50 Years ago today

On May 13th, 1967, I was shot through my upper right thigh, shattering my femur and almost severing my leg. I celebrate this day every year because it was the day I almost died but through God’s grace, I have lived this half century more.

I was a twenty-one year old Lance Corporal (E-3) in the Marines serving as an Artillery Scout (an enlisted Forward Observer) with Golf Company 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines (2/1) about 16 kilometers Southwest of Danang, Vietnam. Our company was on a local sweep a little north of Hill 55, following the edge of the Song Yen river that bounded ours and the 7th Marines’ Tactical Area of Responsibilities (TAOR). We headed slowly south, searching for the enemy, as always. At first light, I heard a sudden burst of gunfire and saw several Marines firing at a VC that was running away in the open and getting away pretty quickly. We had just gotten the M-16 and even though several hundred rounds were fired in those few seconds, that guy kept running. I aimed carefully with my M-14 and shot him (I had the last M-14 anywhere around; I was an artilleryman and I claimed that “we didn’t have M16s yet” and got away with keeping it). We ran up to get him and found that I had hit him in his right hand, chopping off the edge of his hand, taking his little finger with it. He was an older VC – 40 or so – and I could see he was in a lot of pain, so I bandaged his hand with one of my own bandages and gave him a cigarette. He calmed down, since you don’t bother bandaging somebody or giving somebody a cigarette if you’re just going to kill him. We found out through our Chieu Hoi scout (a former VC that had surrendered and now worked to help guide us and interpret) that he was an outpost for an enemy company just ahead of us, so we deployed to meet them, one platoon working around behind the enemy to block them and two platoons to begin the approach to where we thought they were.

We caught up with them near Dien Xuan village at the edge of a large open and dry rice paddy that had been recently plowed. We passed through one treeline and we were starting to cross the wide open area of that plowed-up paddy, the enemy opened fire. Firefights always started with a couple of quick shots and then very quickly developed into a stuttering, shattering roar, with hundreds of weapons – ours and theirs - being fired, all full-auto, all at once. We were experienced, so we were all flat on the ground and we were initially unscathed. We started firing 60mm mortars and some LAW rockets and the enemy, unusually for them, stood their ground and started firing rockets back at us. I detected two machine guns straight across from us, between 150 and 200m away. I started working up an artillery fire mission to hit those positions with 105mm fire. As I waited for the mission to be cleared and to start sending rounds, I saw dust coming up from the window of a house directly across from me - someone was firing from that window. I fired a raking burst just under the window, from right to left and the house began to smolder and burn.

My artillery fire mission was cancelled because we started to get some wounded and a “Sav-A-Plane” was put into effect – so artillery and mortar missions were stopped to allow medevac helicopters to come in without being hit by our own stuff. The platoon to my left started assaulting across the open rice paddy towards the enemy but several of them were hit all at once, five that I could see. I could also see that the enemy was still shooting at the wounded men by the dust kicking up around them. I was only about 50-60m away and in pretty good cover, so with very great reluctance I realized that I was the closest guy to them and I’d have to go out there and try get them to safety. During those seconds while I was spooling up my nerve, my first-day-in-combat FO Lieutenant, Hank Graves plopped down next to me and said “I’ll cover you”, holding a single-shot M79 40mm grenade launcher. I could see that his safety was on, so I said “the safety comes off by pushing it forward, Sir” and then I got up and ran for the first guy I could reach.

I left my rifle behind because I’d need both hands and it wouldn’t have done me any good to carry a rifle anyway. That plowed paddy was rough and difficult to run on because it was so jumbled up and hard. My ankles twisted and I stumbled steadily ahead towards the nearest guy I could reach. I was sure that I was as good as dead, that the next shot would hit me between the eyes. Everybody was shooting and bullets cracked all around me. The Marine I reached had been shot sideways through the hips and his guts were protruding. He was struggling and thrashing around with pain and I tried to carry him but he was too tall and too broken to move that way. I tried lifting him and pulling him by lifting under his arms but that didn’t work either. His hips were broken and it hurt him too much. A Marine ran towards us from our treeline, a guy we called “Big John” (I never found out his real name – he was known as our “duty hero” and he had been wounded at least twice before), and he grabbed the wounded guy’s feet while I lifted him under his armpits and then we ran towards cover with him between us. Before we got very far, Big John ran out of breath and couldn’t go anymore so I had us all lay flat, as low as we could get and told Big John to take deep breaths. After a few seconds, we got up again and ran some more, finally reaching the inside edge of our treeline. The wounded Marine – LCpl Dave Johnson – was turning blue and I was afraid that he was going to die, so I leaned over him and told him that he “was on the way home”. I knew that there were more wounded men out there and I couldn’t stall anymore, so I started to stand again to get moving back out into that field when I heard a loud bang and fell immediately next to Dave.

The bullet hit me on the inside left of my thigh and blew through the outside right of my leg and I just collapsed. I said something like “Unhh, I’m hit” and felt intense, stunning pain. It felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my leg and crushed it, which was a fairly accurate analysis. There was no feeling of impact at all when the bullet hit me. My femur was shattered into bits and I was bleeding a lot and the open hole in my greatly expanded leg was too large to cover with my bandages. I grabbed an empty cloth bandoleer and tied it around my upper right thigh next to my crotch and used my Kabar knife to tighten it down to close off the artery and the bleeding. By this time, I felt my blood pool up to my neck while I laid there. A corpsman reached me and tried to get bandages on me but the holes were just too wide, bigger than my spread-out hand. Big John had also been hit (possibly the same bullet that hit me), so the three of us just lay there, waiting until we got help. I remember feeling guilty that I couldn’t just get up and continue helping to get the wounded but there wasn’t any way I was going to be able do it. I also remember being very surprised that I had been hit, even though I had seen people hit all around me for months and I had just finished being near-missed by hundreds of rounds. It’s funny how our young minds work.

Lt. Graves crawled up next to me and said “I’m really sorry you’re hurt Rick, but can I have your rifle?” I told him that it was “all his”. I called in my own Medevac (“Button Vermillion”) – and while I was on the radio, one of the guys from my artillery battery asked which one of us was wounded and using radio jargon I said “Chinstrap Bravo 61 Alpha, Actual” which meant “me”. The voice on the radio said that he was sorry that I was hurt and wished me well. Red-headed Lt Joiner, one of the platoon commanders, came by and treated us to a show of bravado to entertain us by firing offhand with his .45 at the enemy while bullets crackled all around him. I said “Sir, get down, please, you’re drawing fire”. I was fading from loss of blood, so I don’t remember when Dave and Big John were carried to the medevac helicopter but I remember watching that big Sikorsky UH-34 land in that open paddy while everyone was still shooting. I remember really wanting to be on that plane when I felt a tug on my shoulder and it was my VC prisoner from that morning. He pointed at the helicopter and I nodded and he helped pull me up and he helped carry me to the open door of that bird. I remember watching him waving at me with his bandaged hand as the plane lifted us up and on to Charlie Med in Danang.

When I got to Charlie Med, I was completely naked – they cut your clothes off in preparation for triage – but I still had a frag grenade in my hand in case the helicopter went down. Nobody wanted to be taken prisoner in that neck of the woods. There were about a dozen wounded arriving at the same time we did, so there were a lot of men on stretchers lined up on the ground outside the field hospital, waiting to be treated. The corpsmen saw the grenade I had and freaked, which I thought was funny because grenades are just paperweights until you pull the pin. We had a lot of very badly wounded men there and I remember one who had been horrifically burned by a white phosphorus booby trap and was bleeding all over from his burns. The other thing I noticed was how quiet we all were; we were all in almost unimaginable pain but none of us made any noises at all. I was very surprised when they moved me in for treatment first because I thought many were worse off than I was. I was brought into a room, up onto a table and I was bent forward at the waist and a corpsman stuck a long needle into my lower back and then moved in front of me and apologized because his first attempt at a spinal missed. I told him that it’s fine, go ahead a try again. He tried again and then there was the most blessed relief you can imagine when that pain finally stopped.

I was put into something they called the “spider”, a frame to hold me and my limbs in position and a short curtain was put up at my waist between me and the work they were doing on my leg. From my angle, I was looking up at a large circular reflector around a lamp above us and I could see some of what the surgeons were doing with my leg. The lead surgeon looked at me and said “we may have to take your leg off – are you OK with this?” I told him to “do what he had to do”. He asked me to try to wiggle my toes, which I did, I think - since I couldn’t really see what was happening. I talked to the anesthetist while they were working and I said that I looked like an el Greco painting, with all the color of yellow and green in my skin as shown by that reflector. The surgeon turned to him and said “shut him up!” so he stuck some morphine in my I.V. and I was out.

When I woke, I had a plaster cast going from the upper chest, all the way down both legs which were spread in about a 20 degree angle. I had a steel pin transversely through my shin just below the knee and I had tubes all over the place, with freezing cold blood coming through an I.V. in my left arm and I could feel chill blains all the way to my heart. My First Sergeant visited me to see how I was doing and to see if I could still make it back to combat duty but I think even he was convinced that I wasn’t going to be much use for a while and that I should head home.

It was a long process of recovery, taking years, but Dave and I both made it. Dave went back to Vietnam about a year later and was wounded again, same place in his body and was discharged as disabled after that. Dave was a true character and married his sweetheart while he was in Unauthorized Absence (AWOL) from the hospital, concealing his colostomy bag in his tuxedo. There was some discussion whether I would keep my leg but thanks to the grace of God and the skill of my doctors, I kept it and learned to walk again after several grafts and 7 months in traction. I got out of the Marine Corps after a tour with the Air Wing as a machine gun instructor, then returned to the Marine Corps 3 1/2 years later to serve another 24 years, retiring in 1996.

50 years is a long time ago, yet it feels like it was almost last week. I know that I was one of many tens of thousands who went through experiences like this, a river of wounded, flowing through the Philippines, Japan and then hospitals in the States to finish our recoveries. I am deeply grateful to my Maker for letting me live for all these years and for all of His gifts. I remember my fellow Marines and our Corpsmen and that incredibly brave medevac pilot, and those skilled surgeons with warmth and I’ll always be thankful that I could be there with them and that I didn’t let them down.

"Has got to be one of the best lines in the war."

I thought it was funny at the time too -

Earlier in the day, before we got into it with the VC company we ran out of water. We stopped along the river which a had nice clear section in the middle and wasn't too deep. Because I was the junior man in the FO team, I was handed everyone's canteens and was selected to walk out into the river and fill them.

I gave Lt. Graves my rifle (an automatic M-14 with a bipod), took off my flak jacket and helmet and waded out into the water.

Now, there are few thing more intimidating than wading out into the open in the middle of water that comes up to your chest in a war zone. You are entirely without cover, easily seen from any direction and if someone shoots, you see the impact of the rounds in the water if you're lucky enough not to be hit immediately. Escaping is nearly impossible because nobody, no matter how strong, can run quickly out of the water.

I edged out to the middle and cautiously started filling the canteens, one by one - then a rapid and very loud burst of fire cut through the water just yards in front of me. I threw the canteens and struggled and thrashed to get out of the water and make it to shore as fast as I could.

When I got to the shore, everyone was laughing and Lt. Graves said "Geez, Rick - you sure have a light trigger!"

Me too, mos 2549, Naval Shore Party, (forward observer for naval guns (artillery)) but in 69 not 66. Oh I was a Lance Corporal too. lol

Shore party was very busy with 2/1 when we made 6 "Dagger Thrust" landings off the Iwo Jima and the old Valley Forge LPH's in late 65. On one, I had to pack one of shore party's Largest dozer's with C-4 and blow it in place, when we couldn't get it out of a mud pit tank trap in an old rubber plantation. We were in and out in a day and couldn't leave it behind. A TD?? Hate to think what that was worth in dollars.

“My brother served there. My uncle, a very brave man, gave his life there. The Vietnam War was a huge waste of lives.”

I heard, from people who should know, that the war hastened the fall of the Soviet Union by ten years.

Then, too, all other things being equal, opposing evil is the right thing to do.

I don’t see it as a waste, but a valiant effort that saved uncounted lives. Who knows what country would have been been next if the communists had gained quick victory in Viet Nam?

An old thread, and it is late (for me), but does this story dove-tail with you escaping the confines of your hosptial ward, and working your way on your rolling bed down the hallways? And at some point saying something to a visiting General - that remembers you from years past and gets you off the hook?

The very well-written story telling seems familiar. Of course I’m 100% certain that you weren’t the only one wounded in Vietnam. BUT - you are a very gifted story teller. Thank you for sharing your life, and the history of that war, with us.

It is hard to believe that it was “only” 25 years since WWII that I would sit in our den and read all about it in the encyclipedia, and it seemed like ancient history. But it is now over 50 years since the end of Vietnam.

Of course my kids just barely remember the 9-11 attacks.

I’m that guy, alright... I wrote my hospital stories about a year ago to celebrate 50 lucky years gone by.

You are absolutely right, there were thousands of us flowing through the hospital systems. I’m a bit surprised that there aren’t more stories around from fellow veterans - there certainly were tens of thousands of more stories out there besides mine.

If you don’t mind, I will write some more. For some odd reason, I remember almost everything and I think that all of us should preserve those memories.

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