Reply #19: When I was in the green I was a lowly 05h20. I had no

[alfredo]

combat training. One night during a tense time in the region we got an alert saying a force of 3,000 were marching on our position. I was directed up to the machine gun nest guarding the front gate. I've never handled an M60, but I was named squad leader. My feeder was so scared his body was quaking. I wasn't doing so good myself. I knew we had enough ammo for 5 minutes of sustained battle. I was dead, no doubt about it. I was dead.

An hour or so later the alert was called off. We never heard a thing about it after that night. I don't know if there really was a threat or not. They never told us it was a drill or the real thing.