It was May 3, 1969. We had been in the Ashau Valley somewhere near Khe sanh all of April. The Ashau was a living hell. Most of us caught Malaria, went without food for days and had to fight the NVA for water at a river near Laos. They promised us the May operation was going to be a cake walk operation. They said it was only a security operation near Quang Tri with little expected contact. The Operation was Virginia Ridge.

Now we had a large NVA force bottled up in a valley. All four Companies were on the mountains surrounding them. My squad had a foxhole on a main trail leading into our perimeter. 3rd Platoon had passed through during the night headed for an ambush setup a distance from us. I spoke to the Lieutenant at a squad leader meeting and he was concerned. "They have to make or break tonight. We have them trapped and the jets will tear them up again in the morning,' He had told me.

I knew what he meant. The NVA would have to pick a mountain and try and break through one of the 4 Companies and make a run for it.

I met with each hole that had four Marines in and told them to be alert.
I was worried. This would not be good. The NVA are fierce fighters when trapped and they were trapped. Delta Company sat across the valley from us on another mountain. Bravo and Charlie were north and east of us.

I checked my machine gun hole before turning in for a few hours sleep. I sat and ate some cold lima beans and ham and drank some water from my canteen. I still had a small can of peaches the Food Mart had sent me. I opened them and passed them around to the other Marines in our hole. Each man took a small spoonful of peaches.

Being a squad leader still meant hole watch. I generally stayed in the hole with the most Marines and slept a little more, as hole watch was divided equally.

I slept for about an hour when I was awakened by one of the Marines. Our night vision had detected movement on Delta's Mountain. The NVA were climbing in hordes up the mountain.

My Lieutenant came to our hole to look at our night vision. He seemed very nervous and took me aside afterwards. He gave me a concussion grenade or what appeared like one. He told me if it gets bad and we are losing to use the grenade. I do not know to this day what type of gas it had in it. He later retrieved it from me after the battle.

It was dark but there was a little moonlight. We suddenly heard machine gunfire from Delta Company's position.

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