I was wounded, March 24 1970, but I made it home alive. He recieved the silver star, but he should have recieved more, his life. In 2012, McCloughan read an obituary for Martino’s mother, and decided to reach out to his old sergeant, who had settled down in New York state.Unit D Company, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, 196th Infantry Brigade, American Division, USARV “You pick and choose special situations, where you can only talk about it with those who know what you’re talking about,“ he said. When asked how often he’d recounted what happened: “I wouldn’t say never,” McCloughan said. McCloughan picked up where he left off, becoming a high school teacher and athletic coach in South Haven, Michigan.īut the memories of May 1968 stayed locked up tight, as they did for his battle buddies. Within a matter of months, all five men were back on American soil and processing out of the Army, off to rejoin society with 9-to-5 jobs. “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. 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.

196th light infantry brigade hat