Twice I carried my Super 8 movie camera to the field. Both missions were peaceful and uneventful.
The first part contains a few scenes from a night location and then our departure to an LZ for extraction. This was my regular four man team from K Company, 75th Infantry for much of my tour consisting of team leader Gary Heald, Billy Powers, and Mark Estopare. Our call sign was R-18 (Romeo one-eight).
The second part is from a special mission. R-18 teamed with a second team to return to the site where three of four LRRPs were KIA a few weeks earlier. This was part of the Sgt Jim Doss saga that is well-known within K Company circles. Doss was the sole survivor of that earlier team, but he also was KIA a month or two later shortly after his return from R&R in Hawaii with his wife. He had a young son who never met his father but who showed up at a Ranger reunion many years later and met the Rangers who served with his dad. This video starts out pretty serious, but by the last day of the mission the mood turned frivolous with clowning for the camera and noisemaking to ward any unfriendlies away from the LZ. The video concludes with the extraction and helicopter return to base.