Well, it's time to move out. We're still down here in Quang Ngi Providence along the South China Sea. There are a lot of caves along the shore and we have to check them out for a few clicks along the beach.

The beach goes right up against the cliffs and part of the way we have to wade through the waves. It's such a nice day; it seems a shame to be having a war. We don't find much for a while, just a few things that confirmed that charley was in the area. All of a sudden, we heard a few gunshots. One of the caves that was really low to the ground had a VC in it and he shot one of our men in the leg. We setup around the cave and tried to get the VC to surrender and come out. I had to go up the rocks above the cave a little ways and make sure there wasn't another way out. We threw in a tear gas grenade to try and get him out of there, but he had a homemade gasmask. I, on the other hand, wasn't as lucky. Some of the gas seeped up through a small hole and hit me. I hate teargas!!! He fired a few more shots out at us, and one of the guys threw in a hand grenade. After a few minutes, we hadn't heard anything from the cave so we sent in a private to check it out. The VC was dead. He had tried to pick up the grenade and throw it back out to us when it went off in his hands. It was a mess.

We took care of our wounded; it wasn't bad, and continued on. We came to an area and for some reason, called in an arty strike from a navy ship with five-inch guns. I don't really remember what was seen, but then, I was just a PFC.

It was getting late and the tide was starting to come in so we started to head back to camp. On the way back, we passed a small cave in the rocks that we had missed earlier. Being crazy as I was, I volunteered to go in and search the cave. It was starting to fill with water so I had to hurry and get in and get out. I was handed a flashlight and a .45, and went in.

It wasn't a very big cave. Bending over I could just barely fit, and I was a lot smaller then. The cave was dark with a little bit of light leaking in. Using the flashlight, I took a look around and didn't see anything at first. There wasn't anybody in there; or so I thought.

Up on one shelf of rock, in a small hole in the wall, there was a bundle of clothes. I poked it with the .45 a couple of times and it moved. I hate to admit it, but I jumped back a little and was scared by the movement. It was a VC that started to come out of that little hole that didn't look big enough to hide a bird. I knew if I fired the .45, a ricochet could hurt me just as much as the guy in the rocks. I don't know if he was as scared as I was, or if he was armed, I just killed him. I grabbed his head and beat him against the rocks. I did it as fast as I could and got the hell out of there. I didn't report this fact to anyone because I knew it would cause a lot of paperwork and problems. We really didn't want to take any prisoners at that time anyway.
That's one of the things that have sort of haunted me over the years, but sometimes we do things that have to be done without really thinking about what we are doing. Sometimes you can't take chances or time to think things out.

We made it back to camp and settled in for the night.

Another long day, but one less.