First Day in Vietnam
Jim (Tex) Alexander

 

Late in the evening Snuffy Dowdy and I flew to San Juan Hill.  I met the guys in second platoon.  I slept on the ground in the mud and it rained all night.  The next morning we loaded up on choppers and flew to a hot LZ.  One of the choppers was shot down. 

 

The LZ had elephant grass about 6 foot tall.  When we jumped off the choppers you couldn’t see which way to run.  You could hear automatic gun fire but couldn’t tell if it was friendly fire or VC.   There were about 6 of us with a radio man.  We couldn’t tell were the rest of the company was. We were told to start looking for the downed chopper.  We had to secure the chopper.

                

In our quest to find the downed chopper we heard something coming through the tall elephant grass.  We lined up to mow them down and they started yelling don’t shoot, don’t shoot it was nearly too late.  We were just seconds away from opening up.  They joined us and we found our way to the downed chopper.

 

We received fire for several hours until a big chopper came in and picked up the downed chopper.  Our company packed up and started a hump to our NDP.  

 

I remember thinking how am I going to stay alive for a year when the first day was such a close call.  The thought came to me, I just have 364 more days. 

 

Jim (Tex) Alexander