when i was flying onto Hill 51 on a USMC very (too) slow 34 in May of 1967, i almost fell out the door/hatch, the pilot came down in tight circles, snipers...when i got to delta company, 1/5, the platoon sgt said he was outta there cuz his eardrums were busted the night before, from concussion, and 2 corpsmen were killed also, plus some other guys, when i was @ chu lai the nite b4, we got called outta the rack as a stretcher bearers for wounded marines coming in, the guy i carried was a gunny, i think, throat shot, it sucked BIG time, even bigger when i found out the medivacs were from D 1/5 ... the hill was A SMALL HILL ... no wire, no sandbags, no nothing, only the Gunny bustin' ass to ... whatever, "improve" our position, just a bunch of sweating, pissed off and somewhat scared jarheads ... a lot of guys were sick, thought it may have something 2 do with a well in the vill ... one of the squads sent a fire team down 2 check it out after dark, they found some local lady squatting over the well pissing into it, this is just what i heard, the water quality improved
almost immediately, aloha!!!