WEBVTT

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- It was a terrible battle.

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I had one man killed in
the opening burst of fire,

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three seriously wounded,
and then it just kept up.

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For the next five hours,

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we were draggin' our wounded with us

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tryin' to get to Captain
Ripley and the command group.

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How're we gonna get through this?

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You could hear the volume of the shooting,

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you knew there were a
lot of bad guys there

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and my troops all asked me,

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"How bad is it gonna be, Lieutenant?"

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and I said, "It's gonna be bad."

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But that's all we, the only
thing I could think of was

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my company commander and his
command group is cut off,

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they're surrounded by North Vietnamese.

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They're executing all the drivers

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and all the wounded in the convoy,

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and these are all US Army soldiers,

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and when Captain Ripley told me

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that they were executing 'em,

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I knew that we couldn't
stop, we had to keep going.

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And so, I pass a word to
my men to fix bayonets,

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we're gonna be at close
combat very soon, and we were,

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and they started runnin' across
the road, running into us,

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and then finally, after
about five and a half hours,

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I was able to link up

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with Captain Ripley and his command group.

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As far as receiving the award today,

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I was very humbled by it

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because that award came from my troops.

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They deserve to get this
medal more than I do,

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every single one of 'em.

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(gentle strings music)