If I ever stayed at a miserable sh-thole of a place, this is it. The monsoon rains had begun in earnest & everything; the ground, your gear, the ponchos were muddy & wet. This is the only time I know of when Recon "dug in". We all spent some miserable nights in our muddy foxholes. There was no chance of setting up a shower in this place...an enemy cache site on a ridge in Cambodia. We hadn't been on the move as we usually were and so were not able to bath in the streams. All these … [Read more...]

First & most importantly, all of Recon's wounded survived. Sadly, Jerry 'the Degree' Trumm passed away this last year. I'm glad he lived so long. His greatest battle was fought from a hospital bed, which is described well by Hutch in his poem, Hero. You can read that under the SCRAPBOOK tab on this website. Please help me out here...I'm relying on my memory, ha,ha. Please post a comment or call me if you were there that day. I was confused whether it was Alpha or Delta that was there  … [Read more...]

"...it stands to reason you've got to have a war. Not because anybody wants it, of course, but because there's an army. Armies is for wars and wars is for armies. That's only plain common sense." "War's finished," said Tristram. "War's outlawed. There hasn't been any war for years and years and years." "All the more reason why there's got to be a war," said the soldier, "if we've been such a long time without one." The Wanting Seed -by Anthony Burgess   Once upon a time I was … [Read more...]

  “Standin’ on a corner in…” O rang, Cambodia. This has got to be the ultimate war souvenir/photograph.  Damn,  I shoulda had Cossey take my photo with this! That honor goes to Bruce Hammonds of Bessemer, Alabama displaying the  Cambodian National Flag in the traditional blue and red with the temple at Angor Wat. Recon walked into O rang early in May, 1970. There was a hospital, school, army base and an airstrip there. That would be a grass and dirt airstrip, of course. Not too … [Read more...]

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Bu Gia Map Late in April 1970 I had been out with Echo Recon for hardly more a month at most, but was now used to the routine. The routine patrol…the “poppy”; out & back, hopefully without any trouble. Point man, in this case, the Stallion. R. Springer followed by Cossey as back up, then a rifleman, Hammonds with the M-60. Delmer with the M-79, an RTO & several riflemen walking drag; watching to see if anyone was following. In the other squad it would have been Dob on point, followed … [Read more...]

Actually taken from a North Vietnamese soldier killed by Echo Recon on May 30, 1970. The VC were really a separate force under the NLF (National Liberation Front), but our Cambodian scouts always yelled, VC! VC! No matter who we encountered. So, a VC knife. And the scouts didn’t always yell, unless of course they were warning everyone we had been spotted and being silent no longer mattered then. That day started out bad and got worse. We had spent the night alongside the Ho Chi Minh … [Read more...]