3 July 1967:
“… Not too much has happened around except that I lost my best medic (2 bronze stars already). He was on an armored personnel carrier which hit a mine. We’ve lost a lot of men from mines around here. Luckily my jeeps aren’t heavy enough to detonate them—the road to Da Nang & Chu Lai is pretty clear now anyway. Also I just heard our chaplain died. He was a real exception as most army chaplains are worthless. We all respected him first of all because he was a paratrooper & a career officer. He would go out on patrol with the troops & shoot VC. But he was also a very good minister (Methodist). He used to say that to be a true believer one had to be at one time or another a disbeliever, which is why the periodical lack of religion in the btn. didn’t upset him too much. He was holding services in the field for one of our companies early one Sun. morning & they were shelled by mortars. Because everyone was in a group 10 were killed & quite a few wounded. Normally it probably never would have happened—if so the casualties would have been light. One of the medics personally saved the life of the company commander (our best one) by keeping him from bleeding to death (—he almost died). That night when we flew in from Da Nang I saw them all (that were still alive) at the 2nd surgical hosp[ital]. & the chaplain was the only one conscious. He was hit all over but said he was going to be OK. He died of a bleeding stomach ulcer, if you can believe that. We were pretty good friends & I miss him. Our new chaplain isn’t worth a damn.”