All at once it came over a rise, right at us. It was probably unarmed, but we weren't up to that sort of rational thinking at the moment. Being scareder than anybody else, I dove back into the bunker first. Two or three guys piled on top of me. The rocket fizzled out, and we crawled back outside. On with the day's work.

A few hours later, my side began to hurt like crazy and it got hard to breathe. Off to sick call. "Cracked ribs. You want I should tape 'em up?" said medico. "Will it help?" I asked. "No. And you will sweat the tape off in an hour or so. But it's about all we can do."

Nuts. A week of swearing at the pain, no way to get comfortable, hurts to breathe, hurts to lie down, hurts *not* to lie down. Then it's over.

Six months later, on ROTC duty in East Texas, the Colonel asks if I can get my wife to the office, in a cocktail dress, over lunch. I oblige, mystified.

Then the local small-town press show up, and the rest of the staff, all crowded into the Colonel's office. You guessed it: a Purple Heart for me has arrived in the mail, only by now I have no idea what it's for. Until, that is, I see the date on the citation: June 6, 1967.

Now my wife is mad as hell at me because I was wounded and never told her; the press wants details, as does the Colonel and my mates; the college newspaper sends student reporters to interview me.

I did what any honest, self-respecting captain in the pride of his gut-eating youth would do: I looked modest and said it really wasn't anything I wanted to talk about.

Well, until now.