Purple Heart - Curry T. Haynes Traditional Cache

Hikermom suggested I place caches to honor Purple Heart recipients. 

Curry T Haynes received 10 Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam... Here's his story:

"I carried a World War I trench shotgun. They were good except the firing pin would break," he said. The pin did break on his gun, and on a day he was armed with an M-16, his company walked into an ambush. He was shot twice in the arm, earning his first Purple Heart. After surgery in Japan, he returned to the jungles of Vietnam and came down with malaria.

But the 21-year-old soldier recovered and was soon back on the battle front. And then came May 8, 1968.
"I was assigned to a new position with a new guy from California," he recalled. "It rained on us that night and I was cleaning my weapon. I had my shirt off and the parts were laying on the shirt. 
"A B-40 rocket hit two positions down. Then it hit the position next to me and I knew it would hit my position next, so I ducked down behind some sand bags and (shrapnel) hit me in the chest and left arm.
I kept putting my weapon back together and the North Vietnamese came running down the hill."
A bullet hit his right ankle, another round went through his right thigh and another hit his left thigh.
"By then I got my weapon put together and I started firing on them," he said. "I was shooting pretty good at first, but the first round that went through my arm cut a nerve. I was bleeding a lot, especially out of my thighs.
"About that time a North Vietnamese came down with a B-40 rocket. He was inexperienced and in the excitement he forgot to load the rocket launcher. He jumped behind a termite hill and pushed a guy behind it out in the open. I shot both of them.
While I was shooting them, another North Vietnamese shot me through my left hand and shot the index finger and shot the hand guard off my M-16. I laid on my side and another round came and clipped the finger off. They were trying to move in on me and I was trying to open fire and my hand got all tangled up in the weapon because of the jagged bone ends. About that time, another round came in and shot the trigger guard and shot these (index and middle) fingers off.
"I was firing at them and pulled the trigger with the little finger and the next to the little finger and I killed another North Vietnamese. They started throwing grenades. I ducked down behind a sandbag and a grenade landed on my side and I couldn't get it off. And it did not go off. It was a dud.
"They threw another grenade and it landed in front of my position. It exploded and went through the sand bag material and hit me in the right eye. I put my head down and when I looked back up they were pulling back. They not only left their dead behind, but they left their wounded."
Haynes said he was soon treated by a young medic, who gave him morphine and attempted to stop the bleeding. An older medic, who was a friend of Haynes, arrived and took Haynes damaged M-16 and finished off the wounded Vietnamese.
Haynes was flown by helicopter to a field hospital in An Khe, where he remained for two weeks before being flown to a military hospital in Charleston, S.C.
Somehow Haynes survived the onslaught of bullets and shrapnel that left his body pockmarked with scars. He was awarded a Purple Heart for each wound.
 

I hope you enjoy this story and the cache.  Let's all honor our veterans.  Please let me know if it needs maintenance and I'll come see about it.  

Congrats to K13 for the first to find.