Brought back memories of my own sandbagging and the one I talk about in my letters that got a few marines on Go Noi Island fucked up. I remember sandbagging a few ambushes during Taylor Common. Allowed us to get a better night sleep, especially when we'd end up in a poncho hootch with 5 or 6 marines. Also, our body heat kept us warm during all those wet dreary nights. During Taylor Common, I was one of the low men on the totem pole, so I really had no say in the sandbagging, but went along with it and kept my mouth shut.

When I was a squad leader, one day we were up on Hill 196 which was just SW of An Hoa. I t overlooked the basin. A sqaud, some times a platoon would be sent up there to try and spot 122 rocket sites as they fired on An Hoa. On this given day, the word had been passed to have my sqaud go on patrol down into a ville along the river. I had the guys saddled up, but before they began to move, a few of them started to say why not just go over the side of the hill out of sight and just radio in our check points. I didn't want to. Or I did, but didn't want to get caught and didn't know who I could trust to keep their mouth shut. But it was hot, and the ville was down the bottom of the hill, and it looked like booby trap country and the guys in my sqaud kept saying they would keep their mouths shut, so we did just what they had suggested, we moved below the ridge out of sight and got a few hours sleep, ate a few cans of C-Rats, radioed in false Pos Reps and survived another day in Vietnam. And everyone practiced Semper Fi. They kept their mouths shut.

Semper fi

Paul