The men of Alpha Company, 5/7th Cav spent months in the field without showers or change of clothes, and eventually their fatigues began to simply rot off their bodies. They depended on helicopters for virtually everything they needed to survive in the field, from food and clothing to cigarettes and mail. Every so often, the choppers would transport the skytroopers to another battlefield in pursuit of the enemy. At times, they would be dropped into the landing zone under fire. On October 4th 1966, Alpha Company suffered its first fatal casualties while attempting to rescue two pilots of a downed helicopter just outside the village of An My, near the inlet lake of Vinh Nuoc Ngot. Along with endless monsoon rains, November brought several fierce and deadly battles, the worst of which occurred on Thanksgiving Day when six men of Alpha Company and one from Charlie Company were killed in action. The battle was written about by the commander of Charlie Company, 5/7th Cav, Captain Bernard E. Grady (Ret) in his book, On The Tiger's Back, and by Robert K. Powers, an infantryman in Bravo Company, 5/7th Cav in his own book, 1966 The Year of the Horse. My dad had always remembered that day as his worst in Vietnam, and I submitted some of what I wrote in our book to the Minnesota Remembers Vietnam Story Wall.