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Matthew G. Karl
Dear Matthew,
My name is Kevin Baldwin and I was assigned to USASTRATCOM Spt Det of the 86th Signal Battalion at Cu Chi on February 16, 1970. We must have walked past each other. I also served as a clerk typist for awhile before being assigned to an impromptu "Rapid Reaction Force" that operated in Long Than and Vinh Long before and after Tet of 1971. This happened after Cu Chi was abandoned to the ARVINs and I guess they didn't have anything better to do with us.
Like many of us, I'm searching for a needle in a haystack. Repeated claims for disability have been rejected because I can't prove to their satisfaction any of numerous stressors that my VA therapists have diagnosed as leading to PTSD. I am trying to focus on one in particular and you might have been in the area when it happened.
One evening just behind the 86th Mess Hall, someone threw a thermite grenade into a hootch, burning it down and seriously burning three of the four soldiers sitting in a room playing cards. I came upon the scene after our guys smelled smoke, to see a man in flames being helped past the Mess Hall. As we turned the corner, two more came running out of the hootch in flames and I helped throw them into a drainage ditch to douse the flames while we waited for help. As they sped off towards 12th Evac in a jeep, you could see their bodies reignite into big red splotches where the phospherous came back alive.
This is one of many nightmares that still haunt me and seems one most proveable if I could get dates, records, etc. Do you remember this incident? Everyone spent the night running around trying to find the bastard(s) who did it. We never knew for sure if it was VC or one of our own. With the race war going on at the time who could be sure of anything.
Dear Matthew,
My name is Kevin Baldwin and I was assigned to USASTRATCOM Spt Det of the 86th Signal Battalion at Cu Chi on February 16, 1970. We must have walked past each other. I also served as a clerk typist for awhile before being assigned to an impromptu "Rapid Reaction Force" that operated in Long Than and Vinh Long before and after Tet of 1971. This happened after Cu Chi was abandoned to the ARVINs and I guess they didn't have anything better to do with us.
Like many of us, I'm searching for a needle in a haystack. Repeated claims for disability have been rejected because I can't prove to their satisfaction any of numerous stressors that my VA therapists have diagnosed as leading to PTSD. I am trying to focus on one in particular and you might have been in the area when it happened.
One evening just behind the 86th Mess Hall, someone threw a thermite grenade into a hootch, burning it down and seriously burning three of the four soldiers sitting in a room playing cards. I came upon the scene after our guys smelled smoke, to see a man in flames being helped past the Mess Hall. As we turned the corner, two more came running out of the hootch in flames and I helped throw them into a drainage ditch to douse the flames while we waited for help. As they sped off towards 12th Evac in a jeep, you could see their bodies reignite into big red splotches where the phospherous came back alive.
This is one of many nightmares that still haunt me and seems one most proveable if I could get dates, records, etc. Do you remember this incident? Everyone spent the night running around trying to find the bastard(s) who did it. We never knew for sure if it was VC or one of our own. With the race war going on at the time who could be sure of anything.