As Tank Commander on A-17, I bounce a grenade off the back of three fleeing VC killing all of them. One afternoon we were on a search and destroy mission in, I think the Boi Loi Woods (could have been Ho Bo Woods), or what was left of it. The Rome Plows had been through there and pulled and pushed down all of the trees leaving rubble and tree limbs and trunks sticking up everywhere. My tank and another tank threw tracks off of the tank caused by the tree limbs. We started taking sniper fire while trying to get the tracks back on our tanks. Our platoon leader, Lt. See called on the radio to have me send someone to help find and kill the snipers. It was my policy where I wouldn't even ask for or send any volunteers to do an infantryman's job since we were tankers not ground pounders. So I would go myself rather than ask for volunteers. I grabbed my M-16, a bunch of ammo and about 6 or 8 grenades plus some C-4 explosives.

 

I moved down with the infantry and scouts toward where we were getting sniper fire. Sergeant Earl Williams was to my left flank about 10 yards away. I was standing in a bomb crater behind a tree trunk lying down on its side. I could hear bees buzzing by my ears and over my head. But I was in a kind of daze and for some reason I didn’t comprehend the grave situation I was in. Then, I kind came to and noticed pieces of wood chips were flying in the air off of the tree trunk in front of me. Sergeant Williams came up beside me. He had seen what was going on from my flank. There was a VC just ahead of me in a hole about 10 yards away shooting at me. Williams told me to return fire to pin him down and make him take cover in his hole. I did and Williams very accurately tossed a grenade at the hole and dropped it in with the VC like a pro basketball player. The grenade exploded in the hole killing the VC and stopped his sniping. Williams and myself moved toward the hole and were checking it out. I was preparing to toss another grenade in the hole for a final tap when up jumped three VC to my right. They were trying to escape by running away. They were abreast of each other almost shoulder to shoulder and almost in lock step. I took the grenade I was going drop down into the bunker and tossed it in a nice big arc at the three men in pajamas running away from us. The grenade hit the middle VC right in the small of his back and bounced straight up in the air to about two feet above their heads and exploded killing all three VCs. The guys around me kind of gasped at the sight. They could not believe I hit the middle guy on a dead run just below his shoulder blade and the way it bounced straight up in the air and kind of hung there for what seemed like, at the time, forever and then exploding near their heads killing them instantly.

 

Rick Avant

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