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A Tribute: Allen Schwartz and Leonard Guy |
The following information is taken from awards orders and from first-person accounts of the action. These narratives are written as a memorial to the men who were killed in action.
25 October 1968
CPL Allan Edward Schwartz, Medic
CPL Leonard Allen Guy
Our platoon had been going on ambush patrols and that is what we
were doing the 25th of October. We were set up in two patrols, a half
platoon on each patrol. The problem was we had been leaving the
perimeter just before dark every day and our enemy had taken notice of this.
The patrol I was on had just cleared the wire when we got some small arms fire
from quite a distance to our front and we all hit the ground. Our RTO,
Greg Boyle, called in, and we were told to get back inside the perimeter.
A run for the bunkers started, when off to my right in the dim
light of dusk a I saw a bright flash and explosion. Instantly I know we
are being mortared. A few more feet and I get to the bunker amid the
flying shrapnel. I can't believe I'm not hit.
The RTO makes it in just after me, but he has shrapnel wounds.
I grab the radio handset from the wounded RTO and call the CP to report the
situation.
The other patrol had just started to gather and were all bunched up
except for a few lucky ones that had not left their bunker yet.
Amid the confusion and the screams for medics, Allan Schwartz, our
platoon medic from Lushton, Nebraska, left his place of safety to rush out to
help the wounded, and he was killed by mortar shrapnel.
In hardly more than a minute it was all over. But the platoon
was decimated.
Soon our artillery and mortars responded with outgoing fire so that
we could recover the wounded.
Thanks to Leroy Giddings, Alpha Company 68-69, for
his
personal recollections of the action that day.