The previous picture of Golf Company's portion of LZ Ross was taken off to the left.
Notice the wire in the front of the picture. This was pretty much the way all the bases in Vietnam were protected. I wonder how many thousands of miles of barbed wire were used there.
When we were at Cobb Bridge they brought out an NVA sapper to give a demonstration of how the NVA got through the wire. He wore nothing but some shorts so that nothing would snag and give a warning. His only tool was a pair of sidecutters. The cutters had been filed down so that they did not quite meet. He lay on his back and scooted up to the first wire and cut as far through the wire as the side-cutters would allow. He then took the notched wire and worked it back and forth until he worried it in two. The two ends were then stuck in the ground as far apart as possible. He then scooted up to the next wire and repeated the process. He made it through several yards of wire in a very short time and never made a sound that amounted to anything.
If you look carefully you can see a shell casing just being ejected and a second casing about half way to the ground.
Frank Rodriquez, who was with Golf throught 1969, thinks the Marine furthest away, by the tree, may have been Sammy Sullivan and the one next closest was Milt Golden. If anybody out there has any input on this please let me know.
Tom "Babyson" Morrow is between Milt and the machine gunner. Tom would lose his right leg to a booby trap in mid September.
The limited amount of terrain visible in this picture makes me think it was taken in the area where PFC Richard P. Shelton was killed on August 25th. He was walking point and just walked up on a 50 cal. It took a long time to supress the fire and recover his body. As I remember the day, there were a couple of times they tried to flank us and get in our rear, only to be caught in the open. Maybe that's what we've got here.