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1 June 1970 D company in field There was not a record of 1 June 1970 in the Texas Tech archives. 2 June 1970 D company in field E company hears talking A company gets in contact. E company gets in contact requests a medevac for a captured soldier. A company gets in contact (again). We find a trail. Information obtained from the POW. The POW dies. 3 June 1970 D company in field A guy from B company has to get medevaced because of appendicitis. Well here it is! The log report about me getting hurt. We were walking down a hill and it had rained that morning so everything was still wet. I laughed as I watched as the company commander (Captain Perkins) slide down the hill in front of me. Remember I was carrying the radio and 7 days of food rations and 8 quarts of water. (we had just been logged the day before). This was about 100 pounds of stuff. I took about 2 steps and my feet came out from under me. I slid down the hill about 20 feet laughing all the way. When I got to the bottom I went to push myself up and felt something wrong. I looked at my left hand and it was bleeding like crazy. I had sliced open my arm just above my wrist on a piece of bamboo that was split open and laying along side the trail. Tendons were sticking out and it didn't look real good. Funny thing was it didn't hurt! The XO Lt. Wiggins saw what had happened and came sliding down after me. I kept telling everyone it didn't hurt and couldn't be that bad (although everyone else thought it was). The XO yelled back for a medic (this would have been Doc Brown) who slid down to me. He put a field dressing on me and said to call for a medevac. Being the "radio guy" I grabbed the radio and called for the chopper. They kept telling me to take the radio off my back but hey I was the RTO and I would be damned if I would give it up. All of the call log is what I called in. The Battalion RTO back on the LZ was a guy named Joe (we called him JoJo). When I called in I gave him the following ID for the wounded person "Last name first Sierra, last four 0911". He called back and said "repeat?" I gave it to him again and added "jojo it's me!" This was the reason for the double log. The medic finally convinced me to give up the radio. Since we were down in a canyon and the helicopter couldn't land there they asked if I wanted to walk out to an area that was open so they could pick me up. I asked the artillery officer to look and see how close that would be. When they said about 2 kilometers I said no way. So the next alternative was to hall me up on a cable. There were 2 options, either a "jp" (jungle penetrator) or a rigid litter. I decided a JP would be the best bet since I really wanted to keep my wrist elevated. This was when they took all of my stuff away including my ammo can that had my cassette tape player along with all the pictures I had. Never did see that stuff again! I made them let me keep my helmet on since I knew I was going to be pulled up on a cable and VERY visible to the enemy. About then the medevac chopper showed up and they dropped the cable down to me. As you can see by the log I had requested a cobra gun ship to circle the area just in case the enemy started shooting. When I finally made it aboard the medevac chopper they took me to a small military hospital I believe it would have been in Song Be since that was the closest place to where we were. The place looked just like the aerial shot that is in the beginning of the TV show MASH. I got off the helicopter and they removed the dressing took one look and said "your going to Bien Hoa". As I was sitting there waiting for another chopper to take me to the hospital in Bien Hoa, in walks another guy from our unit. Turns out he fell down the same hill and cut his hand on the same piece of bamboo as I did!
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