ABC journalist Tim Bowden (right) and his US Marine Corps (USMC) body guard in the countryside to ...

ABC journalist Tim Bowden (right) and his US Marine Corps (USMC) body guard in the countryside to the west of Da Nang about to move out on a patrol accompanied by a pair of M48 light tanks. Tim Bowden, the Australian Broadcasting Commmission (ABC) correspondent based in Singapore, was sent on assignment to Vietnam in early May 1966 to prepare a radio documentary for the ABC current affairs program of the day, "Fact and Opinion". Mr Bowden is carrying his field recording kit, a Swiss-made Stellavox tape-recorder, in the leather bag slung over his shoulder and his USMC body guard is armed with a pump action shotgun. " Early in May 1966 I flew to Da Nang to try and record something of the cutting edge of the war. I requested to go out on a 24-hour patrol with a US Marine platoon into what was called a 'free fire zone' in the hinterland of Danang, which is a coastal port and also in those days a key air US base. I was assigned a personal bodyguard, a US Marine Sergeant whose first name was Jim, who had I recall, five Purple Heart medals. During the daylight hours we ranged around pretty much firing at anything that moved, using the tank's canon. At night we camped with a defensive perimeter, and were lightly mortared by the North Vietnamese, but we could hear a bigger action going on elsewhere. One of the biggest hazards was being killed by a ball of our own manure so to speak. The Marines used to direct random mortar fire out into the 'free fire zone' to keep the enemy on their toes. This also doubtless killed a lot of innocent South Vietnamese farmers who had not left their ancestral farms as they had been advised to do. Unfortunately our platoon commander, a young lieutenant who looked to me to be about 16 years old, was not sure where he was on the map, so we were at risk of being bombed by our own side as well during the night. "