2M SUICIDE

During my second month on Nui Ba Den, I came to realize that taking my M-16 rifle everywhere was getting to be a burden and slowing me down while making my daily rounds. What I needed was to find a shoulder holster and a revolver to go with it. I found one when a Navy F-4 pilot traded me one, including a holster, for my Rolex watch. The revolver looked like a Smith & Wesson with a four-inch barrel, but the cylinder rotated clockwise when fired, just the opposite of a Smith & Wesson. It was a fun gun to shoot until one day, I fired a hot round with about double the average recoil. From that moment on, it would only shoot if I were aiming downhill or pulled the trigger twice. Even amateur gunsmiths on the mountain gave up trying to solve the problem. I became obsessed with trying to fix the revolver and carelessness set in while working on it one night. Forgetting that the cylinder rotated in the opposite direction, I loaded one bullet into the cylinder and pulled the trigger. The sound of the exploding bullet in my small bunker was deafening!
I dropped the gun as the escaping gasses burned the palm of my hand; the shock wave almost blew out my eardrums. To add to my embarrassment, I lost my balance, fell backwards, and landed on the floor.
This little experiment caused a huge ruckus when two soldiers rushed into my quarters to check on me. When they saw me lying on the floor, their first thoughts were that I had committed suicide due to a” Dear John” I had received two days earlier. It still bothers me that they thought I could do that to myself. Sure, I was hurt by the letter, but my mission on Nui Ba Den was too important to let anything affect it. I shared the responsibility for the lives of over three hundred American soldiers, and their survival came first.
The gun incident just goes to prove that no matter how careful you think you are, accidents can still occur.