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Bill Dreyer was a medic with the 3rd platoon. This is his account of that day, as told in an E-mail to my friend Alan VanDan.

Dreyer's Account

I was trying to put a field dressing on Angel's head....every time I lifted up to put the dressing on, I got shot...first the left leg, then the right leg, then in the ass as I was laying down...these hurt like hell, but mostly burned....didn't hit any bones...I reached up one more time to put the dressing on Angel's head and got shot in the right shoulder...little hole in the front...big hole coming out the back...took a lot of the scapula & clavicle out the back...felt like I was hit with a two by four...gave the field dressing to Angel...couldn't help him anymore...nothing moved...started dragging myself with my left hand toward the center of the perimeter...passed two guys hunkered down in a foxhole...asked them why they weren't firing....they said their guns were jammed....kept crawling...got to a foxhole that held the Artillery FO and his RTO...remember the RTO was cradling the LT....got hit in the head and leg with shrapnel from our own rockets.......burned......kept crawling...got hit with shrapnel again, but this time it was like slow motion...could feel it burning into the side of my head....thought for sure it was going all the way in...in slow motion....prayed...crawled to center of perimeter...machine gunner at the back of the LZ spraying M60 rounds into the jungle....chopper landing....crawled some more....door gunner reached down...grabbed my arm...I couldn't lift myself up anymore....dragged me into chopper.....more people piled on top.....held my breath...chopper lifted off.....I passed out...lots of blood missing, I guess...I woke when the chopper landed at the LZ...everybody else that had piled in was gone.....somebody asked me if I needed help getting off the chopper...I said "No, I can walk"...slid off the chopper and fell.....couldn't walk. From there I was taken to an EVAC Hospital (35th? 93rd?)...I was patched up some and I remember myself and one other guy, who was gut shot, laying on stretchers, waiting to be loaded on a chopper or plane...and Martha Raye walked up and kissed each of us...I was so surprised and awe struck that I couldn't speak...tears just rolled down my cheeks...from there to a rear air base around Saigon with a hospital, where they debrided all my wounds...I was in and out of it for days...remember the guy in the bed next to me hemorrhaging and dying one night....thought it was Angel at the time.......don't know what started all this....I started out to tell you I don't remember seeing Doc in the hospital afterwards.... I'll be glad to see the pictures...hope he is in them, and that he's who I think he is....excuse the ramblings......

Bill Dreyer 2003

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