by Bob Bihari » Sat May 30, 2009 9:21 am
I remember that action very well. I remember Donald as being a very friendly individual, and made friends very easily. The picture is exactly how I remember him, though he usually had a big grin on his face. I remember Sanchez also..I believe he was one of the loaders on the track, and I think he was sleeping in the main compartment when the mine went off, and Donald was driving. I don't remember Babyson, but the Quad was from another unit "on loan" to us. I think Donald was the only 1/50 man on that track. I think they were the only two in the quad track at the time, might have been three....I'm not too sure about that, but two of the loaders had been wounded in the ankles and medivaced out shortly before (the shields on the quad worked pretty well, but weren't quite long enough to cover the loader's feet).
We had just finished some operations on the beach, and were heading back to LZ Uplift in the late afternoon. As Doc said, I was in the track right behind the Quad 50 when they blew the mine (I think it was a command-detonated 250Lb bomb). I was standing in the main compartment right behind the TC cupola talking to someone when they set that thing off. When something that big goes off nearby, you don't hear it, you FEEL it in every bone in your body. I turned around and saw the track just falling back to earth upside down, and the quad 50 unit still flying up about 40 feet in the air, and then coming back down almost in slow-motion right next to the track. As Doc said - the thing caught fire instantaneously, and boxes of fifty cal. ammo started cooking off in a matter of seconds. I remember that there was some sporadic firing from some of the tracks and dismounted individuals for a little while, and a medevac coming in to remove some casualties (none were ours). Since it was an exposed position and getting dark, there was nothing we could do, except pull back. We moved back to a more secure area and spent the night watching the track burn from a distance and later calling in flares once in a while to illuminate the surroundings.
The next morning we went back to recover the track. We pulled dismounted perimeter security around the track as they flipped it back over to recover the crew and Donald's remains....I won't go into the details... it was pretty grim, but at least they never knew what hit them.
Another sad day amongst many....
Last edited by
Bob Bihari on Sat May 30, 2009 10:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.
A Company '68. WIA An Bao 
