The First Patrol

September 25, 1967

I can’t believe what I have just witnessed. It was the most horrifying sight I have ever seen. Jenkins is gone. I can’t get his face out of my mind. His face pale white and mouth foaming. His eyes full of shock and pain. Blood gushing scarlet out of his wound. Then everything was still and he was gone, just like that. It is a strange thing to meet someone one day, and have them gone only days later. I just met Jenkins. I didn’t know him all that well, but for some reason I feel as though I have lost a part of me. One minute he was walking and talking with me, and the next, he was lying there dead. It makes me feel as though someone reached in my chest and twisted something.
The day started out normally. The company was playing games and watching TV when a Sergeant Simpson announced that we would be going on patrol. We got our gear and loaded into a chopper. We flew for about ten minutes and then reached the landing zone or the LZ. We all jumped out. I was excited. I had trained for this reason. We walked through woods and rice paddies, looking for signs of the Vietcong, or the guerilla forces of the Vietnam. The whole time, I imagined Vietcong ambushing our small group. Finally, Sergeant Simpson called the chopper to pick us up at a different zone than the one we had landed in.