I was on watch when the sun came up - it was the most peaceful part of the day. I could lean back, smoke a cigarette and enjoy all the color and beauty of the sunrise before everyone woke up and began milling around making noise.
Halfway through heating up my morning coffee, it started to rain. I moved my stove and coffee inside the hootch. All the noise I made woke the other two guys up. Since they were up and out of there, when I finished eating my breakfast of ham and mothers, I took a nap.
L/Cpl Thomas woke me up an hour later and told me and Anderson to go down to the Company CP. This was down by the road. He wanted us to pick up some cases of C-rations from Sgt McCoy. It was still raining, plus we had to wear our flack jackets and helmets and carry our rifles. We climbed part of the way and slid part of the way down the hill. Once we got to CP, we found a dry place to sit. We talked to some guys in one of the other platoons until it stopped raining. After the rain stopped, we climbed up the hill with two cases of C-rations, plus our rifles and gear. Climbing was a bitch since by now the trail going up was like soup. We were covered in mud by the time we made it to the top.
We got the word that afternoon, we would be leaving the bridge the day after tomorrow on a new operation We would leave the bridge tomorrow, but they were having a metal ceremony at Camp Carroll and some of the men in our company were going to get metals for things they had done before I got to Viet Nam in fire fights around Di Doe.
