Lawrence, with his Stoner light machine gun, and Futrell, with his M-60, came up close to Telfer, who told them to help Rowland. Lawrence began to fire along the dike and to the northeast while Futrell gave first aid to Telfer. Seeing where the VC rounds were striking, Lawrence also started shooting to the east and southeast. By that time both Hedge and Richards were firing as well.

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In spite of his wounds, Telfer managed to get off one round with Arroyo’s 40mm grenade launcher and emptied one 5.56mm magazine from his CAR 15. When he reached into Arroyo’s ammunition vest, which he was wearing, for another automatic rifle magazine, he was surprised when he instead pulled out Arroyo’s instamatic camera, which the radioman had stored along with his extra ammunition.

The action at that point had lasted for approximately seven minutes, and the time was about 1503. Telfer was concerned about the rescue operation, but he felt that the situation was under control in spite of his wound and the possible death of Rowland. A few seconds later, however, events took a dramatic turn for the worse. Futrell was facing away from Telfer and firing his M-60 machine gun with its belted ammunition draped over his shoulders when he was hit by a heavy 7.62mm bullet that spun him around. Now facing Telfer, Futrell exclaimed, ‘I’m hit in the chest!’

The bullet had struck him in the left side of the chest, and drilled through him, passing within a fraction of an inch of his heart and missing the left lung and the big arteries and veins of the chest.

Telfer, dragging his numbed legs behind him, began to crawl toward Futrell. For the first time he began to worry that his whole unit might be annihilated. To Richards he yelled, ‘Get that helo in here!’ Moments later, Richards shouted, ‘Ouch!’ and shook his right hand. He had been hit by another 7.62mm bullet, becoming the fourth casualty from enemy fire in the few minutes that the action had lasted.

Covered by Lawrence and Hedge, the wounded SEALs crawled over the dike to the north side. Even though two of the team had been hit by bullets fired from that direction, the patrol felt that they might find cover in the small ditch that paralleled the dike along the north. And the VC fire had been heaviest from the south side of the dike, some of it seeming to come from a small house directly to the south, about 100 meters away.

The three severely wounded men–Rowland, Telfer and Futrell–were unable to climb to safety over the bigger intersecting dike at the end of the ditch. In spite of his wounded hand, Richards pulled each in turn over the big dike. (Richards would go on to become chief of Naval Special Warfare Command, a rear admiral commanding all SEAL operations.) The transport chopper landed only a few meters away. Joined by the rest of the patrol, the men painfully made their way into the helicopter. Fingers and forearms were burned on hot weapons. Telfer’s wound began to hurt along its entire complex path. The helicopter was hit several times as it lifted off. ‘Barndance 59,’ as the action would be called in the official record, was at last at an end.

The four badly wounded men–Arroyo included–were evacuated to an Air Force hospital in Japan, where the doctors made it plain to Telfer, Rowland and Futrell that they had narrowly escaped death. During their stay in the hospital the men discussed their last, nearly fatal mission, going over the various turning points in the operation.

As they talked, one question came up again and again: ‘How did they ever get out alive?’ All of them agreed that they never should have been on the dike. They also agreed that the intensive SEAL training they had received had been crucial to their survival. They had been conditioned by their training to react coolly and effectively to crises like the one they had faced together on January 30. And they came to believe that one part of their training in particular–the rite of passage in SEAL school known as ‘hell week’–had prevented their unit from disintegrating when the going got tough.

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