Barack Obama
With enemy fire pummelling the American camp, First Class Sergeant Bennie G Adkins burst into his rudimentary headquarters and hastily gathered together any papers or files he could find. The swift and sudden North Vietnamese Army (NVA) attack, some 36 hours earlier, had taken the Americans completely by surprise. Now the order had finally come: they had to get out. But Adkins couldn’t leave this critical intelligence for the enemy. Striking a match, he set the papers alight before stumbling back into the maelstrom.
The US camp, hidden in the A Shau Valley, was under attack from an enemy that, unknown to Adkins, outnumbered his 16 Special Forces and 416 South Vietnamese ten-to-one. The NVA were running rampant in the camp. One, spotting Adkins, immediately let off a volley, with a bullet striking the magazine of the American’s M-16 rifle. Miraculously
