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One Step from My Grave!
By: Ray Sarlin
One of a Combat Infantryman's worst fears was not of being killed, but of being maimed. Because of mines and booby traps, it happened all too often in Vietnam, with an estimated 60% of Purple Hearts won by mine and booby trap casualties. Many of our battalion's casualties were from mines and booby traps; in fact, the author took over Charlie Company when his predecesser was severely wounded by one. Here he writes about a day in the field when he found himself "one step from his grave."
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The Running of the Bulls!
By: Ray Sarlin
From September 1969 when the 1st Battalion (Mechanized), 50th Infantry arrived at LZ Betty outside Phan Thiet in the far south of II Corps until the battalion left Vietnam in December 1970 during the Keystone Robin phase of the U.S. withdrawal, we often worked with South Vietnamese troops providing the necessary logistical support and training to shift them from defensive to offensive operations. This story about water buffalo captures both a sense of the value of water buffalo in Vietnamese culture and the tremendous cultural gap between their society and the young men who represented ours. This is a war story in every sense of the word, with only the VC and NVA absent.
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Buffaloed Soldiers, Part I. Ambushed!
By: Ray Sarlin
Infantrymen often saw water buffalo when on patrol in Vietnam. An important part of village life, the water buffalo certainly was not any more immune from the Vietnam War than any other inhabitant of South Vietnam. Water buffaloes could be combatants or victims, but were most often innocent bystanders, focused on their daily existence. Our paths crossed on several occasions and, despite their fearsome horns, the nice buffalo usually finished last.
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Ambush
By: Tyrel Franzoy
The concussion from the explosion knocked me to the ground and as I regained my senses, my only thought was to kill these hodgies for messing with us.
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