“The only thing I did with my water was to make sure that those bandages on that stomach wound stayed moist so that his organs would not dry out and he would die.” “I had nothing to drink in those 48 hours, I had nothing to eat,” he said. When the fighting subsided the morning of May 15, McCloughan had saved 10 lives, according to the narrative.
The following morning, while fighting back enemies and keeping two critically wounded soldiers alive, McCloughan managed to knock out an RPG position with a hand grenade. Mike Martino, who found a hole from one of the bullets in his pant leg the next day. “The door gunner never kicked anything out, he was so panicked by what was going on, he strafed our perimeter with the M60 ,” said former Sgt. The medic crawled out into a rice paddy with the light, trying to signal to the helicopter. That night, a helicopter came to drop ammunition down to the soldiers. “I said this is the worst day of my life,” Martino said, remembering Day One of the battle. The assault lasted all day, as enemy soldiers ambushed the troops, claiming the life of the company’s only other medic. In the morning, after wounded troops were successfully flown out, 1st platoon made the move to Nui Yon Hill. We didn’t have enough ammunition to deal with it.” Mike Martino said. ”Because we knew we were not going to get out. “When that helicopter pulled out, the word around the company was, ‘Save one for yourself,’ ” former Sgt. When one did arrive, McCloughan still stayed with the company. McCloughan spent that night tending to the wounded because it was too dangerous to land a medevac. I don’t know you’ve done in your life, but the closest to that was sitting there thinking, well if that grizzly bear comes over here, how do I pretend to be dead?” “There were times during the night where I was desperately afraid we were getting overrun. “I’ll never forget: I spent the rest of that evening and night as an observer, witness, and a very concerned patient,” he said. The fighting raged on through the night, Nielsen said, as he lied powerless on the ground and contemplated the worst. “I’m sitting here because they couldn’t get a good shot at me, and they couldn’t get a good shot at me because of Sgt. “They were really close,” Middendorf said of the Vietnamese troops.Ĭlose enough that McCloughan could hear them speaking to each other, the former medic added. He realized he couldn’t just throw him over his shoulder, so “I carried him like a baby through the crossfire,” McCloughan said.Īs he ran into the kill zone, former Sgt. One of them had such a severe stomach wound that his organs were threatening to spill out, so McCloughan applied pressure bandages. He did that four more times to extract wounded troops. The book, Raw Courage and Fugitive Photographs: Remembrance and Restoration, The Vietnam War, is composed with appreciation and respect for all of the American men and women who served in Vietnam, and the author does not make a profit from the book.Later on May 13, according to the narrative, McCloughan dragged two wounded soldiers out of harm’s way and into a trench, as a rocket-propelled grenade peppered his back with shrapnel. Recently, Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam War Veteran with his brother, wrote a note about Raw Courage. John Shoemaker has contributed the writings and drawings by a NVA soldier to add a further, compelling and unusual dimension to the profile of "the enemy." There are also insightful quotations that capture the temper of this critical time. The atmosphere here is of a very foreign land, which can be both beautiful on a good day, and horrific beyond description on a bad one. There is a visceral immediacy, a latent sense of terror, a vulnerability at all times, an ominous sense of alert, a personal rapport with the soldiers in the pictures. The photographs capture what cannot be put into words- there is a response to a call to service. These pictures are evocative of the soldiers' lives during that time in Vietnam. A, 3-506, 1967-1968) selected from some 8,000 images, and digitally restored the photographs to create this book. Raw Courage and Fugitive Photographs: Remembrance and Restoration, The Vietnam War, 1967 - 1971 is a book of photographs taken during the Vietnam War by Jerry Berry and other soldiers who served in the Stand Alone Battalion, the Currahees, the 101st Airborne Division, during 1967- 1971, and by John Shoemaker, "Chargers," Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry, 196th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division (1970 - 1971).Ĭarol Harrison, sister of Lt.
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