Timeline, May 29th

[David]

SECOND INDOCHINA WAR:
May 29, 1957 (1st day of the 5th month, Year of the Rooster [Dinh Dau]): Communist Pathet Lao attempt to seize power in Laos.

May 29, 1964 (18th day of the 4th month, Year of the Dragon [Giap Thin]) (US Advisory): Operation Dan Chi begins.

May 29, 1967 (21st day of the 4th month, Year of the Goat [Dinh Mui]) (US Counteroffensive Phase II): The 18th CAB launches its first Firefly mission in the Chu Lai AO.

May 29, 1968 (3rd day of the 5th month, Year of the Monkey [Mau Than]) (US Counteroffensive Phase IV): A/7/17 locates a mortar position near Dak To.

[Andy]

May 29th, 1969 was assigned to Company ?C? 52nd Infantry, a bastard company in a bastard Battalion. We were Infantry who had already spent a year in Vietnam, had extended and were based in Saigon. One platoon, mine, worked 6PM to 6AM, one day off per month. Depending on man power we road in two or three man jeeps. No roof, no doors, no windshield but had a roll bar and an M-60 mounted on the passenger?s side dashboard. Sort of a swat team for the 716th MP?s.

On the 29th, around 8 PM there were three explosions within just a minute or two on either side of the same block on a street called Trung Hung Dow (sp). This road ran from the very center of Saigon into the Cholon (sp) district. Three of our gun jeeps got there prior to any of the mobile MP?s. Being the ranking person on the scene I stood next to my jeep, one foot up on the seat and started barking into the radio asking for assistance from the MP?s in blocking off the area and calling for EOD. A rather attractive 17 year old hooker was standing in a crowd on the edge of the sidewalk in a red scooped neck mini dress, matching stiletto heels and a pocket book. (Don?t know why I remember her so clearly? OK, I do remember why.)

When I wasn?t looking directly at her, she threw her pocketbook at our jeep. Her pocket book contained nuts, bolts, ball bearings, nails, shards of glass and about a quarter pound of plastic explosives. A frag, a ball bearing a little bigger than a ? inch, hit me in the upper, inner left thigh - just missed!

Story has a happy ending, another of the gun jeeps drove into the crowd, making people dive out of the way. Then George Dragoon opened up with his 60 and damn near cut the bitch in two.

After Vietnam I went to the local VA hospital, got a check up, x-rays, all that stuff. Then returned every three to five years for a check up. There is an older nurse who, after all these years remembers me. If I get within 100 feet of radiology she says hello in her own special way. ?Hey, I remember you, you?re the guy with three balls!?

Stay healthy,
Andy