The choppers came to pick us up on June 14.
We were withdrawing back to Nui Dat. We don't know why ... there is a rumour that the Yanks had withdrawn permission for us to push any further north into Long Khan Province. We had been disappointed before, but this was the first time that we really felt that we lacked the political will to fight this war. We were ready to push all the way to Hanoi ... but just when we had them on the run, we were going to withdraw back to our base and let them reorganise. We knew that we would meet them again in Phuoc Tuy Province.

We spent 4 days in Nui Dat just lazing around. It was great, but it felt unreal. The strain of the previous months was also starting to show on some blokes. I woke up one night to the sounds of rifle shots. What the hell was going on ... were we being attacked or what? I looked out the tent flap and saw one of our soldiers (no names, no pack drill) wandering around with an SLR shouting and shooting at anything that moved. I pulled back into my tent and went searching for my weapon. Having a few beers at the boozer, and a heap more back in the tent, didn't do anything for my reflexes. Suddenly Dixie came diving over the sandbags. "A blokes gone mad, and I think he's got my automatic." said Dixie. "No mate", I answered "you left it here when you went to back to your tent."

Finally we were all armed ... but had no bloody idea what we were going to do with this bloke ... shit we couldn't just shoot him, he was one of ours. Barry Baker grabbed the bloke and started to wrestle with him, but couldn't get him to drop the rifle ... so he bit him on the cheek ... until he dropped the weapon. The Lieutenant went into the main tent, where the majority of the platoon slept ... looking for someone to escort the bloke up to the MP's compound ... but everyone was pissed ... there were cans of grog everywhere .... Neil Moody and someone else eventually got voluntereed. So stuffing a couple of beers in their pockets, they grabbed their weapons and got this bloke into a vehicle ... to transport him up to the Compound. According to Neil, they even shared their beer with him on the drive up. It must have been quite a sight, a couple of drunk diggers, escorting a bloke who had just tried to shoot up the camp ... and all of them sucking on cans of beers ... as they fell out of the vehicle at the MP's feet. The MP's took the bloke away and we never saw him again.

On 18 June we moved north of Xuyen Moc to search for any signs of D445 having come back into the province. All the Company's found plenty of old sign, but nothing new. It was like a walk in the park ... we were that relaxed. By now we had a sixth sense as to when the Nogs were around. There was nothing here but us and the animals.