so i m firing. all of a sudden my gun stops. abruptly. dead stopped. firing a gun for a while, you know. he and i. smoke coming off the gun. we are firing the hell out of it, this machine gun. i don t know. we weren t trained for this stuff. what the hell is this? we are under attack. my gun ain t working. .45 isn t going to go good at all. i don t think i was trained for this. you do what you have to do. i opened up the cover. and leaned over and looked down in the gun. i could see a brass round jammed in there. so i thought only thing you can do is picked the gun up. laying down. picked the gun up. slammed it down on the ground and picked it back up. looked in there. and it was gone. knocked it out. put the ammo back in, put the plate down and the cover. cockpit. pressed it. pressed the trigger. it worked. that s what the assistant gunner is for. assistant gunner lays to your left. he feeds you ammo. you put it in the machine gun. keeps the ammo off the ground. anythi
i see he s holding his stomach screaming. it freaks you out, this instant thing that s happening here. so russell adams broke off to the left. i didn t see my ammo bearer. he was behind me. so i wanted to stay close to russell. i ran after him. we were actually running parallel to the creek bed now, going straight at the mountain, chupong mountain. and then it just kept escalating, the battle. but that was just the start of it right there. right. instantly i saw at least two guys killed and maybe three guys wounded. all in a matter of five seconds. so that scares the hell out of you. i m running. now my juices are flowing. i spot adams, and i catch up to him. and russell s firing a machine gun. we weren t even there at that point. we re going parallel to the creek bed. and he just keeps going. from the original setting where we landed he moved 50, 75 yards up toward the mountain. and he came to a resting place i guess he felt comfortable with. or maybe we couldn t go any
that s when i come back to russell. you re still carrying your ammo boxes? yeah. i picked the ammo boxes and i take them up. so this all happened, the run from russell initially back to first aid and then back up i bet you was within like five to ten minutes. right. so it took me like a minute to wrap him up, toboda. and a minute but i m running this distance, 75 and 75, whatever it was. and i m exhausted. dodging these bullets and grenades. extremely emotional. i m laying on the ground. the ground s cracking under me. the dirt s flying up. and bullets cracking by your head and everything. so you have to jump and dodge, try to weave, end up not making an easy target for them. so i m trying to stay alive. i m laying down, like totally exhausted. i can t move anymore. eventually got up off my ass to get russell. so i finally catch up to russell, come up, get more ammo, another belt of ammo and the gun. and off to his left and our rear, just less than ten yards is this
he walked right by, said okay, boys, let s go, follow me. we turned around and followed him into the creek bed, that area, which is thick jungle there. our landing zone is fairly flat. we aukd off that flat area into the thick jungle. and i don t think it went ten steps and all hell broke loose. the firing, the machine guns, the bombs, the grenades. real scary, real hectic. lieutenant taft gets shot and killed. the guy in front of me, jerry kirsch, gets machine gunned across his stomach. he s no more than two, three yards in front of me. the guys to the left and right of me, one got shot, one got wounded. jerry rolls over on his back, screaming for his mother top of his lungs. i see he s holding his stomach screaming. it freaks you out, this instant thing that s happening here. so russell adams broke off to the left. i didn t see my ammo bearer. he was behind me. so i wanted to stay close to russell. i ran after him. we were actually running parallel to the creek bed now, goi
you know, fight to turn out like russ so be it. let s go. and for real. so there i am. i spot little bit direct in front of me which is 4050 yards. off to the left i had 100 yards. that s the way we went into 2 jungle. so i was comfortable with straight ahead to the left. not in the jungle. come close here. stuff moving, just fire in there, you know. but i spotted two, lee, four movement in front. i pird. bolts, smacking. still don t now i didn t get hit. i don t know if they are coming from the front or the side or what. bump. you know. dirt kicks up. trying to keep your head down and keep firing. so i m pyring. all of a sudden my gun stops. abruptly. dead stopped. it is mely. . firing a gun for a while, you know. he and i. smoke coming off the gun. we are firing the hell out of it, this machine gun. i don t know. we weren t trained for this stuff. what the hell is this? we are under attack. my gun ain t working. .45 isn t going to go good at all. i don t think i w