because of the weight of the gear each man carried. As M-79 man for my squad I was required to carry a hundred and fifty rounds of HE. On top of that there was the ever present helmet and flak jacket, a half dozen canteens, a forty-five, at least six frags, and a pack which threatened to cut my arms off with a dozen C-ration meals, writing gear, a poncho liner, utility shirt, poncho, maybe a claymore, and a bar of C4. Id have a rubber bitch (air mattress) on the hill but never carried one in the bush because of the weight. I figured it up one time and the weight of the gear I carried totaled close to my own body weight. The other guys carried similar loads and they weren't near as big as me. It didn't take many of us to make a load for the old 46's, though I am sure they could have carried more of us considering the size of the externals I had seen them haul.

It was business as usual on the hill. At least two squads had three men each out on OP (observation post) during the day and a squad in the jungle on patrol. At night there would be a listening post of three men out in a couple of locations, usually on the finger ridges that led to the hill, and a squad on ambush somewhere out there. We also ran "killer teams" from time to time. These were volunteer missions of five or six guys moving fast and light. No flak gear and only a couple of C-rat meals. We were spread thin around the
perimeter because of this and the shortages were occasionally filled by "arty" guys.

Our positions were always between the artillery and the bad guys, but I can tell you that I had no desire to be on top of the hill. I watched the guys in artillery hump ammo all day and listened to them fire missions seemingly all night long. We had legs. Hard sinewy legs from humping the jungle day in and day out. But the arty guys had arms. We were all just a bunch of skinny shits but you could see the muscle definition in the biceps and shoulders of the guys up top. No! I didn't want any of that.

The days were interminable on Russell. The weather socked us in and the country was as rugged as any in South Viet Nam. Both took there toll. Our patrols were pretty routine. We'd head out at dawn and follow a route which was determined by the officers. Usually it was the same route day after day. We'd go out through a gate in the wire and follow a trail through the jungle. At the prescribed check points we would call in our positions. It was hard to keep track of where you were out there. The triple canopy jungle made it
impossible to see landmarks so you noted the hills and valleys as you came to them and kept track on the topo map. We saw little or no sign of NVA during these walks, but we knew they were there. On the hill we had many days of fog. Some guys would say the hawk was flying, but the French called it the Krakin. It was a thick pea soup fog which rolled in from the sea and it worked on all of us mentally.

But the worst time was at night. Damn they were dark. My fighting hole and sleeping hooch were right above the bases trash dump. It was a huge bomb crater on the side of the hill. It seems everyone brought there trash there and it was full of cardboard and empty C- ration cans. The hole was in a pretty good position to defend. Nothing could come straight at you without making all kinds of racket. The hills curved up toward a ridge finger just to the left. It was covered by another fire team and my hole had good visual
contact with them. The big problem was that off to the right was another smaller finger which came into the hill. The next hole in that direction was out of sight because of the lay of the land. Tactically it was a bad
situation for the defenders. The next hole should have been on that finger. All the gooks would have to do was take out my hole and they could just walk to the top of the hill. I can remember talking to the officers about the situation. The solution posed was to have us stand our watch over on that finger. That put us at least 30 yards from our fighting position. It was pretty hairy sitting there at night alone. The jungle was closer to the wire at that point than any where else. I know I didn't like it one bit and spent many nights puckered up pretty tight sitting there in the dark. We threw a lot of frags on Russell. There were always sounds out there in the dark beyond the wire. At night in the bush there were sounds and then there
were SOUNDS. Russell was one of those places that just gave you the creeps. I never needed intelligence reports to tell me the gooks were there. I knew it in my guts and so did the rest of the guys. You'd be sitting there on watch and start hearing the noises. Subtle little noises that made your stomach tighten. Wed usually get another guy to sit there and listen until we both agreed it was worth throwing a frag. Then we would both "fling" one out and down. We never needed permission to throw frags on that hill. At other locations we did.

As 79 man I was often called to other sections of the lines to recon by fire. I'd go to a hole where the guys were hearing things or seeing stumps move in the dark and shoot a few HE rounds into the tree line. The idea was to draw return fire. It never worked, but knowing that the flashes from the muzzle of my "blooker" was likely to draw heat made me shoot and move. Fast!! One night in particular was spooky and I got real lucky. 

The LP had movement and finally got permission to come in. Our platoon commander called me up to the finger next to the trash dump. The LP was just coming through the wire when my squad leader over run. What I heard was that the gooks blew my hole and came through the hole there. I don't know. That's what I was told.

There had been a big log just above the trash pit which helped form a small flat on the side of the hill where our hole was positioned. Behind that about 10 yards was a huge log which was suspended off the ground 3 or 4 feet. It ran across in front of my sleeping hooch. We had built the hooch out of 105 boxes we had filled with dirt. We had made bunks inside by laying engineer stakes between the boxes and sliding the cardboard sleeves from C-rat cases over them. When done it was light and water tight with a poncho roof. It kept the rain off of us and let us have a light at night from our barn burner candles which were made of the waxed cloth from mortar round cases.