As Dennis and I sat together and looked through his photo albums, he pointed out this picture to me. How ironic that a photo would be taken at the very spot where he would be wounded.
I asked him to explain it to me.
Mary E. Rogers
October 30, 2004
This was his explanation:
WHERE I WAS WOUNDED
We left on this night Company size operation after dark on December 5th and I must have been wounded after midnight that night, because they credit me with being wounded on December 6th, 1968. I have to keep looking at the picture myself and will try to explain that night, where I was and where the VC shot me from.
If you look at the picture closely, in the immediate foreground you'll see the large rice paddy dike. It was literally as wide as a dirt road and used as such sometimes. The smaller dike leading off toward the hooches is the one we were going to take that night to cordon (circle) the village.
My squad had done a recon patrol earlier that day (when this picture was taken) to scout out the best route that night to lead the entire company on the operation. We would cordon the village to prevent any VC from leaving or entering there to get re-supplied or take more men to become VC. This was a known VC sympathizer village and the next morning at daylight, South Vietnamese troops and our own MACV intelligence people would go through the village checking ID cards, looking for the enemy, munitions, food and medical supplies.
That night, as we approached the village there was still a lot of activity and noise coming from it. I was lead squad that night and was radioed by the CO to hold in place until things settled down some. I was to put out flank security on both sides of the large dike at my location. I sent two of my men out on the left side and then I told John Miller, that he and I would take the right side toward the village and the route we'd be taking once given the go ahead from the CO.
When John and I left the rest of the squad that night, I left the radio with my radioman and told him when he was given the word to move out and come in the smaller dike toward the hooches where we'd be waiting on them. John and I walked in past the first hooch closer to the second one and where this dike intersected with another. We had been on the go almost 24 hours and both were dead tired. I told John to take the first watch, stay awake as long as he could, then wake me to take over until the rest of our Company came in to us and begin our cordon.
After John woke me up, I put on my helmet, picked up my M-16 rifle, all the while we were under the light from artillery supplied illumination rounds (large flares fired from 105 mm cannons) that were every where in the sky. The darkness was lit up almost as bright as daylight. The artillery rounds that delivered the illumination were falling to the ground and making whistling noises like High Explosive rounds do when they are incoming.
I could hear some splashing in the water behind me and they seemed very close. This distracted me for a few seconds, but then heard a very young child crying and drew my attention toward where it was coming from. I was facing the direction of the first hooch, so that I could see it, to my left toward the second hooch and also to my right and the direction of the main dike. Someone on the main dike or my two men on the other side must have spotted VC or something suspicious and called in the artillery illumination.
As I focused more on where the crying and noise was coming from, I realized it was from the hooch to my left. About that time I saw the door of the hooch open, saw an outline of someone standing in the doorway facing me. I was thinking it might be someone getting up to take care of the child, but then I saw a very bright flash. It had to have been the muzzle-flash of the AK-47 and VC that shot at me. The rounds from it hit me twice on the right side of my head.
I remember being pulled out of a wet rice paddy, which you can see these in the picture, was conscious, cold, soaking wet and John eventually cradling me in his lap. I remember him telling me how proud he and everyone were of me tonight and that Gale, my fiancée, would be very proud of me too. I remember the medic putting two large ace bandages on my head. Before he did this, I could feel something warm running down my face and into my eyes. After he did this that all stopped.
John continued to talk to me; trying to keep me awake. He mentioned that the rest of our squad would soon be coming right by me, as they must have been moving to find where the rounds that got me came from. As they went by me several patted me and said to hang on the chopper would be there soon. I recognized some of them and then later remember being pulled onto a stretcher. That's all that I remember until I regained consciousness at the 24th Evacuation Hospital in Long Binh.
I awoke to my arm and hand being tied to the side bed rail and someone telling me where I was. I never regained full consciousness until I arrived in Japan at the 249th Hospital. From here after I was stable, it was on to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, DC. I arrived there Christmas Day, 1968.