Who makes these decisions anyway?   Was it 5th Marine Regiment staff officers at An Hoa?  Or perhaps it was 1st Marine Division Headquarters' planners at Da Nang?  As I assessed the situation, I could not help but think about this. This rapid-fire order, out of no where really, placed the lives of my buddies and me at risk.

As I packed my gear, I gave one last frustrated look at the coveted location we were giving up.  Ever since I was a young boy, I knew the advantage of strategic terrain where one could see without being seen. There, right now, we held the high ground.  It doesn't get much better than that. 

As an NCO, I got summoned to the command perimeter such as it was.  I listened intently as our young-looking platoon commander described what we were to do.  We were to trek three or four miles to where we would, in theory, intercept an NVA company coming from the other direction.  To do this we were going to need a lot of luck -- and a lot of cooperation from the NVA.  I looked at my map as the lieutenant talked.  As he briefed us, I could see were going to have to cross a swift river, easily ten feet deep in parts, and traverse four known ambush sites. If we didn't drown, we could be blown to bits.  The lieutenant had an anxious look.  "We don't have much time," he declared.   "Delta Battery is going to be lobbing 105 rounds in here in about an hour."

Was this the same Marine Corps I had known and loved?

The lieutenant ordered me to pick two "volunteers" that would join a dog handler and me in guiding the platoon to the new ambush site.  Really?  We were going to be sitting ducks, a diversion with the main body following about 150 yards back.  The dog, a German shepherd named ‘Colonel,' would be ineffective in the breeze that blew.

We carefully moved out.  I had been there before so I knew the terrain.  We had been on the trail for nearly an hour and had yet to cover a mile.  I cranked up the pace.  

The area where we were headed reminded me of the land adjacent to the Chisholm Creek back home in Kansas.  The ground was soft and sandy which made walking easy.  That was the good part.  Just maybe everything would be okay.

We made our way up over a rise.  Behind and to the left was rather desolate territory.  A bunch of nothing!  Off to the right was a different story.  That area yielded a tree line that terrified me.  If I wanted to kill someone walking along this trail, this is precisely where I would hide and wait.  The trees were just thick enough to provide more than decent cover.  I could fight from there all night and half the next day.

                                               * *  *

Suddenly, there was a barrage of AK-47 fire from the tree line.  I went down.  It hurt like hell and then some.  I bit down as hard as I could on my notebook.  The Corpsman frantically worked over me like the angel of mercy that he was. Were my buddies okay?  I heard a few loose rounds being fired in the distance.  It sounded like our guys, not the crack of an AK-47.

The bright moon had betrayed us.  The four of us had been hit.  The Corpsman had used smelling salts to waken me to the devastation that was around me.

I spit out the dirty notebook and grabbed a field dressing and stuffed it into my mouth and bit down again. The pain was worse than anything I ever experienced. I looked toward my toes and could see why I was in such misery.  My right foot was lying on top of my leg, barely hanging on.  Nerves and tendons had been severed.   My right leg had been ripped apart under my knee and the pain was excruciating.  Five feet away, Colonel howled from his own gunshot wounds.

The Corpsman asked if I wanted morphine and I told him no.  It's not like I loved or could even tolerate pain.  It was just that I liked the other alternative less.  If I let them shoot me up with a narcotic, then I could slip away, maybe even die.  I needed to hang with ‘Doc' as long as I could.

It began to dawn on me that the worst I was looking at was losing my right leg below the knee.  So what?  That was better than dying.  My war would be over and I would be on my way home.  Oh, but I would be leaving with honor. There was that precious word that drove me, honor.  I would be departing this bitch of a place with my head held high.  That was worth something.

It was getting harder to breathe.  Why?  Something was wrong. I whispered to the corpsman, asking what was happening.  He shined his flashlight on me, on my head and then my chest.  "Oh my God!" he said.  "You've taken one in the chest." I could see the blood oozing through a small hole in my flak jacket.   My optimistic spirits were deflated in a manner of microseconds.  Doc started unzipping my flak jacket when terror set in.  I knew that my guts could spill out leading to a certain death.

Fortunately, the damage was contained to my right chest cavity and lung.  I felt like I had been socked in the chest. The pain was nothing compared to my leg.

As ‘Doc' worked, I reached for my M-16 rifle.  There was something I just had to know.  The barrel was warm and the magazine was empty.  A pained smile, however small, lit my face. In the middle of the chaos I had managed to squeeze off 18 rounds. How, I do not know.  I had no memory of anything other than the first bursts of light from the concealed AK-47s. I suppose it didn't matter but I was pleased to know that just maybe I gave another Marine some cover.

Soon a CH-46 twin rotor chopper roared in to pick us up. The door gunner paid scant attention to the wounded, instead focusing on the same tree line that almost got me killed.  Was he anxious about seeing a Marine fighting for his life?  Not really.  He had his mission to do.  He knew, as I realized, that our attackers could be regrouping, readying RPGs or B-40 rockets, both highly lethal to the helicopter that had come to save us.

I whispered a prayer that everyone would be all right.  Oh God, help us!  The chopper lifted up, we were air born.  I gazed at the countryside below doubting that I would ever see this place again.  My family of green shirts was left behind.  Events were easing them into my past.  Tears came to my eyes.

In a brief period, we were on our way to Da Nang to First Med Battalion, our hospital, which was nothing more than a series of tin huts with yard lights scattered everywhere.  When the chopper landed, I was hurried into the emergency room.  I was slightly ambulatory thanks to a corpsman supporting my right side.  Somehow, I was reassured to be upright.  I lulled myself into thinking that I would be okay as long as I could stand. 

Blood was everywhere as the doctors scurried to save lives.  The sordid stench of death permeated the night's air.  There was a handful of walking wounded sitting on a bench along the wall.  I scrambled to join them.

Would I die here?  I wondered.  If I did, would God and the angels lift me to heaven?

A priest came to me.  I had seen him just outside the emergency room, looking overwhelmed. He asked, "Would you like the last rites?"  I was surprised. Was I really that bad?  I had been raised as a Lutheran and had...