I've never really thought that I was going to die before, but that night I truly believed I would. It was hell as no civilian and hardly any Marine can imagine. No words can describe it and no one can begin to appreciate it unless he has lived through a similar situation. Firefights and heavy contact are not even in the same league. This is something special. I have never fought so hard in my life. I have never wanted to see dawn break so badly. -Cpl Cottrell Fox
Uncle Jake,
They finally pulled us out of that hell hole. At least half our company is either wounded or dead. After I wrote to you, there was a lull in the mortaring. We waited a while to see if it had really stopped and then we called it in. Some asshole in the rear told us he wanted the surrounding hills, especially the main one, where most of the fire had been coming from. It was a load of crap, and our captain knew it, but he had to leas us up there anyway. We started up that hill and they let us get about halfway up before taking out machine guns. Oh, it was hell, Uncle Jake. There's not supposed to be such a place, I know, but there's no other way to describe what entailed. David was next to me and we both hit the ground to escape the fire. There was an enemy machine gun about ten yards to our front and a little to the left. We crawled for it and while they were firing the other way, we rose up a bit and killed the three men operating it. Directly behind them was a spider hole so Dave threw a grenade in it. We didn't stick around to see if anyone came out. There was another machine gun directly to the right that was pinning down most of our unit. Dave managed to catch the attention of Billy Johnson and motioned we were going to try to take the gun and not to shoot. A minute later, we were crawling towards the gun. Before we could shoot them, though, one of the gooks noticed us. Dave just opened up and I did, too. There was no other choice. We crawled the rest of the way and some gook stuck his head out of a spider hole nearby. I shot him. It lasted for another couple hours before we pulled back. There were too many of them, but they suffered a lot of losses. Choppers came in quick, I don't know where from, and pulled us out. As we were leaving, a couple planes came down and dropped napalm on the hill we had just fought on. It exploded into flames. I don't see why they didn't do that in the first place, before sending us up there. It was suicide going there. I'd like to meet whatever asshole gave us that order and show him what he did. It was just so senseless. And you know he's never going to come out in the field. No, he's gotta protect his own fat ass.
I haven't gotten a chance to read all the mail from you, Bernie and Mom yet, and I don't think I will until I get some rest. I just wanted to tell you I was finally safe. They're giving us three days rest, no patrols, no guard duty, nothing. I can't wait to get some hot chow. Well, more hot chow I should say. When we finally got back, the cooks made us some food. Guys (those of us left) are collapsing into bed. One guy fell asleep in his food. His buddies brought him back to their tent. I hope I never see anything this bad again. I just want to go home, perhaps more than ever. I heard that they're flying another company in to make sure we don't get hit while we're down and recuperating. That would be low, even for the dinks. I'll sign off now, as this has gone on longer than expected and my cot is calling. I'll catch up on reading later, and responding. Tell Mom I'm fine, same with Bernie.
Love,
John