Vietnam 68-69

Leech Island, 1st Platoon, on patrol by ourselves, as usual.  Now Leech Island is a good name for the place we were.  It was double canopy jungle, deep, dark and damp, but not an island.  We were on a well worn trail that wove it’s way through the jungle.  The jungle growth along the trail contained wait-a-minute vines, and oh yeah leeches.  The hazy light filtered through the mist and trees.  My squad (3rd) was on point this particular morning and I was about fourth in our echelon.  We came to a semi open area and the trail made a sharp turn to the right.  As we turned the corner the point man saw an NVA on the trail ahead of us.  He immediately raised his M-16 and fired as the man turned and fled.  The bullet hit a low hanging tree branch between the two men and them kept running.  All our point man heard when he pulled the trigger again was a click, his M-16 had jammed.  I saw a flash of a dark figure as he disappeared into the jungle.  I couldn’t get a clear shot and didn’t want to hit any nearby branches with an HE round, like the M-16 bullet had.  There could have been worse consequences if that happened.  We examined the bullet whole in the tree after we made sure that any NVA had left the area.  The branch was large enough that the bullet didn’t go all the way through.  I thought about how lucky that NVA soldier was and wondered if he had more luck to make it through the war in one piece.

This is the letter that I wrote home to my Mom and Dad the first part of January, 1969.  It contains what I wrote to them about the day Lieutenant Dugger died.  This will be the first letter that I’ve published on this blog.  Let me tell you that it has been a struggle deciding to publish the letters I wrote.  I have decided that the letters will make this blog that much richer.

Letter home 1-10-69, page 1

Letter home 1-10-69, page 2

Letter home 1-10-69, page 3

Letter home 1-10-69, page 4

Letter home 1-10-69, page 5

Letter home 1-10-69, page 6

Envolope that contained the letter home 1-10-69. I wrote about Lt Dugger being killed in the letter

Val Wuthrich with pack and M-79.

This is picture of  me with a heavy pack.  In this picture you can see a Light Anti-tank Weapon (LAW) on the side of my pack.  There’s also those critical canteens.  I always carried at least two canteens, usually more.  There is a bag on top of my pack that carried a lot of my M-79 ammo.  If you look closely above the lower canteen you will see a smoke grenade.  We used smoke grenades to mark our position, usually for the helicopter pilots coming in to a landing zone (LZ) to pick us up.  Looking at my fatigues, I would say that I have just returned from a patrol in the jungle with my platoon.

Val Wuthrich with full pack. Ready for another mission in the jungle.

Ready for another mission in the jungle.  Helicopters will be coming to pick us up and fly us into the jungle somewhere.  I’m not sure which fire base we were departing from.  You can see hills in the background.  I’m sure we weren’t to far from either the DMZ or the A Shau valley.