Part 3 of 3

Operation Harvest Moon

The Corpsman told me to calm him down best I could, so I grabbed his arm and hand and held him. He had multiple chest wounds and had probably lost a lot of blood. He be-gan to talk in a calm, almost surreal calm voice, he called out “Mama” three times, gasped once or twice and calmly passed. I remember thinking at the time that he was the only one who was safe. It was most likely around 2300 hours when I was finally Hilo lifted out to the aid station. They were still shooting at us when the chopper lift-ed off. Most of the glory of Harvest

Moon goes to 2/9 and 2/7. (2/7 had a Medal of Honor winner on the last day) But it is a fact that of the 407 total enemy killed during the entire 12

day operation, (92) were killed by Lima Company on the first day. Of the 45 Ma-rine KIA’s, 15 were from the first day. Of the 218 Marine WIA’s, 43 were from the first day. Our Battle lasted hours, well into the early morning hours of 10 December, and for those lucky enough to make it to Hill 43 without a scratch the battle then evolved to hand to hand combat. General Walt relieved General Henderson of his command on the after-noon of 10 December 1965, one day after

the Operation began (General Henderson was Regimental commander, his removal is a good indicator that I am correct about my theory that the brass screwed up big time). And ever since that day, I’ve often wondered if, taking Catholic Communion on Tuesday had saved my life on Wednesday! Before I came over to Lima 3/3, I won a Bronze Star on 13 Sept

65, while I was with Golf 2/9 that was a bad day but nothing like the first day of “Opera-tion Harvest Moon”! The action in which I won the Bronze Star was a day patrol not more than a few miles from where Operation Harvest Moon began. The Que Son Valley was a hot spot that I would visit a 3rd time before my tour of duty was completed. Jack Swallows informed me that he wasn’t able to call in any artillery support that day because Battalion took control of the fire mis-sions. This command error was most likely due to the fact that we were sent in to help the ARVN troops and battalion didn’t want us to kill any Friendly Forces by mistake. (the can’t shoot till shot at rule of engagement got us again). The Kid who Died in my arms that day, was LCPL Larry Dean Borschel a Radio Man from H&S Company who was attached to Lima Company’s FO “Forward Observer”. The same mortar barrage that got me may have killed him. I left his name out of this story when I first wrote it because I wanted to spare his family any new pain. I’ve since talked with two of his Sisters and now feel that he should be named.