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and ran for a back door and into the arms of members of my platoon which had heard the gunfire and taken refuge behind whatever they could find until the VC ran outside—they restrained him along with the other three—We found documents that later proved to be valuable intelligence info.
The ‘gunfight at the ok corral’ was not pretty—I had emptied two magazines at my enemy in a room sized space—and missed! I had qualified as ‘sharpshooter’ with the pistol!! Fortunately, my enemy had missed also. It’s difficult to explain what it’s like to try to steady your aim while moving around and your opponent is doing the same—call it luck or misfortune—at least I didn’t get hit. The Marines outside of the hut took cover until the gunfire subsided—there was really nothing they could do but let us ‘fight it out’!
Meanwhile the other platoons of E Co. were searching the village and finding VC combatants asleep as we had done with the VC Hamlet Chief—the raid produced nine captured VC and a windfall of intelligence data along with captured weapons. 13@ Capt. Tolleson also ‘rescued’ a dog that seemed to take to him— We knew that the Vietnamese ‘ate’ dogs for the meat—we didn’t see many when we passed through the villages—he brought the dog back to the Company CP and named the dog ‘Bac-Tang’ after the Hamlet he came from. The night time , company sized raid had been successful and E Company had no casualties.
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