9th MPs Capture VC Flag

-- Photo by Patric McMenamin, 9th Medical Battalion --

The 9th Div MP contingent at Dong Tam had an upstairs barracks close to and north east from 9 Med - just diagonally across the street. They were great guys and to my knowledge never really acted like MPs. My impression was that they were usually employed to pull sweeps around Dong Tam, and sometimes out by Fire Base Moore or all the way to Go Cong, but mostly trying to dissuade the occasional VC mortars and rockets Charlie liked to drop on Dong Tam every now and then. They basically acted like a regular grunt platoon. I went out with them a number of times - usually day sweeps or inserts from the river, or sometimes vehicles out past My Tho to villes and bridges to the north and east. They also gave me security on some occasions when I pulled MedCaps in the area. I'm sure one of the guys could fill in the holes or straighten my memory if I'm wrong on some of the details. One sad note was that although they mostly got through okay on patrols, their barracks did get hit by a 122 when they were in Dong Tam one night, hurting a lot of the guys and killing a guy I really liked named Bailey (to my immediate left in photo attached). That's the most I can help. I do have this "trophy" picture with all of us except the lieutenant (with camera) and a flag and banner we'd grabbed on a contact we had where we killed four. It's weird to see a bunch of grunts with an MP flag. That's me, "old doc", at the bottom left looking pretty tired and skinny.
-- Patric McMenamin