March 16, 1970

Dear Mom,

The last two days I have been out at Nui Ba Den (Black Virgin Mountain). You should be able to find it easy on your map. It is just east of Tay Ninh. Actually I have been out in the field most of this week. To think a little over a week ago I had never been in combat.

Yesterday morning I went to fire support base Buell which is near the foot of the mountain on the west side. One company of the 4 of the 23 Inf is based there and I keep between 4 and 8 men there to sweep the road and provide demo support. Anyway I only had 4 people there and I had to go out to provide another sweep team because they needed two teams to sweep the dirt road that goes around the mountain because a convoy was to come through.

We broke down into two teams and one team started at the northern side of the mountain and the team I was with started from Buell. We swept for about 15 minutes when we got a call from the other sweep team that they had made contact. We jumped on the tracks (the unit I support in Mehajyn (?)) and got up there. They had about 20 NVA pinned down (or so we thought). While we kept them pinned down the company from Buell came up and took over. So one team started sweeping east and we started sweeping west from that point. As soon as the other team got around the bend they got ambushed, we were heading past and from behind it sounded like all hell broke loose. Then we started getting sniper fire. A-Company (the one that came up to help) moved to the side of the mountain where the fire was coming from and immediately got pinned down. C-Company coming from the other direction also got pinned down. The NVA had two lines, one at the foot of the mountain and one about 200 meters up, they also had a mortar and heary(?) machine gun position about 1/2 way up. Anyway, they called in artillery, then gunships (helicopter) and finally air strikes (jets). A-Company got 1 killed and 10 wounded and C-Company had 6 wounded. The fight went on all day. At night two companies of the 3 of the 22 Inf (which 1st platoon supports) landed on top of the mountain and started working its way down. We were at the bottom acting as a blocking force. About mid-afternoon we thought we had them trapped between us and the units coming down the mountain. When all at once the two companies coming down the mountain started getting fire from above them. The mountain is covered with caves and they say you can go from the top to the bottom in them. Anyway so far 16 men have been killed from the two companies on the mountain, two of the 1st platoon people have been shot (one in the back and the other in both legs).

I have two men from my platoon up there and I hope they make it . Right now it is night and they are trying to sneak off the mountain.

Let me know if the papers have anything about it. They are really moving men in there, about half the Brigade is there now and they are moving in more artillary. This could turn out to be a big battle.

I'll write later,

John

P.S. Don't say anything to Pat.