Playing golf (with a new set of PXG's...my last 2 sets couldn't swim), visiting friends, traveling, collecting movies, reading books (fantasy/adventure), and generally living the dream.
Other Comments:
Invited by Nat Holmes (SGT/Deceased) and John Foster (GYSGT)
Vietnam War/Tet 69 Counteroffensive Campaign (1969)/Battle of Liberty Bridge
From Month/Year
March / 1969
To Month/Year
March / 1969
Description 11th Marines, 1st Marine Division at Liberty Bridge. On March 19, 1969, a battalion-size enemy force stormed the Marine outpost. Their goal was to first overrun, then annihilate the fledgling base. “Earlier that night, they hit the compound just across the river,” Mitchell explained. “…That woke me up. …While this was going on, they came in from the other way, cut the wire and lay down in this ravine. They were already in the compound. When things quieted back down, they hit. …They hit us shortly after midnight. I was in my hooch. Just as I heard the AK-47s, somebody ran in and hollered, ‘We’re getting hit! They’re inside the wire!’ I grabbed my stuff—ammo, gun and helmet, ran out and there’s just tracers bouncing off everything. …They were all over the place. They had at least three Russian-made flamethrowers in there and had already torched a couple of hooches. They made it to within about a hundred yards of mine.”
Mitchell joined the battle. Jumbled, close-in exchanges ensued, often deteriorating into hand-to-hand combat. “The group I was with went out to the berm and laid down cover fire. We had an M-60 with us. The 105s were shooting beehive rounds—thousands of little steel darts, right into them. Then all the choppers started coming in. We killed 70 some inside the compound alone, not to mention all those outside the wire. I know because the next morning I helped gather them up.”
Twelve Americans were killed that night with dozens more wounded. One loss in particular remains with Mitchell yet today. “When I got up that morning, I could barely walk. I was having these bad back spasms. I went to see our corpsman—a tall, skinny kid from Tennessee we called Doc Ray. …Everybody liked him. …He took me into his hooch, gave me some muscle relaxers and had me lay down on a stretcher. I stayed up there all day, maybe eight hours just talking with him. …At five or six o’clock, I went back down to my hooch, maybe a hundred yards away. About dark that night, he not only came down to check on me, but also brought me three pair of socks. We talked for about 10 more minutes and then he left. That’s the last I ever saw of him. He was killed that night.”
For his heroic actions at Liberty Bridge, above and beyond the call of duty, Corpsman David R. Ray earned the Medal of Honor.
