My Worst Day in Vietnam

My Worst Day in Vietnam

February 22nd is the day that is forever logged into my memory. We were on a patrol, and we crossed into the jungle. We crossed a small stream—they called it a river, but it was just a stream. It was waist-high and only about 15 feet across.

We crossed it, got up, and came to the back of a hutch. The captain halted our unit, told everybody to hunker down, and then he came to me. He said, “Go check out the hutch.”

When I entered the hutch, I was checking for false walls, false ceilings, and false floor structures. I did all that, walked back out to the captain, and broke rule number one. You are supposed to stay 15 to 20 feet apart in the open, but I walked right up to him. In my mind, I guess I didn’t want to be hollering out what I saw.

As I was explaining to him what I saw and didn’t see, I looked over my left shoulder. Because we had approached the hutch from the rear, I hadn’t seen it earlier, but there was a homemade antenna on the front, right above the doorway.

I pointed at it, which broke rule number two: you don’t point in the field because that shows authority or direction. That is exactly when they opened up fire on me.

One round sheared the strap to my pack. The straps were down against my chest, which shows just how close that single round was. Another three to four bullets hit me. One hit me at the nape of my neck, where I still have a scar and a piece of shrapnel in my skin. The doctor told me it would cause more damage to take it out, so we just left it.

The three rounds that hit my shoulder were just above the clavicle. It was all meat, so the force threw me about 15 feet, and I collided right into the company commander’s chest.

As I lay there organizing my mind, the first thing I heard was the M79 grenade launcher going off on the other side of the hutch. I knew then that the other column was now in conflict with the enemy.

As soon as I heard that, I scrambled to the ditch—a moat that surrounded the little shack. It was like what the British do to protect a castle. You don’t jump straight into it because they embed punji sticks there. If you jump, you will end up with sharpened bamboo ramming up your legs.

So, I slithered into it. As soon as I got inside, I called out to the medic. I hollered for the medic to come.

When a medic hears the word “medic,” he runs. He came rushing over to me and ripped my shirt to see what was wrong. I said, “Forget me, go get the captain.”

He took off and started working on the captain. Watching him work on the captain out in the open was too much for me. I turned and hollered for my ammo bearer. At that moment, I couldn’t focus on his name, but it was Daryl. I hollered out, “Daryl, we need you!”

He yelled back, “I’m watching the captive!”

I said, “Kill him, we need you!”

There was silence for about five seconds, and then he came running toward my voice. He had a look on his face, and I knew it was his first kill—meaning a kill with his bare hands or a knife. He had a knife that looked like a pirate knife, with a sharp point curved at the top. He had shoved the knife right into his throat, in the soft spot where they teach you to strike.

He came running, and I said, “Go drag the captain away from the corner, around the corner.”

He ran up there. I was still standing in the moat, not knowing how badly I was injured, but knowing I had been shot. He ran up and grabbed the company commander. As soon as he grabbed him, an AK-47 opened up again.

I could see the rounds hitting the foundation of the hutch, about knee-high, spacing out every foot as they worked their way through the group of three people: the company commander, the medic, and my ammo bearer.

The ammo bearer got hit in the leg. Three rounds hit his right thigh, throwing him almost right on top of me. He was lying there in thriving pain while the medic was still working on the company commander.

He was reaching out to me, and I said, “Get closer to me and I’ll get closer to you.”

I crawled out of the trench, keeping my right foot inside to pull myself back. I grabbed his shirt sleeve and pulled him toward me. I didn’t pull him all the way into the trench because he had an open wound that was pumping blood.

I took his first-aid pack off. The pack is about a certain length and thickness, with four-foot-long ties on both ends. I put his first-aid pack on the biggest hole that was pumping blood, wrapping the ties around two or three smaller holes that were also bleeding where the bullets and bone had exited. Then, I used my own first-aid pouch to cover the next worst hole, using the ties to cover up the smaller bleeders.

To keep him awake, which is what they teach you to do, I sang cadence songs to him.

Pretty soon, someone ran by and said, “All the medevac choppers are taken up because of our previous excursion. They are all gassing up and resupplying. So, we are going to drop a gunship down.”

We knew that when a gunship comes down, they don’t land; they only hover about five feet above the ground. I knew I was going to have a difficult situation.

The soldier ran off, and soon I could hear the chopper coming. I said, “Okay Daryl, it’s time to go.”

I put him on my shoulder. I didn’t want him to get dirt in his wounds, so I started carrying him out to the chopper, which was about 40 or 50 feet away. I got halfway there when I ran out of energy.

I told him, “I have to put you down. I’m going to switch shoulders.”

When I brought him down, I knocked my helmet and glasses off. I reached down, thought to hell with my glasses, picked up my helmet, put it on, and lifted him onto my other shoulder.

I carried him the last 10 or 15 feet. When the gunship was hovering, I threw him onto it, jumped on myself, and they took us off.

They dropped me off at the nearest small town with a hospital, which was called Di An, though they pronounced it “Zeon.” They took Daryl to Japan for his bone injuries, and I spent about four or five days in the hospital.

While I was there, I got my mail. The mail always keeps up with you in Vietnam, sent via chopper. I read a letter from my mom saying that my cousin had just arrived in a little town called Di An with the new Cobra choppers.

Knowing I was in Di An, I put the letter down, walked up to the front desk, and said, “Can I go outside and walk around?”

They said, “Okay, be back for lunch.”

I left, walked outside, and saw a group of four or five people on the corner. I walked up and asked, “Where’s the new chopper group at?”

They said, “Oh, down that way, a block or so.”

I walked down there wearing a soft ball cap and no weapon. I got to where the choppers were and hollered out, “Mike Gorman!”

He came running and answered, “Yes, sir!”

It was my cousin. When he saw me, we hugged each other. It was unbelievable that I got to meet my cousin there. He had his helmet on, and I had my soft cap on. We hugged, caught up, and made plans to meet again.

I said, “Well, I have to go back to the hospital to get lunch and be on my way.”

He said, “Okay, okay, well, I’m here.”

I said, “I tell you what, I lost my glasses, so I have to come back down to Saigon to get them. I’ll drop in here and we’ll meet up.”

He said, “Okay, okay.”

I went back, did my thing, and returned to the company area for some rest and relaxation. Eventually, the doctor said, “Okay, you’re well enough to travel, so go down to Saigon, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, and get your glasses.”

I went down to the chopper pad, jumped on a chopper, and they asked, “Where you headed?”

I said, “Saigon.”

The chopper flew for five minutes, landed, and they told me to jump on another chopper. That crew asked, “Where you headed?”

I said, “Saigon.”

It traveled another 10 to 15 minutes, landed, and I jumped out. They pointed to another chopper. I got on, and they asked, “Where you headed?”

I said, “Saigon.”

I finally made it to Saigon and found the infirmary. The glasses department was on the second floor. The guy working there said, “Oh, I was just ready to go to lunch.”

I said, “Well, I need a set of glasses.”

He said, “Okay.”

He looked at my file, fitted me with a pair of glasses, and I left so he could go to lunch.

I went back down to the pad, and they asked, “Where you headed?”

I said, “Di An.”

My base camp was Lai Khe, which was a 15 to 20-minute flight from Di An, but I wanted to go back and see my cousin.

I got to see my cousin a second time. I told him I would come down another time and stay longer.

Eventually, I arrived back at my base camp, and the master sergeant said, “Where you been for the last four days?”

I got in trouble for being gone for five days without saying a word. Because of that, I had to spend an extra four days in Vietnam past my regular rotation date.