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members of the fire team and we had our weapons pointed directly at the two people in the loft—we gestured for them to come down the ladder and they complied—like the previous two—all four of our captives were nude. I proceeded to look for hidden compartments or stashes of rice, ammo, weapons or documents—we found all of the above hidden in the walls. As the captives came down the ladder the female was first —- one member of the fire team took her outside to the other members of the squad to restrain her—at this point neither of the three captives had given us any resistance. The fourth captive came down the ladder with the fire team leader pointing his M-14 at him—the fourth captive we learned later was the VC Hamlet Chief that we had come for. He arrived at the bottom of the ladder and turned around with his hands behind his head . The fire team leader motioned the captive to the door and backed up while keeping his rifle pointed at him. I saw that the fire team leader had the captive seemingly under control so I turned to continue my search of the hut. Suddenly, everything became chaotic—the fire team leader —while backing up with the captive, backed out of the door—the VC saw an opportunity and kicked the broken door shut—leaving my Marine on the outside—and me and the Hamlet Chief on the inside. I whipped around when I heard the door slam—by then the Hamlet chief pulled his hands from behind his head revealing he had a 9mm pistol which he proceeded to aim and fire at me! He missed as I drew my .45 and fired back— and missed—we were engaged in a game of ‘dodge ball’ with bullets—I moved and fired and he moved and fired —I emptied one magazine and replaced it with another—the VC continued firing as did I —we both missed—he ran out of ammo
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