things other than the enemy. This picture shows a couple of guys from my platoon trying to put out a fire in the village where Mai lived - right next to the mountain we were trying to ride the tanks around when one was blown up. This was a futile attempt when you consider the fire was in a grass hootch (shack) that comprised all the homes in the village. And - there was no running water so they had to get one bucket at a time, but they at least tried to help the villagers salvage anything they could. We never found out how the fire got started since there was no electricity except in major cities during the war.
If you look closely at the top of the hill you will see an observation post from which Montangnards were stationed to supposedly keep watch for VC and NVA. We later found out that the guys up there traded rice from Louisiana to the VC that had been given to them by our command. My platoon found around a ton of it just down the river buried in sand.
Since you are new posting- if you haven't been reading T-Net for the last year, click on my username and scroll back over posts from 2020 and you will see almost weekly posts .