Epilogue

The following passages are excerpted from the chapter.

". . .I am more and more troubled by the meaning to me and others of what occurred on March 21, 1966. It was the day of Operation Texas. By then, there seemed little new to learn; it had become a repetitive job. All this had begun to be so commonplace that I stopped bothering to carry my camera; there was no longer anything unusual to record. So as fate would have it, the most memorable moments of my life were etched forever that day only in my mind.

My fascination with that day has grown over the past few years from nothing to daily introspection. The men of 2/4, the sounds of war, the fields outside the village, the shrapnel fragments all over the ground. The tree line to our right along the village fortifications where Echo Company, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, was locked in close combat with the enemy. The faces of the Viet Cong that I saw through my binoculars as I fired artillery on their position at the edge of the village. They were looking at me. I cannot forget seeing their eyes."

". . .Am I a better person for the experience or am I worse? If I am a better person than I otherwise would have been, can that possibly be worth the price? Is it necessary to see and feel and smell death to appreciate life? Is it necessary to kill to realize the finality of that? I don't know how to tell. I don't know. I will never know, will I?

How sad.

What a shame.

Sorry 'bout that."

"It is now late evening in Rochester. It is March 20 here. In the village of Phuong Dinh in the south of Vietnam it is late morning on the March 21. We have engaged the Viet Cong again and so many will not walk away from here."