 four o'clock in the afternoon rolls around. We're supposed to send a squad or a platoon out and check out the area. So we're strung out, going across this rice paddy. We're not in contact with anybody yet. We're trying to feel our way across and we get into a trench line that I'm sure was dug by the French many years ago. We're going along, it's kind of brushy, brushy area, so you're not sticking up like a sore thumb, but you're still not very well protected and you can't hide too well. And by this time we don't know it, but they know we're coming and they see us coming. They've already set up an ambush for us. And I look up and there's two NVA's quite a distance from me, I'll say over a hundred yards from me, stringing out Bob-Wire. So they're setting up some things there too at the base of the hill. Only the base of the hill is quite a ways away yet. And I see these little people coming down off the hill, bunches of them. And so I pointed at those two and got Hatton and Middorf's attention. And I pointed at the guy on the left and I pointed at myself, meaning I was going to get him and somebody else get him. So when I plugged him and they started firing and they got the other guy, all hell broke out up front. There was three trees growing together and I said to Sergeant Hatton, I said, I'm going to go over there by those trees and I'm going to pick some of those people off that are in that ambush. No doc, you don't go over there, he said to me. And I said, come on, come on Hatton, you know, I'm becoming quite a fighting man, I know what I'm doing. I think if I get over there by that tree that you'll be able to, we'll be able to see some people and I can pick them off. Don't go over there. I mean just like I just said it, don't go over there. Less than 15 seconds later, now we have no grenades for smoke to throw out. We're amongst the enemy, but the people coming overhead don't know that, they don't know where we're at. They don't know we're right there in the same vicinity. So I hear this sound of the helicopter coming in and I look up and a cobra is, I'm not kidding you, he is just overhead. And he takes and he spins and he points that nose down and he fires and that tree went into toothpicks. And I looked at Sergeant Hatton and he looked at me just like I told you so don't go over there. Now I'm realizing a split second realization that, no Jim, you're not Sergeant Hatton yet, listen to what he has to say. So I hear some commotion and I kind of look up out of the trench line. If you stood up high enough you could look up out of the trench line. I looked up on top of the berm and over by some bushes were two guys laying there. And I get over to them and just as I get to them, I hear this ungodly explosion. Well it was an RPG that exploded nearby me and just pelted me from head to foot. I felt it, I mean I felt a sting of it, but with the adrenaline flowing and knowing that here's two guys, let's get going here, we got to take care of them, what are you going to do now? I got down next to them and I said, you guys hit. But you could tell they were scared. They had no weapons, they had left their weapons out there where the ambush had hit. And I don't know how they got away from that ambush and up in this area, but they did. But I looked up on the berm and less, about ten meters away, there's two NBA looking at me just like I'm looking at you. Only they got AK-47s in their hands and I had given my weapon up in Folger and Aiken. They don't have any weapons either and I said, gentlemen, follow me. And I'm weaving and literally could hear and see the bullets skipping off the ground, they're firing at me. My last person to retrieve had a sucking chest wound and those are bad. Those are one of the worst. We needed a helicopter and we needed it quick because I knew that this guy is going to have to get in there quickly if we're going to save his life. Well, they couldn't get in. They were getting fired upon and they couldn't get in. When they did finally get in and I got everybody on, Lieutenant Carrier says to me, get on, Doc. No, I'm not getting on. I said, why not? I said to him, you're going to need me. As I said, I looked up on that hill and saw those little ants coming down that hill so I knew that it was a lot of people out there. How many? I still didn't know. Do you remember anything from 1500 to 2500? NVA and VC out there. They harassed us all night long. And Carrier, he called in rounds, artillery rounds and mortar rounds and that type of thing to keep them off and we'd have a couple of helicopters come over the top of the gunners on them during the night. I could just tell that they're not trying to get us, they're not trying to get us yet. There's a plan I think they've got and I don't know how long we're going to be here. I don't know if we're all going to leave here or none of us are going to leave here.