The blue dotted line was drawn by me shortly after the operation, so it should be pretty accurate.
The red 1 is Hill 22 where Golf Company kicked off the operation. It was late in the evening when we left. There were two companies that left Hill 22 that evening. Don't remember who the other company was but they went first and Golf followed.
The 2 is where we crossed a river. Since we were following the other company the bank had become pretty muddy and slippery. Somebody moved over a few feet looking for easier footing and set off a booby-trap. Don't know who this was or what happened to him. We ended up sitting around there for an hour or so waiting for a medavac.
The 3 is hill 270, we had walked all night and moved up to there in the morning, We were out of water and really hurting. There were a couple of bomb craters that had some water. It was crawling with misquito larvae. But I was pretty desperate so filled my canteens with it. Everytime I drank this misquito sludge I would fold my tee shirt two or three times and strain the water through it as I drank.
The 4 marks a long, long walk up a hill. It really kicked my ass, I just barely made it up. Just before the top we passed three or four brand new graves.
The 5 is hill 502, LZ Buckskin. We held up there for several days while a small artiliary base was set up. While we were there my wife had our son. That was April 3, 1969, I didn't see him until February 23, 1970.
The 6 is hill 785. We sat around there several days. This is where Carlos Arzate killed the two gooks who interupted his morning dump. This is also where we were picked up an flown to Hill 10 at the end of the operation.
Ok, I know that there are two No. 6's and no No. 8 on the map (due to excessive beer consumption) but we are going to pretend differently. Six No. 2 is now a 7 and the 7 is an 8, got that?
The 7 is about where the NVA base camp was.
The 8 is where we had a fairly sharp firefight. Right after that 2/7 was pulled off the operation.