After that incident, we searched the house behind the wall and across from MACV, where I came under sniper fire. We were supposed to completely secure the location and then meet in the rear of the house in the courtyard. In pairs, we charged the front door and entered the foyer without incident. We searched the first floor without finding any enemy soldiers. I remember thinking that this was just like what John Wayne would do.

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One of my buddies from MACV was almost killed in that house. When he and a Marine went into a room on the second floor, an NVA soldier threw a grenade into the room through a window. Instinctively, the Marine turned around and started shooting. Luckily, he hit the grenade, which bounced out the window and blew up outside the house.

I was with another group of soldiers searching the second floor. We entered a large room that looked like a small hospital area. There were many beds around the room, but in the middle was a bed with a curtain around it. Our job was to secure the room, so we had to make sure that no one was in the bed. I really started to wonder about killing someone. Do I shoot first and ask questions later? Or do I wait until they open up the curtain and in a split second decide to kill the person who is there? Or do I not pull the trigger? All that was going through my head as I approached the bed, ready to shoot. One of the guys crept up to the curtain and quickly yanked it open. There was no one there. I took a deep breath.

We completely searched the house and secured it before going to the courtyard. We could not go beyond the courtyard because there was a thick wall in our path. We stopped until the tank reached us. The tank belched a 75mm round and blew a hole in the wall big enough for us to get to the other side and reach the trapped civilians. Then our group advanced under covering fire.

I went over to the covered walkway by the house where the people were trapped and covered their exit. We did not receive any fire from the enemy while we were evacuating the frightened civilians. They were escorted back to the MACV compound, and then we withdrew, with the tank covering our backs. The enemy advanced behind us but did not fire.

When we got back to Route 1, the Marines paused to look over the area, especially toward the west, in the direction of the Hue Hospital, which was about a quarter mile away. They could see snipers in the palm trees, shooting. Some of the Marines used M-79 grenade launchers to eliminate the snipers. We were then ordered to return to the compound. The enemy was all around us. We desperately needed reinforcements, and all we could do was wait.

For participating in the action that day, I was later awarded the Bronze Star Medal for Valor.

When I returned to the compound, the administrative officer, Captain Rolf S. Mijares, assigned me to the compound dispensary to keep an accurate count of Americans wounded and killed in action. Our compound dispensary was a small building that housed an outside storage area, two small office areas and an operating room with four surgical beds. It was more like a glorified first-aid station than a MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit, but during the offensive the dispensary did resemble a mini-MASH unit. It was run very efficiently considering the extreme circumstances.

I spent the next three weeks at the dispensary serving in any capacity that was required. During the day I performed a variety of services. At night I was on call or sleeping on a medical stretcher on the floor in one of the office areas, and I often helped treat the many wounded during the night.

The first KIA (killed in action) I had to record resulted from friendly fire. The Marines from Phu Bai had run a hellish and deadly gantlet coming up Highway 1 to reach our compound in Hue. As they entered the outskirts of the city, they came under intense enemy fire. The Marines opened up with their M-16 rifles, firing in all directions because the enemy was not out in the open. The Marines did not know the exact location of our compound. A young captain in the compound who stood up and looked over the wall of sandbags was shot in the head and died.

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