From Ray Rankin

This is Pfc. Donald Fields.  We were at Hotel Battery and he is under one of the hootches there.  Fields was wounded August 26th in Hiep Duc Valley.

From Ray Rankin

This was taken at Cobb Bridge.  Sgt. Jake Sphon on the left with the tatoos and Gus Mann is the one you can hardly see facing the camera.  Jake and Gus made it home ok. January 9, 2001.  Just got off the phone with Jake.  He now lives Leechburg, PA and seems to be doing very well.

This was taken at Cobb Bridge .  The men shown here were all from Hawaii.  We picked them up either toward the end of Oklahoma Hills or just after we got to Cobb Bridge.  That would have been right around the first of May.  By the end of August they were all gone except for John Pedro.  He is, I think, the one in the front middle.  Clarence Stevens is on the bottom right and Hayward Peleiholani is in the middle top, leaning on his hand.  I'm thinking that the Marine on the top left is Tellio. One of the other two on top is  Sasa Uli.  Sasa was killed by a booby-trap shortly after this picture was taken.  The Marine on the bottom left may be Curtis Kern. One day on a patrol in this area we came across a banana tree.  Pedro got pretty excited and decided to show us how to cook bananas, which he said his mother made for him when he was a kid.  We were usually happy to screw off and this looked like as good a reason as any.  He used his helmet to cook them in.  It took him a pretty good while and he fussed and fumed over it in a most satisfactory manner, and when he was done they really sucked.  But it was something to do and nobody complained.

From Ray Rankin

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