March 6, 1970

Dear Mom-

Was glad to receive your letter today.

To bad about American Smelting, I noticed it hit 35 7/8. Oh well. You might check into R.G. Barry. I noticed it is down to about 13, which is half of what we sold it for. It could be a good buy. Have you heard anything about Nord lately. By the way Bache is holding our Wilson Warrents- you might want to check on them. The broker is Aaron Babcock. Give me the price on Wilson Warrents they are on the America (?).

Right now the 155 Howitzers and flich guns are shooting like crazy (at 8:00 at night) Usually they don't start till about 1 or 2 at night. They go over my quarters and shake the walls. Every night they wake me up.

A few nights ago we got mortered (the base boys that is). One round hit a houch (?) of the 3/22 int. on the other side of the camp. 6 killed, 13 wounded. I slept through it all. Base camp has gotten hit twice this week. Action is starting to pick up. I really feel sorry for the VC sometimes. If they hit us they have to do it quickly because within a few minutes we get a fix on them and all hell breaks loose. They saturate the area with artillary fire. They send up cobra gunships. I watched them ? out a few nights ago and they have 72 rockets and two gattling guns that fire 6000 rounds per minute. When they turn on the guns it looks like a solid wall of red flame coming out of the sky.

I have not been on any combat missions yet as I have only had my platoon one week. I will explain the make up of my platoon to you. I have two demolitions men on top of Nui Ba Din (the Black Virgin Mountain) they stay up there all the time doing demo work. I have 15 men out at 2 fire support bases with the Infantry Battalion I support. Every morning they sweep the roads for mines and then go out with the infantry and give them demolitions support. They blow up booby traps, bunkers and tunnel complexes. The rest of my platoon consists of four dump trucks and drivers, one scoop loader and one bull dozer. With these I support the fire support bases. I build them, tear them down, construct the bunkers, etc. These fire support bases locations change every couple of months. They are usually made up of one artillary battery and one or two infantry companies. As soon as I get everything straightened out I will start staying at the fire support bases and going out with the infantry.

Lately my platoon has been making mechanical ambushes (almost all the fighting over here goes on at night, the units leave their fire support bases about 2 or 3 in the afternoon and set up ambushes). Anyway I was assigned to teach classes on mechanical ambushes to the 4 Infantry battalions in our brigade (?). My platoon sets out 3 of these a night for the unit we support. So now I am getting a reputation as an expert on mechanical ambushes. When I get back I'll explain what that is. We use things like rat traps with a trip wire going across a trail when someone hits the trip wire it sets off the rat trap, which completes an electrical circuit which sets off 6 or so claymore mines spread out along the trail. Next year I'll probably look back at all this and think how sick I must have been, but while I am over here it doesn't bother me a bit, I even feel a certain amount of pride. I can see now how people glorify war.

Keep me informed of all financial happenings.

Later,

John