2 Mike McCain

Mike was from Georgia, and even though I was from the NYC area, we became good friends. We had been in the same units from the beginning. We left Oakland together sitting next to one another on the plane to Vietnam, we were both assigned to pull guard duty for a couple of weeks at Long Binh, and then we were both sent to the Triple Deuce. He was to report to B Company and me to A. When he got to the unit a day ahead of me, they switched him to A, so we ended up in the same unit again. We started out on different tracks, but when the one I was on hit a mine, I was transferred to his. When the 25th pulled out in November, we were both sent up north to the Americal. We asked to be assigned together (for the first time) - big mistake. He went to one unit (which I don't recall), and I went to B Company, 1/46th. Next time I saw him he was in the 91st evacuation hospital, the victim of a booby trap while he was walking back-up, with both lungs punctured. A medivac chopper was in the area and picked him up within 2 minutes, else he would have died. He went to Japan for a couple of months before getting discharged. We kept in touch for a couple of months and then lost touch - the last thing I heard was that he was studying the ministry. I was down in Atlanta for training back in the early 1990's and called a bunch of McCains in the phone book without luck.