GALLERY 2 ON PATROL (Click on the thumbnail pictures to enlarge)
Every fourth week, our company would go on
patrol for a week. This meant that we had to carry food rations, ammunition and limited
supplies on one's person during that week. We would resupply our water from local sources
(rivers, villages, ponds, etc.). Rarely, when water was not available and if it was
feasible, we would get 250 gallon water bladders brought out to us by helicopter.
At a Vietnamese water
drinking jar
Rodriguez and others
in a coconut grove
Guidotti, Rodriguez and Platson resting inside a bombed out
church
Garza and Platson at
a villager's hut
Platson, Garza, Pugh and
others after setting up camp
With some village kids
Vietnamese troops checking
out the village
Waiting to set up camp
for the night
Waterlogged feet from
sloshing through rice paddies
Cardwell snacking
Smoke to show helicopters
where the troops are
Chinooks picking up troops
Guarding a Chinook while
troops load up
Sommer and Butler posing
Garza, Woodke and Butler
at the mortar
Pugh, Rodriguez and Platson
at the mortar
Salazar computing fire
direction
Stanfield and Guidotti
taking a break
Burning Viet Cong hooches
A suspected Viet Cong
village being burned
A Vietnamese village
Salazar, Garza and Guidotti resting on a termite mound
Captain O'Conner and his XO making C-rations stew
Another view of the
Vietnamese village
The patrols consisted of search and destroy
missions or simply of moving the company through villages, the countryside, jungles,
forests or plains in search of Viet Cong strongholds, supplies or caches. We were exposed
to snipers, mortar and rifle ambushes or attacks and booby traps, which often caused the
most damage. We never really knew whether a village was friendly or not and had to be
constantly on guard.
We found a coconut
grove which was
maintained by the Viet Cong
Sunset found us
at a small Vietnamese
village
Returning from a patrol,
Platson, Salazar and Datish
were unshaven and grubby.
Salazar still needed a
shave and a shower
after returning to LZ Betty
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