Soon after the firefight began we could hear the men calling for a 60. A fellow named Hartu in the squad ahead of me had an M-60, but it was in need of parts and would not fire. My M-60 also had problems, but with the help of some wire from a C ration box, I had secured the trigger mechanism so the weapon was still working. I was the gunner next in line up the trail.

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It was one of those times when you just started putting one foot in front of the other. You tried to focus on getting where you had to go and on what had to be done when you got there. You tried to shut out the screaming of adrenaline in your ears and the noise from the firefight.

I topped the hill at an awkward trot, lugging the machine gun and three ammo belts. Nearing the squad under the bunker, I could see the medic with Andujar. The rest of the riflemen were returning fire, shooting up at the ridge. I could see no free cover at the line. Stopping about 15 feet up the trail, I flopped the loaded ammo belt free, checked for a round in the feed tray slot and opened up with six-round bursts at the ridge where the flashes from the AK-47s could be seen. The men in the squad below did not like the M-60 rounds going out only a couple of yards over their heads. They barked at me to get down in line with them. I eventually made it down to the medic, stepped over Andujar and opened fire again from a sitting position on the trail below. The medic was trying to work on Andujar, but his blood had been draining down the hill toward me. Soon I was sitting in it. There were flashes at the ridge, and I tried to return fire in force.

A grenade sailed out from the ridge above and exploded just up the trail. To make matters worse, our unit positioned M-79 grenade launchers at the top of the hill behind us. They had no idea where we were, and their rounds would hit the canopy and explode in the trees above us. Behind the hill, someone called for artillery and tried to direct the gun crews located at the fire support base. In the confusion, the big guns walked two massive rounds toward us from the right, and a third came in over us, hitting just to our left. Small trees and clumps of mud were falling every which way. When we yelled for them to get on the radio and stop the artillery, someone in the rear called for a Cobra. Soon the thing was in our area, putting out a lot of rounds. With a tracer every fifth round, Cobras often looked as if they were pissing in the night sky, but this was the daytime and we were right under one, feeling its terror. It came in right behind us. The rounds chopped up the jungle between us and the main body of the unit. We thought we were going to be out of the picture soon, with the Cobra’s second run coming straight in at us. All we could do was pop smoke grenades and mark our position under Charlie’s bunkers. Thank God the pilot saw our smoke drifting up through the foliage, realized something was wrong, cut the gun and flew on over us.

The M-60 machine gun is air-cooled and belt-fed. At a sustained rate of fire, we were supposed to change barrels after 10 minutes. I had no replacement barrel. Manning the gun was a mess on the incline of the hill. To fire, my only choice was to sit, but it was very awkward. I would lean forward into the weapon and start the bursts slightly below the crest of the ridge. The rapid recoil would soon force me backward, causing the rounds to go out in a diagonal path too high. I would rock forward and repeat the process, trying to get out as much horizontal fire as possible toward the bunkers before the weapon again knocked me back, sending the rounds out above the ridge and into the trees behind the enemy.

Meanwhile, the medic soon realized that Andujar was dead and that he should concentrate his efforts on his own survival and that of the remaining men of the squad. He began crawling back and forth in the underbrush, constantly under fire, moving out to the men in the squad and then dragging whatever M-60 belts they had over to my position. In an infantry squad the gunner was expected to carry a heavy load, but each rifleman also packed one or two extra belts for the M-60 in addition to his own ammo. My weapon could put out over 7,500 rounds per minute at the cyclic rate, but unless the fire was restrained, I knew the gun would heat to the point where it would cook off rounds as soon as they were chambered. Lacking experience, I lost my focus, and the gun began pulling the rounds in and discharging them without the control of the trigger. With the rapid-fire kicking, I was set back over the body of the sergeant, and rounds were aimlessly flying high over the bunkers once again. The only solution was to hold the gun with one arm while reaching out with the other to twist the ammo belt apart, letting the last rounds chamber and cook out to the end. The men continued their M-16 fire, and soon the pinkish glow on my hot M-60 barrel was gone. The gun was not very cool, but I decided to risk all and chamber the first round of the remaining section of the belt. It worked. I was then able to continue the fight with more restraint, using fewer rounds with each burst of fire.

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