May 23rd was my last day to fly with the Troop. My wingman was a rather new pilot in to troop by the name of McMinn and he had flown my trail for the past few days. We were working a leisurely scout mission across the river southwest of Dong Tam when, sometime mid morning in the edge of a fairly heavy jungle area, we happened upon an opening in the jungle canopy wherein we observed a few hootches, a wood pile, a small stream flowing, some clothing hanging out to dry, some straw mats scattered about, some dishes of food lying about, some rifles stacked...SOME RIFLES STACKED! HOLD ON SPORTS FANS THIS MIGHT MEAN SOMEYHING... WE BETTER CHECK THIS OUT! So down we went to recon a little with fire. I elected first of all to recon the strange layout of the camo bamboo mats and sure enough just as soon as the Chief had stitched a couple of them they began to jerk. A clear sign that someone was probably beneath each of them. Do to the irregular and small size of the clearing down through the trees it was necessary to work my way back around again to come down along the long axis of the opening to clearly scout the area below and it was on the third recon pass that my ship received a full mother load of lead from a concealed bunker beneath the wood pile to our left rear flank. My chief saw the location immediately but was unable to return any effective fire in that upon taking fire I had immediately turned off target knowing the ship was badly hit and that I must try and make it to the nearby adjoining paddy before it stopped running entirely and we crashed.
Well, thanks solely to God and not to my less than superb flying skills, we made it safely to the ground and were picked up by my wingman McMinn and returned to Dong Tam to get another bird. On the trip back, I must have told McMinn 10 times about the weapons bunker under the woodpile. When we initially arrived at Dong Tam there was not a LOH ready to fly so we scurried around getting one ready and this probably took at least 30 minutes. In the meantime McMinn had returned to the contact area and by the time I had gotten there again things had really started to heat up. For some reason, I want to recall that some infantry had been inserted but had been pinned down as they had moved into the tree line and this was limiting the Crusaders and artillery from engaging the enemy, which in turn threw the ball back to the scouts. Anyhow, I recall as I arrived back and was updated, I asked McMinn if the woodpile and bunker had been taken care of and he said, "Yes". Making a low level fast pass over the area, the chief and I saw another heavy weapons position firing at the infantry from within a roof only hootch that was surrounded with a three foot high thick mud wall. You could see the barrel as it traversed back and forth and it was putting out one high volume of fire. Unfortunately, in order to get a clear shot at it to knock it out there was only one approach path...the same path that I was on earlier when we had received fire from the wood pile. Trusting that McMinn had told me straight about the woodpile being out of action, I made an initial high speed pass for my chief to drop a grenade on the new weapons position but as I recall it bounced off the roof. We had quickly circled around and were on the inbound run to make another pass with Willie Pete and Mini-Gun when WHAMO we received another dose of hot lead from where?...Yep! The DAMN WOOD PILE. Well here we went again but this time I had had my ticket punched  (shot through the left hand) so as soon as God Almighty had again landed this my second ship safely in the paddy along side the first one, I thanked him realizing and thankful that for me it was all over and I was still alive. After my chief had tied off my upper arm with my helmet chord, I bid him a fair well, exited our ship and slugged through the rice paddy to the just arriving maintenance Huey that had been dispatched to retrieve my first ship. As I recall, I was then flown to the Hospital at Dong Tam. After my initial surgery, I vaguely remember someone from the Troop coming by recovery to check on me, but because I was pretty well doped up I do not remember the face nor the name. It was to be some 25 years before I ever met anyone from the Troop again.