Thomas Norris: By this time I was talking to another fellow, and I didn’t realize this until well after the fact, but the first destroyer that I was talking to was hit by shore batteries from North Vietnam so it went offline. The second one came up — it could never get in position because of the incoming rounds, so it could never get into a firing position for us. I didn’t know any of this. I’m thinking, “These guys, how come they’re not firing and I’m not getting any gunfire support?” I mean artillery and naval gunfire support. You don’t have time to talk to them for very long. I mean you’re in a fire fight. We were just being overrun by various groups as they came up. Eventually it got to where you’re hand to hand with some of these folks, so you only have very limited time on the radio. The first time I talked to him I had plenty of time, but after that initial contact my time frame on a radio was very short. I didn’t have time to sit and talk to this guy forever and a day. So as this battle progressed, it got to the point where we were being surrounded. We counted about 150 North Vietnamese moving in action around us. Remember, there’s five of us. Another thing that happened was there was a forward air control aircraft that came up at this time, and I was hoping that he would take over. I couldn’t communicate with him, but I knew the ships could, and I wanted him to coordinate the naval gunfire. That never happened.