Looking up the ramp that lead down to the underground power plant at FOB Q-West.

LZ Gurkha artillery emplacement of 105 mm howitzers.

Medevacing a soldier wounded in the leg during an firefight.

Men watching the results of the bombing of an enemy position in the far tree line. Operation Allen Brook.

Mercenaries from in the parking lot of FOB Q-West only mess hall.

Mountains West of Camp Doung Son perimeter. March / April 1968.

MSR Tampa from the air. The MSR is the Main Supply Route coming out of Turkey extending all the way to Badaq.

Oakes aboard the hospital ship U.S.S. Repose in November 1968 after he contracted dysentery in the Khe Sanh Valley.

Oakes and his men preparing for their first convoy from FOB Q-West to Balad in April 2005.

Oakes and LCPL Lamphere with the platoon radios just before Oakes began working with the company. Lamphere was the man Oakes chose to replace him as platoon radioman. The day after this picture, Lamphere tripped a bobby-trapped hand grenade that took…

Oakes and three other soldiers acting as an escort for a Chinese couple in Chinatown, San Francisco.

Oakes at a refueling stop in Iceland on the way to Kuwait, the day after Thanksgiving 2004.

Oakes at Camp Hansen, Okinawa on his way home from Vietnam, April 1969.

Oakes preparing to go on a night patrol in March / April 1968 from Camp Dong Son.

Oakes resting after going from Camp Doung Son to a platoon patrol base in August 1968. Oakes had collapsed from heat exhaustion due to the intense heat.

Oakes spent the last 30 days in county as the NCOIC in charge of the transit tent of B Co 1/4 Marines Dong Ha (rear area).

Oakes standing in front of a Blackhawk helicopter.

Oakes' superiors and Iraqi commanding general with assistant at a dinner at FOB Q-West in September 2005

Operation Allen Brook. The patrol is receiving automatic weapons fire from the tree line in the background.

Operation Allen Brook. F-4 Phantom releasing ordanace on an enemy position firing upon Oakes' unit

Part of the Samarra bypass, a wall built around a hostile Iraqi town for protection of the convoys.

Patrol during Operation Allen Brook. Right after Oakes took the picture, North Vietnamese machine guns began firing from the opposite bank.

Pedicab in the city of Da Nang. Taken after Oakes had been released from the hospital and is on his way back to his unit.

Platoon ordnance load for a single patrol. Consists of: machine gun ammo, hand grenades, M-16 ammo, M-79 ammo, smoke grenades, LAWs (Light Anti-Tank Weapons), and claymore mines.