We didn't stay in Nui Dat for long, the next morning we moved out again. This time we deployed closer to Nui Dat, between the hill called Nui Dat 2 and Xuyen Moc. We didn't know what was going on ... we were going out into the J, coming back to Nui Dat, going back out, coming back ... it felt like we were in a revolving door ... couldn't they make their mind up at headquarters ... did they want us out there or back in base? (We found out later that they were keeping the units close to Nui Dat time to prepare for leaving The 'Nam and going back to Oz).

There were small contacts and sign of the enemy in this region. We somehow managed to draw the short straw again and had to climb Nui Dat 2. It was hard yakka climbing up a slippery slope, bashing through the J, and trying to keep quiet at the same time. By this time I was on the machine gun and it was a bloody struggle lugging that thing up the slope. About halfway up the slope I looked back to see how Boodgie was going ... I started laughing so hard that I was in grave danger of rolling down the hill. Boodgie wore glasses that looked like the bottom of a coke bottle ... with the heat and humidity they were fogged up so badly that they looked white ... Boodgie was not only struggling under the weight of the spare ammo for the machine gun, but he couldn't see where he was going and kept bumping into things.

10 Platoon Delta Company contacted two enemy to the east of Nui Dat 2 on 25 August ... thanks guys. We climbed up the bloody hill, flush them out and you buggers get to take a shot at them. We worked our way back down the hill back into the Jungle again.

Just as August was drawing to a close and we were thinking that we weren't going to get another shot at the Nogs, Bravo Company found their camp. On 31 August 1971, 6 Platoon located the main camp just west of Xuyen Moc. The weather was bad with monsoons sweeping over the area. 6 Platoon made a reconnaissance of the camp and prepared for a company attack at first light the next morning. Hopefully we were going to have one last shot at them.