From George Lepre

This was sent to me by George Lepre.  It is the report of Pfc. Terry Smith's death.  He had only been in country for 8 days.  He was part of the replacements we picked up after Hiep Duc Valley. George wanted to know what I knew about Terry's death.  As you can see from the report his death was from "friendly fire".   He seemed suprised to find out that I had never heard of him.  We were living a violent life in the summer of 1969.  Death and violence was far from an uncommon occurance.  He probably was in another platoon anyway.  It didn't make enough of an impression on me to even mention it in the diary.  By the time Terry Smith was killed almost everyone I knew was gone and it was hard to get to know "new guys" it just seemed that we had little or nothing in common.

May 1, 2000.  I received an email today from Mr. Lepre.  He had been in contact with Terry Small's family.  Shortly after his death they had received a letter from the company commander, 1st Lt. Larrison.  He had told them that Terry had seen some movement in front of his position and had thrown a grenade.  It evidently hit a tree and bounced back to him.

From Travis Skaggs

Vietnamese money.  50 Dong (pronounced Dome).  If you look on the note you will see the D has a bar through part of it.  If it has the bar it is pronounced like a "D", if not, it is more like a "Y".  I have no idea how much this was worth in 1969, I suspect it wasn't much.  No idea how or when I came to have it.

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