After completion of MACV Recondo School, I was asked if I wanted to volunteer for a mission with Special Forces. Americal put me on TDY status via verbal orders. There were four of us that volunteered while at Nha Trang. One Lurp was from the 1st Cav, another from 9th Division, the other was from 4th Division. Yours truly was from E 51st (LRP) Company. So it was a hop, skip and jump by 1/4 ton jeep. An E7 from a B-Team was our driver. At the B Camp we met the Team XO and a weapons Sergeant. They were the BJP Team. The rest were out with the A-Teams. Our mission was to support the camp in Absence of Americans. There were two units there comprised of Montagnard "Yards" and Vietnamese CIDG. The XO warned us, "Don't trust the Vietnamese since the two in the camp are VC. If you see someone going through the gate or over the wall shoot them dead." The Yards stayed away from the Vietnamese and both units took turns at watch on the wall. The Yards had the wall after dark until morning. The Yards communally slept under the messhall waking at noon and began their usual activities preparing lunch.

After the breakfast meal, all crew served, weapons cleaning began followed with personal weapons with the exception of the Yards. The XO and the SF Buck Sergeant slept at the commo bunker, taking turns monitoring the radios to the A Teams out on missions. I, as well as the other Lurps, got familiar with the camp and settled in. I manned the north wall and controlled the 81mm mortar pits and quad 50 position. For more security I kept two LAWS and had 3 claymore clackers ready for firing.

The 4th Division Lurp had the east wall and the 4.2 mm Mortar and the south wall was manned by the 9th Division Lurp with a 60 machine gun. The 1st Cav Lurp had the west wall and another Quad 50 machine gun. Day 1 was uneventful. Day 2 was also uneventful and Day 3 started to be the same until 5:51 P.M..

It was early August 1968. We started receiving RPG rocket fire into and around the camp. Small arms fire was heard from the tree line from the north wall and towards the east wall. We went from 25% alert to 100% in seconds. The Yards were on the walls and the Vietnamese manned all mortar pits with the first 8lmm rounds leaving the camp within 25 seconds heading for the tree line north.

The SF Sergeant came to my position to direct my fire into the tree line from north to east. The Lurp controlling the 4.2mm mortar was laying down fire from east to north. The XO requested Air Force fast movers by radio and asked for napalm in the north tree line. We continued our firing until the F-4s came and dropped their deadly payload on our attackers. The air got hot and for one split second it took my breath away!

During the fighting the VC's inside the camp tried to escape through the gate. I saw them and got the attention of the SF Officer. I took aim and hit one in the lower back. I aimed again but missed the other. No matter, the XO killed him with a head shot and the SF Sergeant finished the other with a four round burst.

In twenty minutes time the fighting was only a few small arms fire from the tree line and in less than an hour, the tree line was quiet with smoke rising from the napalm. Our battle was officially over in an hour but the fight had shifted to the hamlet west of the camp. We went to 50% alert on the walls and an hour later we could see and hear the explosions and small arms fire with many huts ablaze.

We stayed for a total of eight days with more uneventful days after the third day. The SF E7 came and policed us and then returned us to the Delta Compound. An hour later, he took us to the Airport in Nha Trang. I flew back to Chu Lai and was picked up by first Sergeant Whitcomb who put me on detail at the new club being built at the commo shack. In 1984, I learned that the enemy we fought was a battalion of the 29th NVA Regiment with the scrimmage being called, "The Battle of Cam Duc."