Jacob Casady

Hist 153
Module 11: A Day in the Life
6/18/15

PFC. Herald Fitzgerald, USMC, 21st Rifle Company, Loch Ninh Military Outpost, Binh
Long Province,
-October 28th 1967, 1950 hours
Last week my regiment received orders to pack up and deploy to this new
location and once we get here we are told to set up and get comfortable, as if
anyone could relax in this war. Whether it day or night theirs a constant state of
alarm among my fellow marines. Upon first arriving in this god forsaken jungle I
didnt quite understand the panic I felt in the air but now it is an all too familiar
feeling. Just last month a camp not too far from ours was burned to the ground, the
Viet Cong snuck in under cover of night ambushing the sentries and killing the
sleeping marines where they lay. After hearing the news I havent been able to
sleep, when my eyes grow heavy and I begin to drift off I can feel hands around my
neck trying to smother me and I awaken. However night is not the only cloak the
Viet Cong dawn, during the day every sound in the jungle is ill omen. Tunnels litter
the jungle floor any number of which 10 or 20 Viet Congs could spring from at any
moment. Crews are often deployed to demolish the tunnels but new ones pop up
every day. I pray for the brave men who crawl into them in search of the enemy,
each tunnel is no more than a foot or two tall with just enough room to crawl. How

the natives move so quickly through them is a mystery to us all. The most
nightmarish of all this are the traps. The Vietcong have grown keen to building
pitfall and Punji stick traps. I was patrolling with my squad one day when our point
man stepped on a trip wire, a large branch adorned with sharpened bamboo fell
from a nearby tree and impaled his body with enough force to lift him off his feet, its
images like these that will haunt me till the day I die. If that isnt bad enough they
have begun setting booby traps on other booby traps. Land mines and tripwire
grenades are another big problem out here in the jungle, but the Viet Congs have
begun setting live grenades under the already live explosives, so when engineers
try to disarm them the secondary explosive goes off. I hate them for the death and
suffering they have brought to me and my men, but I must say they are the craftiest
and most dedicated soldiers I have ever seen. Lately Ive been missing my family
more than ever, I sit here now imagining what my little brother might be for
Halloween this year and I can barely remember his face. My sentry duty is almost
over, but I swear Ive heard voices out in the trees; I will inform the next sentry and
my CO once I am off.

Work Cited and Source:

http://www.vietnamwar.net/LocNinhBattle.htm, Battle of Loch Ninh