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From: Francis Hamit
Date: 7/2/2002
Time: 12:45:30 AM
Remote Name: 209.86.213.81
Oh, we used to look forward to guard duty because we got to sleep until noon the next day. It was a break in routine. We'd take C-rats for a meal. They paired us up, some times more than that (onwe night I was in a position with four other guys) TOC was pretty good about coming out if you heard a sapper cutting wire...sort of a ping. They'd come out, shine the searchlight over the stuff out front, thank us for the report and go back. One thing for sure, that ping kept you alert for the rest of the night. We had one MP who liked to go on guard duty, not just with his M-16 and 45, but also a M-2 carbine he had acquired on the black market, a 12 gauge, several grenades and two or three very sharp knives. He was a trip! He only weighted about 130 and was tall and skinny. He was alos the only guy in our untit to get a purple heart. He caught a little piece of flak from an RPG when a convoy he was with got ambushed. He was very active in driving off the VC and probably should have had a Bronze Star as well, but the CO didn't like him much, so that was that. (Nothing the CO could do about the Purple Heart...once the medical officer issues the certificate, it's pretty much automatic.)