variety of sources 24/7 and there just didn’t seem to be enough hours in a day to manage it. The Col. received briefings from each of the staff officers each morning and he expected anything of an urgent nature to be brought to his attention immediately. During these briefing sessions each dept. learned what was going on with personnel, supplies and equipment, friendly units, enemy movements, the weather, etc..
The Col. was an impatient Marine Officer—he wanted clear, concise reports and if they weren’t he would —in no uncertain terms let us know—I had my arse handed to me a few times in these briefings.
I also participated in a couple of Company sized sweeps along with the Col. who often tagged along with the companies to get a feel for the terrain and the
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