Laboriously dragged Ski back to safety through the rice. Amazingly none of the men were hit.

After running full out with his head down for a short time, John Young caught sight of a prone form from the corner of his eye. Crashing down behind the GI, Young noticed that there was a hole right in the middle of his back, surrounded by a large bloodstain and thought, “Jesus, this is going to be bad." Carl Cortright had lain there for two hours wondering how he was going to die. Facing the Viet Cong positions and unable to move, partly concealed by the tall rice, he had watched the muzzle blasts of the weapons that were trying to search him out. Sooner or later they were bound to find their mark. But then when all hope had passed, an American came up behind him and said the impossible, “I'm here to take you back." When he found out that Cortright couldn't walk, Young was at a momentary loss. As one of the smaller men in the unit, there was no way that Young could carry Cortright back all that way without them both being shot. Thinking frantically, Young lay down flat on the ground and instructed Cortright to crawl up onto his back. With great difficulty, Cortright wrestled himself onto Young and latched his arms around the sergeant's neck. Young then raised up on all fours and began to crawl back toward the paddy dike. After a few yards, though, Young began to breathe heavily and asked Cortright if it would be OK to rest. A few minutes later, Young resumed his crawl, noticing that Cortright, instead of complaining about his agonizing wound, was now using his own arms and doing his best to help Young crawl forward. Only a few seconds had passed before Young heard Cortright say, “Sergeant, you had better stop again." Young replied that he was OK to go further, but Cortright said, “No, you had better stop; they are shooting at us again." Sure enough the slow and steady movement in the rice had caught the Viet Cong's attention, and Young noticed that bullets were hitting all around them and kicking up puffs of dirt. After the fire slackened, Young resumed his journey. When he had struggled his way to within a few yards of the American positions, Young yelled out that he was coming in. Seeing what was going on, Sclimenti vaulted the dike and rushed out to help Young the rest of the way. With Young and Sclimenti each taking one arm the duo dragged Cortright back,