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Taken in the village just outside the Cobb Bridge base. Pretty typical of most of the the local stores/restaurants/bars you would find in that part of Vietnam. The Marine on the left by the girl is Wilson and the one on the right is Ronald Melendez. Just over Wilson's shoulder, leaning against the wall, is an M-14 which one of them preferred to carry rather than the M-16. |
| This is upstairs. The family had a shrine in probably what was their living area. The picture is probably of some family member. |
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| These are part of the family that ran the laundry outside Cobb Bridge. Just behind the young girl you can see some of the uniforms awaiting pickup. I suspect that they made a good living off of us. |
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| Lester Jones on the right with two "Kit Carson" scouts. Kit Carsons were former NVA soldiers that had defected to the south. They would travel with us and provide translator services and share their knowledge of the countryside. Their worth as a translator wasn't much as they rarely knew more English than we did Vietnamese. Typically, if translating was needed, you could find some kid that had hung around Americans most of his life to help you out. The Kit Carsons were pretty dependable. Since they had deserted from the NVA they knew their future was rather bleak if the South lost the war. Probably got hosed real good if they couldn't get out of the country in 1975 |
| From Joe Bonifas |
| From Joe Bonifas |
| From Joe Bonifas |
| From Joe Bonifas |
| Rik Pugh, the 1st Platoon commander from 3/69-7/69, says the man on the left was named Chi. He had been a VC and changed sides. The one in the middle was half French and a supporter of the South Vietnamese government. The NVA had pressed him into service as an ambulance driver during the battle of Hue. He got away from them and went to work for us. Rik said he ended up working for Regimental intelligence. |