One day while sitting on that hill, just for something to do, we started having contests. We'd bet on who could do the most situps, pushups, whatever came to mind. John Kelly made a bet with the Gunny about how many 60mm rounds it would take to get on target. Well, it was something to do. Finding something to do was an every day problem. Doc Litzinger and I made a chess set out of a piece of paper and wrote the names of the various pieces on pieces of C-ration matches.
When we came off the hill we moved down to the old railroad. We're just sitting around and I look and see a bush on the next hill over get up and walk off. I got the Lt. and we watched a little more and two or three more bushes came walking into sight. We set up a couple of ambushes with no luck. The sniper with us got a couple of shots, but.....who knows. A couple of days later one of 1st platoons squads ambushed some NVA. They killed a couple and when they went over to see what they had they found a wounded woman. She must have been VC. She wasn't wearing a unifrom but had on bits and pieces of gear and was packing a pistol. She had been shot in the arm. It looked pretty bad, she probably lost it. We called a medivac for her and that was the last we saw of her.
The 3 is where we spent September through January, right through the heart of the monsoon. It was a horrible place. I remember reading in The Sea Tiger that it was the second?third? rainiest October ever, 300 inches!!!!! On October 9th 1st platoon was on a patrol, we were sitting on a trail in drizzling rain somewhere around the 3 when an NVA walked up on the tail-end guy. He opened up, missed, the gook took off with half a dozen shooting at him and got away. Within 5 minutes three of them walked up on the point man, Brooks. He shot the first one and Glenn Denton caught one and one got away. One of the other Marines and myself had been to Vietnamese language school so we tried to interragate him. As best we could make out there was 300 of them in a camp about a mile up the trail. A couple of days later we were sent back to check out the camp. We found it ok, right were he said it would be. Coming into the camp there was a big clearing. It had ambush written all over it but nothing happened. Sgt. Stanley saw a gook as we entered the camp but he got away. We looked around and blew up a couple of hootches and bunkers. It was really spooky. Going back the point man stopped at the clearing, I was like 3rd or 4th in line. He ran across and the rest of us came along behind when we saw he was ok. I was about half way over when what had to be the most fake bird whistle in the world broke the silence. The three of us in the open just looked at each other, scared to death.
A few weeks later we went back up that trail. The dead gook was still there, only now he was just about dissolved. He couldn't have been more than an inch or two thick.
The 4 marks the approximate spot where we stopped one night. It was pouring down rain, you could hardly see your hand in front of your face. We were crossing some old paddies that were pretty well full of water. When we stopped I don't think we even tried to set up a perimeter. Doc Litzinger and I just dropped our gear in the water and sat on it all night, leaning against each other.
The 2 marks about where the Rock Crusher was. Every 30 days this is where we got to go for 5 days rest.