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under our concertina wire. This was discovered at approximately 0230 AM and all hell broke loose as our Marines opened fire on the infiltrators killing them and opening fire around the perimeter. The VC poured small arms fire, 60mm mortars and hand grenades on the First platoon but our Marines held their position repulsing one attack after another from what appeared to be suicide fighters who may have been high on drugs. Flares were fired and revealed a hundred or more VC surrounding the hill below the perimeter. Our Marines returned fire aggressively and had thrown our grenades down the hill throughout the perimeter. The assault lasted for over three hours. What I had not known was that a Popular Forces unit had been assigned to the outpost and the Battalion had not appointed a new platoon commander to replace me. In the two weeks since I was with the platoon —they had received some more replacements—ie. ‘Operation Mixmaster’—one of those ‘replacements’ had just arrived from the States the day before—he was the lone KIA in the attack—two of the four WIA were also ‘new ‘ to the platoon. The battle raged until daylight. The VC lost an estimated 35 KIA and twice that many wounded as they retreated back towards the mountains in the West. 39@ I had commandeered a jeep with a driver and arrived at the hill at daylight as the last few rounds were being fired at the retreating VC. A Regimental reserve platoon from C Company arrived at the same time to reinforce the First Platoon, A Co. I noted that most of the Marines in my old platoon were new—thanks to Operation Mixmaster and they had merged a ‘Popular Forces’ platoon ( South Vietnamese milia ) in with the Marine platoon. I would never have relinquished a portion of our perimeter to the PFs
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