Thump, Thump, Thump

For some crazy reason I have been thinking about an incident for the last couple of weeks and actually found the letter I wrote home about it on 4 Oct 71. It had been a pretty quiet night at the 24th but sometime during my tour a GI came in, pulled me aside. He told me he had a guy in his jeep with a bunk adapter and was going to bash in peoples heads. I asked him why he brought him to the 24th rather than the MP's. I don't remember his answer but did call the MPs. After I hung up the phone I heard this thump, thump, thump against the bunker walls. The GI went outside looking around another building for the guy and I followed him and was watching him and when I turned around here, right before me, was the GI with the bunk adapter. I seem to remember it raised up over my head. Anyway, I backed into the A&D as he followed me in. I had let the ER know what was going on and luckily the MPs showed up right then. Come to find out he had been seen at the 24th a week earlier as he purposely shot himself in the foot and I think I was on-duty that night as well. I guess we figured he was trying to get himself back home. I never did hear about him again or the outcome of this incident. You know, I think this was maybe only one two or three instances I knew of where a GI was trying to get himself sent home so this was definitely not the norm for GIs in-country from my experience.

After all was said and done all I knew was that I was really pretty stupid going out looking for him and that it really shook me up  I do feel lucky tough as I don't think his intent was to really hurt anyone. If it was, he had the opportunity to bash my head in before I had even seen him standing next to me with the bunk adapter. All I can think of is that God must have been watching out for me that night.