“As the helo took off, we began taking heavy fire. One pilot was shot, causing the chopper to veer out of control.
Bodies lay everywhere on the crash site, but somehow I emerged almost untouched and began shooting at nearby NVA. I took a slug to my leg and rolled out of the wreckage and began crawling away. I kept crawling but was becoming light-headed from my wound. I checked my ammo for my CAR-15, and had none left.
Drained of strength, I rolled onto my back and looked up at the jungle canopy. For the first time, I noticed an NVA solider watching me from 60 feet up, smoking a cigarette. I had crawled right into an NVA base camp. Too weak to move, the NVA merely walked over, saw my condition and left me there. I passed out.
When I woke up, I was dragged below an opening in the jungle canopy with an orange signaling panel laid out next to me.
The NVA did this in hopes US helicopters would come to my aid, only to be shot up by waiting machine guns. I watched the NVA carry away several American bodies, then mount their heads on stakes like trophies.
I was dying of thirst. NVA soldiers walked over, urinated in a puddle next to me, chuckled and then walked away.
By the third day, I was definitely dying. I shivered uncontrollably as hypothermia set in, I kept drinking from the urine filled puddle.
By the forth day, the NVA no longer watched me, my usefulness just about over. That night, I could feel my strength slipping away. I thought of my family. I was never a religious man but for the first time I prayed. Suddenly, I felt a twinge of energy, I forced myself up on all fours - the pain almost consumed me, yet it jolted me into consciousness.
I dragged and rolled for almost 2 miles. That morning, the NVA camp came alive; dozens of NVA streamed out after me.
I heard a plane was near, I crawled into an opening in the canopy and passed out. Then someone grabbed me, it was an American! He shouted, ‘Charlie! Charlie!’ as two strong hands picked me up and loaded me on a repelling seat.” - SFC Charles Wilklow, MACVSOG, Laos, 1967/
Wilklow would become the only SOG member to escape captivity. To this day, 58 SOG members are still MIA. #stayzero #sog