In our day to day lives at the 526th, we worked at our jobs, listened to music, played games, and pranked each other, not thinking about the war that much. We could hear the sounds of war in the distancealmost every night, a common thing that we became accustomed to.

We had Vietnamese civilians working for the Army but didn't think twice about it.We were young and and had never been never been anywhere near a war zone, let alone actually being in one. We didn't think the Vietnamese would be at all interested in attacking a junk yard. That all changed on April 9, 1968

I Was asleep in the bottom bunk. Pearson occupied the top. we heard gun shots and exploding grenades in our barracks. The guys were running to get ammo as we were taught in case of such an occasion. We had our weapons but no ammo as it was locked up. The higher-ups thought we couldn't be trusted not to shoot each other over some random argument.

I started top run but Pearson held me back because he saw otrhers who ran out were being shot. I owe my life to Pearson!