One of the oddest things that I ever saw in Vietnam took place here. There was a main road that ran through our base. Every day several hundred Vietnamese would cross the bridge and pass through the base on their way to and from the local market. Whoever planned the base put the shitter right next to the road. Since only the bottom half of the walls were solid plywood and the the upper 4 feet were screen you could watch the world pass by as you took care of business. So there we would sit, pants around our ankles, while less than ten feet away dozens of folks passed by in plain sight.
The picture was taken in 1st Platoon's hootch. They are probably writing letters home. We rarely slept in the hootches. If we weren't out on a platoon sized three day sweep, or on a squad sized ambush, we would have slept on the line where we stood our watches.
From the right to the left we have: George Metzger, shot and killed on Sept. 9th in the Que Son mountains; Ray Rankin, wounded by a morter round Aug. 26th (Ray had been in the hospital in Danang for heat and had some light duty coming to him when he returned to Golf Co. on the afternoon of the 26th. He refused this and returned to the directly to the company in the field when he found out how badly we needed him. He volunteered to walk point and within the hour was wounded.) Jerry Southard, wounded Sept. 18th in the Que Son mountains. Rick Cortese, had his leg broken when he was shot in the leg Aug. 24th in Hiep Duc valley.
February 10, 2001. Rick Cortese called me today. He now lives in Huntington Beach, CA. Rick was the M-79 man in Robert Martinez's squad. They were trying to retrieve the three dead we had left the day before. The shot that wounded him broke his leg and Pedro caried him back down the hill under fire. When they were first opened up on Clark "Powerhouse" Mills was shot in the leg also. Sgt. Ferguson ordered Rick to move up and use Mills' body for protection and start firing his Blooper. When Mills heard that he yelled, "I'm not dead." Ferguson turned to Rick and said, "In that case get up there in front of him and protect him." Really sounds like something he'd say.
This was Sgt. Tom Ferguson's signature statement.
This picture has Sgt. Tom Ferguson and myself drinking a lukewarm beer. I have either just gotten back from the hospital in Danang or am getting ready to go. From drinking out of rivers, and more than once stagnate bomb crater water, I had contracted a liver fluke called Leptospirosis. I was medivaced by helicopter when the Corpsman noticed that I couldn't stay awake. We were on a patrol along the river around Tugboat. Everytime we would stop I'd fall asleep. When he took my temp late in the evening it was 104. When it was no better in the morning they called a medivac for me. When they weighed me at the hospital I came in at a less than chunky 122 pounds.
Tom was wounded August 29th. Some gook dropped an M79 round next to him and shredded his upper arm as he was trying to bring in some wounded. I was first told he was dead. When I found out he was still alive I went over to where he was and tried to cheer him up, you know tell him he was going to be ok and all that. Tom was an interesting, but strange guy, he absolutely loved being in Vietnam. He had been in the army and had already spent 2 years in Vietnam. He enlisted in the Marines when the Army wouldn't promise to send him back to Vietnam. Anyway, when I tried to cheer him up he just laughed at me. I remember this like it was yesterday, he told me "I've been over here a long time and seen lots of them come and go, and I'm going. Even if I live the best I can hope for is to lose the arm. This is just the way I wanted to go." A strange man, but no whiner. About a year after my getting home I got a letter from him. He didn't die (well - DUH ), didn't lose the arm, and was back in Vietnam.
May 2002. Rik Pugh, who was the 1st Platoon Commander, told me he saw Tom Ferguson at the airport in Danang in July 1970. Rik was going home after extending his tour and Tom was just getting back. Alan Duval who was wounded around the same time as Tom told me that he was in a full body cast when he saw him in the hospital.