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Marines as I surveyed our position. I was waiting for the Fire Team to return—a little worried that they weren’t back yet. Finally, they emerged quietly out of the underbrush and were out of breath—the fire team leader briefed me and the platoon sergeant Wenger on their recon. They had spotted an NVA unit wearing tan uniforms—size anywhere from Company to Battalion in the valley below our position and the team was worried that they may have been seen. The team estimated that the NVA unit was maybe one mile to a mile and a half away. We briefed the platoon about the situation—everyone made sure they were locked and loaded—We set up a strategy to defend ourselves on the move—we placed our machine gun section near the rear and set up a ‘rear guard’ ( a fire team ) and we moved away from the position and up the mountain we were on. We were going to try an outrun the NVA but were prepared to fight if necessary. Radio communications were sporlactic with a lot of static—I was trying to let our Company CO know what was happening and that we may need reinforcements —I gave our coordinates and we took off—we were in column formation —we were taking a straight line approach to reaching the top of the mountain—no trail —we ran into a ‘bamboo forest’ which was too thick to walk thru so we chopped our way up the hill—we had a couple of machetes and we were putting them to good use—it was hot so we had to swap the ‘cutters’ up front often—I took my turns as well—progress was slow—a Marine from the rear guard came up the column and reported they could hear the NVA several hundred yards back. We were making progress thru the bamboo forest and finally we came into the clear at the top of the mountain—we picked up speed —moving downhill made a huge
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