Dale Hanson

Well, on the way, the NVA or the VC attacked the Jeep and blew it up.

I mean, it flew up in the air upside down.

And Novi...

landed sitting up like I am this morning with his back against a tree, and a bullet creased his forehead and just blood was coming down.

And the one who was driving the Jeep couldn't get out from the steering wheel, and they shot him.

And then the other one, when the jeep flipped over, he was under the jeep.

And he could see the NVA, and he tried to move his foot so that they wouldn't see it.

And they saw the movement, and they shot him in the head.

Well, they went to Novi, and all the blood there.

And Novi's eyes were wide open, just like that, and just frozen.

Anyway, the one Viet Cong says, him die, him die.

So they went over, and they saw his ring.

They tried to pull off his ring, and they couldn't get the ring off.

So one of them grabbed a knife, and they saw it on his finger.

And they sawed his finger off, and they held up the ring to the light.

And Novi, who is totally cognizant of what's going on, wouldn't move if he could.

He kept, I cannot move because these guys will finish me off, you know.

But he watched them do it, you know.

And I went and I saw him in the hospital in Pleiku.

Just a good man, you know, old.