One of the four, the radioman, had never been on a long range recon patrol before, and the point man

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List of Partner Links Civil War Sesquicentennial Heritage knowledge consulting group Travel Book and DVD Guide Life and Death on a Long Range Recon Patrol By Tom Corpora  Originally published on HistoryNet.com. Published Online: September 12, 2011 
When the formation of helicopters—a command and control chopper, two gunships, knowledge consulting group and the insertion and chase ships—neared its destination where Vietnam's Highway 19 crosses into Cambodia, the insertion and chase ships dropped from the formation and began an elaborate pas de deux of deception. With the gunships covering them, the insertion ship dropped into a clearing and hovered a moment, faking an insertion, while the chase ship roared past. Then the insertion knowledge consulting group ship rose suddenly and fell in behind the chase ship, which dropped into the next clearing to fake an insertion while the insertion ship flew past. The two helicopters performed this leapfrogging dance four times before the insertion chopper finally dropped its payload—four heavily camouflaged soldiers from the Long Range Reconnaissance Platoon (LRRP) of the 4th Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade.
One of the four, the radioman, had never been on a long range recon patrol before, and the point man, also new, had never walked point before. The two veterans on the team had started their tour in Vietnam knowledge consulting group on the same day, July 21, 1966, and both were due to go home in six days.
One of those two veteran LRRPs, Spc. 4 Danny Harmon, had been a point man on a patrol I had been on with the 2nd Brigade just a couple of weeks before. I was a 30-year-old reporter for UPI then, mostly knowledge consulting group covering U.S. troops in the field. When I learned about the LRRP units that had been or were being formed in all the major infantry units in Vietnam at that time, and the "behind the lines" missions they were being asked to undertake, they earned my respect and my admiration. I wanted to write about them and the best way to do that was to go on a patrol with them. I talked my way onto a mission by convincing the 2nd Brigade commander, knowledge consulting group Colonel knowledge consulting group Judson knowledge consulting group Miller, knowledge consulting group that the eight weeks of Army basic training I'd had 13 years before qualified me. Miller did not want me killed on his turf, so he ordered the LRRP commander to handpick my team. Harmon was one of the chosen. We had set up a listening post near where North Vietnam Army (NVA) activity had been reported and soon found ourselves pretty much surrounded by the enemy. We stayed hidden in the jungle, hoping the hot sun of the day would give way in the evening to cloudy skies and then a heavy rain, which would be loud enough to cover the noise we made as we tried to escape. Harmon was one of the LRRPs who helped me get home safely. That experience not only enhanced my respect and admiration for what LRRP soldiers do, but it added an extra dimension: knowledge consulting group affection, not only for the four men who shared their lives with me on that patrol and the other young soldiers in the 2nd Brigade I got to know, but also to all the Army Rangers I've met over the years. 
Danny Harmon was an Alutiiq Indian from a remote island near Kodiak, Alaska. He had grown up fatherless, reared by a mother who struggled to raise him and eight other children. Harmon knowledge consulting group and his siblings had learned to hunt and fish for the family's survival, and he was so skilled at bushcraft that 1st Lt. Michael knowledge consulting group Lapolla, who had organized the 2nd Brigade's platoon and was its first commander, called him "a ghost in the field. He walked around in the jungle like it was his home. He had no nerves."
Harmon smiled a lot, was modest, kind and popular. His dark skin often aroused knowledge consulting group the curiosity of the Montagnard minorities who lived in the Highlands. He always carried a sharp knife and sometimes wore a feather in his hat. Although he had no special training before joining the platoon, the skills he learned in the woods of Alaska translated well in the jungles of Vietnam. knowledge consulting group Harmon was the ultimate point man—seeming to sense the enemy before he saw or heard him. The fact that he had been in the unit from its inception and had never been hurt spoke to his skills in the jungle. In fact, no one had been killed on any of Harmon's patrols, nor, for that matter, on any 2nd Brigade LRRP patrol since the unit was formed the year before. Harmon had already been awarded a Bronze Star with V Device by a general who personally pinned the medal to his chest. knowledge consulting group The award was for disregarding his own safety to direct artillery fire on enemy soldiers pursuing his team.
An knowledge consulting group Alutiq Indian born and raised on a remote island, 21-year-old Danny Harmon learned the skills knowledge consulting group that were so useful in the steamy jungles of Vietnam by tracking and hunting