Crossing the Song Tran (Tran River), heading west into Indian territory.

When I was trained, I can remember the DI's yelling at us (their normal mode on communication) to spread out. The reason this is standard military procedure can be seen here. One hand grenade or mortar round can take out one hell of a lot more men when they are too close together. Of course, there is the other problem that when the force is 100 men in column, there's way to much distance between the front and back of the column.

Okay. Look very carefully at this photo. What's your optical conclusion? Are we going up hill, down hill or level?

Our second day humping through the mountains. This dude is NOT SF. He was a CI (counter intelligence) man who was spending some time at Tien Phouc. He wanted a little time in the field and we let him go along. You might note that he is carrying an M-1 carbine and knows enough (unlike me at that time) to tape two magazines together. But he used masking tape. We used black electrical tape for everything.

What the hell could have I been so happy about. Well, I'd been in the field for 2 days and was still alive. And we were taking a break at last.

I'd swear, he said the trail was right here a day ago. Damned rain forest!

Or maybe it's here . . .

Screw the damned trail. We'll find it later.

Okay. So we couldn't find the trail. We don't have to tell them that. Here's what we'll do. We'll blame it on that CI leg.

Back to 'civilazation' at last.

You might notice that after humping through mountains and rain forest for 3 days, one does not feel like moving around a lot. This photo was taken 1 1/2 hours after the one above.