Jack Cunningham recalls what he remembers when he served in Vietnam. He tells of CAP (combined action program) basically what is known as a peace corps with rifles and how it was basically a suicide squad due to all of the CAP forces being wiped out. A little after he arrived at CAP training communist rockets slammed upon a village that was a little outside the compound where he had conducted his training. A couple of weeks after he had been assigned to a village he was taking up guard on a forty foot tower when an enemy sniper had opened fire upon him. He dared not fire back, because of the fear of hitting a civilian. A week later he was stationed in the village of Phu Da."My first night in the village an intelligence report said that over 200 communists were coming to wipe us out. There were about eight Marines, one Navy corpsman, and twenty Vietnamese Militiamen called popular forces (Pfs) to hold them off. A Marine, who was there a while, who started telling George Dros and I how scared he was. He really thought this was it; and even started talking about our deaths. (We were actually figuring out when our parents would get our bodies for burial.)" Said Cunningham. That night he and the others did not night, because for some odd and unexplainable reason the communists had left. A few nights later while they were out on patrol the enemy had ambushed them by throwing a couple of grenades; their Sergeant and three other PF militiamen were injured, quickly they had returned fire on them sending them fleeing back into the jungle. They would have chased after them farther, but the Sergeant was too injured and they didn't think he was going to make it.
Cunningham goes on more about the rest of his stay in Vietnam and it's a really great story you can read it at, http://www.capveterans.com/ I just didn't want to bore anyone by going any further.
What an inspriring story. This man has great integritry, to not shoot back because he might hit a civilian even though this could mean his life, i respect this man.
ReplyDelete