The accounts of Vietnamese witnesses are consistent on several points with Rood's. Ba Thanh, the guerrilla killed while carrying the B-40 rocket launcher, was "big and strong" and in his late 20s. Return fire was also intense, according to Vo Van Tam, who was then a local Viet Cong commander: "I led Ba Thanh's comrades, the whole unit, to fight back. And we ran around the back and fought the Americans from behind. We worked with the city soldiers to fire on the American boats." No Vietnamese witnesses saw how Thanh died or saw him being chased by an American.