paladin
08-19-2004, 01:46 PM
There is a lot of BS in the bilge over military medals...yes ..I got some...but please allow me to explain a few things....
First Vietnam was a very unpopular war...all news released in country was "colored" for moral purposes, medals were handed out like popcorn for "moral" purposes...
so....my first Purple heart.....background...the officers club in Saigon was located on one side by Tu Do street and at it's face by Hai Ba Trung...immediately behind the "O" club was the womens (nurses, female officers in general) quarters separated by a 10 foot high concrete block wall topped with broken glass imbedded in the concrete and topped by concertina wire...
If you were on the second deck "patio" and bar you could look over the fence directly into the womens quarters...and the ladies paraded around in undie shorts and with and without bras...they knew what they were doing (most went home with more money than some general with 20 years savings).
Late one evening a 2nd Looie was being whistled at by a couple of these ladies and..drunk as a skunk...decided to walk the top of the fence and enter the ladies quarters....he didn't make it..and the only thing that saved his life was the fact he was so drunk. It took over two hours to cut him out of the wire during which time he almost bled to death from the razor wire cuts...then he was transferred to the hospital.
Two days later we were making a low level run near Dalat and got a wee bit too slow and low to the ground. Two of the most worthless things in this life are runway behind you and altitude above you...we got plastered trying to provide cover for some dudes running like hell....they wuz outnumbered about a hundred to one...when I felt a shart prick in the right leg...and it didn't seem to work and I thought it wuz a helluva time for the rudder not to work...
Anyway..I was lucky as the round went through the leg just above the knee and about a half inch under the skin and out...very little bleeding...
as it so happens I ended up in the same ward with this second Looie who moaned and groaned all day and all night. I wanted out but they keeps you a minimum of three days to make sure there's no infection. On the day I was to be released a General comes through the ward and was followed by a Captain with a sizeable box..he would stop by, shake hands and hand out purple hearts. When he got down to my end of the swamp he had one medal left...and he said.."Son, this man looks a lot worse off than you and I only have one medal left. Do you mind if we give it to him". I said No, Sir...probably with a smirk. Then he left and the Captain was taking notes and all pertinent info of each of the guys for the award paperwork..
This is a true story....and not the last of such incidents. I have seen medals awarded for drunks driving jeeps into the bay, medals pinned on numerous drug overdose cases etc..."because we don't want the family to know how they really died"....
and then there's the tale of my next two...I thought wuz funny and almost embarrassed..but it hurt too much...
First Vietnam was a very unpopular war...all news released in country was "colored" for moral purposes, medals were handed out like popcorn for "moral" purposes...
so....my first Purple heart.....background...the officers club in Saigon was located on one side by Tu Do street and at it's face by Hai Ba Trung...immediately behind the "O" club was the womens (nurses, female officers in general) quarters separated by a 10 foot high concrete block wall topped with broken glass imbedded in the concrete and topped by concertina wire...
If you were on the second deck "patio" and bar you could look over the fence directly into the womens quarters...and the ladies paraded around in undie shorts and with and without bras...they knew what they were doing (most went home with more money than some general with 20 years savings).
Late one evening a 2nd Looie was being whistled at by a couple of these ladies and..drunk as a skunk...decided to walk the top of the fence and enter the ladies quarters....he didn't make it..and the only thing that saved his life was the fact he was so drunk. It took over two hours to cut him out of the wire during which time he almost bled to death from the razor wire cuts...then he was transferred to the hospital.
Two days later we were making a low level run near Dalat and got a wee bit too slow and low to the ground. Two of the most worthless things in this life are runway behind you and altitude above you...we got plastered trying to provide cover for some dudes running like hell....they wuz outnumbered about a hundred to one...when I felt a shart prick in the right leg...and it didn't seem to work and I thought it wuz a helluva time for the rudder not to work...
Anyway..I was lucky as the round went through the leg just above the knee and about a half inch under the skin and out...very little bleeding...
as it so happens I ended up in the same ward with this second Looie who moaned and groaned all day and all night. I wanted out but they keeps you a minimum of three days to make sure there's no infection. On the day I was to be released a General comes through the ward and was followed by a Captain with a sizeable box..he would stop by, shake hands and hand out purple hearts. When he got down to my end of the swamp he had one medal left...and he said.."Son, this man looks a lot worse off than you and I only have one medal left. Do you mind if we give it to him". I said No, Sir...probably with a smirk. Then he left and the Captain was taking notes and all pertinent info of each of the guys for the award paperwork..
This is a true story....and not the last of such incidents. I have seen medals awarded for drunks driving jeeps into the bay, medals pinned on numerous drug overdose cases etc..."because we don't want the family to know how they really died"....
and then there's the tale of my next two...I thought wuz funny and almost embarrassed..but it hurt too much...