(intense music) (music tempo increases) - Welcome to our interview today with Minnesota author and public affairs specialist Bill Strusinski, if I've pronounced that correctly.

He is here today to talk to us about his recently published book, "Care Under Fire," and about his experiences in Vietnam as a combat medic.

We're gonna begin this program with a little biographical discussion with Bill and identify him and put him into the history of Minnesota and what he's been doing lately.

And then we're going to move to a discussion of his experiences in Vietnam and what prompted him to write this fascinating book.

It is published by Kelley M press as I understand it, it was published in April of this year and it is available at all the usual sources, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, et cetera where one gets books these days, right?

- Correct.

- All right, let's start with some biographical information Bill, tell us a little bit about your current job, what is it that you do for a living?

- Well what I do for a living now is I'm a Government Relations Specialist, it's also known as a lobbyist and I work with developing good public policy at the Minnesota capital.

- And you have been doing that for how long?

- Well, I've been involved in Minnesota politics and government since 1972, and so I've been quite awhile, almost 50 years.

- So let's talk a little bit about how the book comes to be written and I think in order to do that, we need to go back to the Bill Strusinski, I hope I'm gonna get this right before we're done.

We need to go back to the Bill Strusinski at age 18, you were born in 1946, you entered the army in what year?

- 1967.

- And you went in as a draftee as I recall, right?

- Correct.

- Any particular reason for going in as a draftee, as opposed to enlisting?

- Well it was, I hadn't thought too much about it at the time but I did, I was in college at Mankato State, and I ended up getting sick and ended up in the hospital.

And while in the hospital, my second year of college, I lost my student deferment and I got changed to 1A, so I was eligible for the draft and that's kind of what happened at that time.

And I thought two years would be sufficient to be in the military at that time.

- You wound up as a combat medic, earned a three Bronze Stars and the Combat Medical Badge.

You were in country in Vietnam for a little over a year.

- One year, leap year actually so 1967-68.

- 366 Days as opposed to 365.

- Correct I didn't think it was fair at the time, but that's what happens.

- Let's talk a little bit about your training process and how you happened to become a medic.

From our discussions before, I don't get the sense that had in mind, a medical career at all.

What makes Bill Strusinski a combat medic?

And why did you sign up for that program?

- Very good question and I'm not so sure maybe it was good fortune for some that had happened.

In the army when I was drafted or inducted, they asked us in the basic training, what kind of occupation we wanted to apply for?

What do we wanna be?

Did I wanna be an infantry man?

I said no, that wasn't initially a good thing for me, I knew how to shoot a rifle, did I wanna drive a truck?

Did I wanna be a cook or what you have and I said, I'm thinking to myself, oh, I wanna be something that would be valuable the rest of my life, at least emergency first aid, so I said how about medic, I'd like to be a medic.

And they were very excited about that for some reason, that's how I got to become a combat medic.

- We're going to jump ahead, you finished your year in Vietnam, come back but you don't go to medical school, you don't become an emergency responder, what caused you to leave the field?

- Well, I think when I came back, I had had enough of combat, enough of emergency trauma for a while, for sure.

But secondly, I was really motivated to get involved in politics and try and change government and change the approach to government decision-making, and so I was more inclined to go that direction.

I've been exposed to political science before I was drafted while I was in college, earlier in my career.

And so I wanted to go back and get a degree in political science and work in that field, so I could set and establish good government policy, at least make decisions as well as were being made at the time at the national level, by humble thinking, and then improve upon those decisions, that was my real motivator.

- You know when I think about war memoirs, autobiographies of people who have served in conflict and in combat in a variety of places, there are some really well known books that people think about, general grants, personal memoirs, perhaps still today.

One of the finest autobiographical works by a former president, but it also covers his time in the civil war.

You think about other generals and military leaders who have written books, but you also think about people like Bill Mauldin who was a Chicago cartoonist for many, many years editorial cartoonist wrote a book called "Upfront" which I read many years ago.

It's not a print now but it was about his experiences as a cartoonist for Stars and Stripes in European Theater and it was fascinating to hear him or to read about some of his experiences.

What prompted you to write this book?

Well there was a few things, but number one at this point in my life, I had finally decided that my family doesn't know about that part of my life and I thought it was important for me to document that part of my life for them to see here's who I am today and here's how I got to be who I am.

And then I was inspired by a couple of occurrences, number one was I did some work with public television to secure some funding from the legislature for a program called Minnesota Remembers Vietnam.

And it was a year long project and I was very pleased to be a part of that initiative and I did good things and gave me a chance to reflect upon my own situation as a young man in the army and in combat.

But I think the third thing that really inspired me to write the book was a couple of years ago, I was asked by the Minnesota Ambulance Association to be a keynote speaker at their meeting and it's called the Stars of Life Awards and I thought it was all about how to work your way around the state government and the capital night and they said, " No, no, we heard you were a combat medic so we wanna hear that story."

And I said let me think about that for a couple of weeks and I did and I said, if anybody said to myself, if anybody understands what I went through back in those days and what I dealt with, it's those people, it's the EMT, it's the paramedics and the first frontline and emergency responders.

So I said I'd do that and I started writing, I wrote a speech and I had several pages written, some stories for them.

And at the end of the speech, I was awarded to a round of thunderous applause, welcome home, thank you for your service and it brought tears to my eyes and they gave me one of the Stars of Life Awards that year.

And so that has just inspired me since I had to start and maybe there is a story here to tell that others can benefit from over time and so that was my inspiration to go ahead and write the rest of the book.

- And so how does the book come to be called "Care Under Fire?"

Where does that name come from?

- Well the name "Care Under Fire" is interesting, if you google care under fire, you'll find that it's the army protocols, the military training protocols and series of documents that talk about rendering care under fire.

It's combat medics rendering care to soldiers and combatants who are injured, I thought that was appropriate.

- And so it comes directly from the training program and the way in which the army approaches combat medic work?

- Right.

- You know, it was interesting to read, part of the book contains a discussion about the work that combat medics do and the astonishing success rate.

And I think I read in your book here that something on the order of 90% as measured by the time that you begin rendering care, tell our viewers a little bit about that.

- Well, I think it was interesting, to give you a little background first of all, the Vietnam War was the first time medics were embedded with the infantry.

They were always near the front lines, but they weren't actually in the middle of the combat situation typically before that.

So I went on patrol all the time and the medics did we were, I carried a weapons and I carried my aid bag.

Since the medics were actually embedded with the infantry, it gave us an opportunity to start rendering emergency first aid, much sooner in the process than it was a World War II, certainly World War 1.

And we could get, if I got somebody on the helicopter, a Dust Off helicopter alive, their chances of survival was about 90%, maybe a little bit more if they could survive the ordeal, the battle injuries, which was a much higher rate statistically than it was during the previous wars.

But that was important to render care as soon as we could, and that's why we were on patrol with the soldiers when they got hurt.

- So you enter the army though as an infantry man, right?

Isn't that your classification?

- No, everybody who takes basic training in the army is infantry.

I mean you have that there, but the infantry is a specialist occupation in the military today as is a medic, so it's just different military occupation specialty, I was in 91 Bravo, which was a combat medic.

- As I understand your discussion though, medical services were a little different in previous wars, I mean, you were carrying a firearm, that's unusual, right?

In terms of what previously the practices were and you were expected to, if necessary, fire it and protect your fellow soldiers.

- That was the idea, in fact there was significant differences between medics and World War II and certainly Vietnam.

We didn't wear red crosses in our helmets, didn't wear red cross armbands and we did carry weapons and we carried an aid bag.

There was actually a bounty on medics of about $500 if the enemy could successfully kill the medic, unlike an officer or platoon sergeant if you will.

- And that's the reason for not wearing the identifying marks that you might've had previously.

- We certainly wanted to blend in as best we could, the only way to tell anybody that I was a medic is because I carried an aid bag along with my weapons.

- And the aid bag contained the medical tools, the tools of the trades so to speak?

- Yes it did, yes it did.

And so it was important to me because you had to protect your casualty too.

I mean remember this is combat, so I might be on a patrol with 10 people and we're engaged in a firefight and I if I had somebody injured, I had to protect that casualty as well and myself and so it was really important I thought to carry a weapon.

Not all medics did, we had a couple of conscientious objectors in our company and good for them, they were brave lads and did wonderful brave things, but they didn't carry any weapons.

- Let's talk a little bit about the training program, what kind of a training program did the army put you through to make you a combat medic?

- Well it was intense 10 weeks, not very long, I don't think perhaps sufficient for the circumstances that I was gonna have to deal with in situations.

But we did learn all the fundamentals, how to give shots, how to take care of bedpans and hospitals and how to take care of legs, tourniquets, and whatever, start IVs, all of those typical things and bandage and identify different kinds of wounds, how to treat for shock and how to render morphine.

So that basically was it, but most of the experiences that medics get at least in combat is on the job training, here's nothing that, in fact as I reflect back upon those days, there's nothing the army could really do to prepare you for what you're gonna experience in combat in particularly trying to take care of a casualty at the same time, they couldn't do it, you had to experience it so they prepped you for that as best they could.

- Did you know as you were going through the combat training that you were heading to Vietnam?

- No, in fact I was told that when I said I'd volunteered to be a medic, one of the statements was made to me by the education sergeant said, "Well this is great, you can become a medic in a hospital in Germany or Italy" and I was looking forward to that kind of opportunity.

I didn't know I was going to Vietnam till the day I graduated from advanced individual training as a combat medic at Fort Sam Houston.

- Happy graduation and here's your ticket?

- Yes.

In fact, I was a little perplexed, I actually took a look at the orders that said 1st Battalion 26 Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, headquarters company.

And I had to go to the first sergeant says, what hospital is that, where is that located?

And he said, "Well son it says you're an infantry medic, you're going to Vietnam."

I said okay, that's how it went down.

- So the infantry that you were assigned to, you mentioned in the book that this is a historic organization - As I recall, - Tell our viewers a little bit about that.

- Well, I mean I was proud to become a member of the Big Red One, the 1st Infantry Division.

The division was a 100 years old formed in 1917, actually it was very successful and helped win the World War 1.

A lot of stored history and people who were familiar with World War II, the invasion of Normandy, Omaha Beach was the 1st Infantry Division, the Battle of the Bulge, the Big Red One, that's pretty well known and featured.

Plus they went all the way through Africa and Italy during that war.

And the Big Red One was the first full infantry division to be mobilized to Vietnam in 1965, they served five years from 65 to 1970.

I was rotated in for my year of tour of duty, that's what happened later on after the division was initially sent to Vietnam.

But it had a very successful history in Vietnam as well won many combat battle ribbons and so it's a very storied and wonderful history and I was proud to be part of that.

- So were you part of the same group during your entire year of service or did you move around?

- No I was with the same company, primarily company A, but the people rotated in and out.

You didn't served your tour of duty when it was up at 366 day or 365th day, you got to go home and somebody else take your place.

So there was always people rotating in and out, as a medic I was assigned to from headquarters company to company A, and that's where I spent 10 months in the field with them.

- What part of Vietnam were you in?

- We were located about 90 miles North, West of Saigon up in the near the Cambodian border and our base camps were Xuan Lai and En Loc but there were about six miles from the Cambodian border and had a lot of experiences up in that area.

- When you arrived in Vietnam, when were you first called upon to use those skills that the army had trained you for?

- Excellent question, I think it certainly happened I moved to my unit in August of 1967 and I run by Labor Day by early September I was already into combat trying to deal with some casualties.

We were in the field you know, I think it's an interesting statistic is that, and this is in praise of the World War II veterans, but because their battles were enormous.

But in World War II veterans combat, veterans in the Pacific Ocean for example in a period of five years, they might be in 40 battles all throughout Europe in that period of time and 40 battles were significant, there were much larger battles than we'd typically experienced in Vietnam.

But in Vietnam an average soldier was probably in 240 battles and in one-year period of time, sniper fire, small excursion, smaller battles, but just as deadly and just as dangerous to the individual soldier.

- So within a couple of weeks of arriving, you were on the front line - I was tested.

- Tell us a little bit about what it means to be tested, what exactly would you, what would you be called upon to do.

- Well, it's easier to take a look at it now, looking back upon how things went down and how things happened, that it was at the time I had no idea what to expect.

I was fortunate the first couple of times I was in combat with casualties was very simple casualties and so simple in the sense that they weren't life-threatening, they were more grenade fragmentations or wound to this leg or the shoulder or the arm, or what have you, something more simple, easier to deal with.

But later on it become and many times you've experienced much more difficulty in doing that so nothing quite prepares you for that.

You don't know what to expect, you know, we all think about it as young men, certainly in young women today perhaps, our transition into being a young person to an adult, passing this so-called test global life will I be strong enough to endure?

Will I do my job?

will I become shy, will become a coward?

Whatever, we think we all go through these things, then combat happens and anticipate what it's gonna be like and what have you and I can tell you that nothing prepares you for that first experience of gunfire and firefights when people are shooting at you.

It is very unique and you, and you try and protect yourself that's the initial reaction, the adrenaline takes over, that's certainly initial reaction.

And eventually learn how to control all of those kinds of things so that some of the protocols and processes we went through to take care of a casualty became a bit more casual, a bit more relaxed, a bit more planned.

But it was a very interesting experience to go through those first few firefights, not knowing what to expect, hoping nobody got hit, because then I had to go to work and sometimes they did and then I had thicker business.

- So I'm wondering in the context of dealing with the chaos that is associated with combat, did you ever have occasion to treat the enemy?

- Yes I have in fact.

- Tell our viewers a little bit about that.

- And it was actually Christmas Day in 1967, there was a firefight just outside our perimeter where we were dug into the field for a night defensive position and they came and got me and said they had a North Vietnamese soldier who was injured and they certainly wanted to take him back for interrogation and what have you, if he would survive as ordeal.

So they brought me out to that soldier and I'll never forget it, it was a very interesting experience.

First of all and I looked at that soldier, he was not injured that bad, he had leg injuries, but he was panicked.

I looked right into his eyes and I could tell he thought I was his executioner, I was the one that's gonna kill him.

And so what I did is I took a drink of water out of my can tin and I held it down for him to take a swallow of water out of my can tin.

Then I interested and lit a cigarette and I put the cigarette down by him.

Then I knelt down and told him best I could gestures that I was a boxy, which is a doctor in Vietnamese.

And went about to treat him and he was a bit more relaxed at that point, but I'll never forget the look of terror in his eyes, and we felt the same way as Americans, we were always told not to, you don't wanna be a prisoner of war it's a very bad thing that had happened.

Anyway, I treated the person and then they evacuated them, but I wanted to make sure I told the helicopter pilots, he went on a Vietnamese helicopter Huey, but Vietnamese army and I said, make sure this guy gets home and gets treatment and gets to the hospital and stuff and gets treatment.

Because they had a habit of interrogating, sometimes prisoners to try and get information, sometimes it was pretty brutal outcome for them.

I wanted to make sure that was all avoided, none of this saved this guy's life and we had this personal connection which was phenomenal.

And I still remember it to this day and I hope he survived.

- You were involved in one of the more important battles of the Vietnam War, and I'm gonna probably mangle the pronunciation and you can correct me, Loc Ninh?

- Yes.

- Tell our viewers a little bit about why that was significant, what you were doing there, what happened.

- Loc Ninh was on November 7th, 1967 and it was quite an operation, it lasted over several days and a few weeks actually.

There was a lot of concentrations of enemy build up in the area, as it turns out they were getting prepared to go into Saigon and what have you for Tet Offensive the following February so there were building up.

In any event Loc Ninh was, the first battle of Loc Ninh which we participated in was a major battle, we were on patrol, a platoon size patrol south of Loc Ninh and all of a sudden the major firefight broke out to our west about about 500 meters and there was two companies engaged the enemy in a major battle and we were on a sweeping operation and then we all went into the battle field, we made our way to the major part of the firefight.

And that was a huge battle for the 1st Infantry Division, one of the bigger ones.

We did lose our battalion commander that day and the battalion command sergeant major, the XO was killed as well.

- Executive officer.

- Executive officer was killed, so it was about, I think it was 22 people and several casualties wounded beyond all of that.

At that battle, I mean I didn't treat the battalion commander myself as a medic I treated some others, but the battalion commander got the distinguished service cross that day, that's how intense the battle was and how brave he was as a leader.

And the specialist Stryker was another one, he got ambushed in that battle, he got the Congressional Medal of Honor that day for all the wonderful things he did to save his comrades and he died and both of those gentlemen died but it was significant.

- Stryker in fact is the name of a military vehicle.

- Right it was named after him and it's interesting to note that I was there and I think about that now and what the supreme sacrifices they made.

They were successful at the end because America has tremendous fire power, military forces have tremendous fire power and we never lost in firefight, but that could be devastating to both sides, but it was just amazing, the bravery that day.

And I knew also that it was gonna be, I still had 10 months to go on my tour of duty and it was gonna be a long 10 months.

- You know, the book is not about military strategy, people who read this book and I recommend it will get a real picture for what it's like for members of the American military to serve in a combat environment.

If you want a discussion about the strategy of the Vietnam War and what worked and what didn't work, you have to look elsewhere.

But you do reference in here and it comes up in the Loc Ninh context, the process of winning back territory constantly, maybe you could tell our viewers a little bit about that and the frustrations that that created.

- Well we all knew because we had, I actually had sergeants that were in World War II in our unit when I was first in country and this is 1967, so they were in 25 years, both wars, easy enough and several of them were.

But the strategy, the battle strategy was altogether different, World War II you took land, occupied it, took territory.

Korea was the same thing, you took territory and you held it.

In Vietnam it was a matter of the different approach, different strategy by the generals and it was obvious to all of us and they told us.

We were out to get body count, we wanna go out and make contact with the enemy and kill as many as we can and therefore they'll lose their will to fight and we will win this conflict, this war this way.

So it was different, so we would go into an area that we'd air assault into some terrain and work patrols and what have you knowing where the enemy was, make some contact, be there for a few days and then we pull out.

And then maybe a month later, we go back into the same area and same place and do the same thing all over again and of course it just humbled GIs, we always questioned authority and question leadership, why can't we just stay here wouldn't it be easier?

We've taken this land twice now, you know so that was our humble thinking as to that but that's really what the military strategy was.

- The book opens in chapter one with a year condensed to reflections and there's a list of bullet points here probably about 20 of them, of things that Bill learned during his time or raised questions, you know, why do firefights seem like organized chaos with lots of noise?

And did someone yell "medic?"

And where's my morphine pack.

Here's one that I think we should explain to our viewers, where's the Dust off, what's a Dust off.

- Dust off was the true lifesavers and those gentlemen who flew those helicopters, all soldiers were heroes.

Dust off was a Huey helicopter in my day, which was an air ambulance.

And when I would call for a Dust off because I had casualties on the ground, that helicopter would come in and they would come in sometimes under fire and take that casualty off my hands and take them to a hospital or field aid station for treatment.

They were the lifesavers and that's why we could have such, we had a lower mortality rate once we got people onto the helicopters.

That's what a Dust off was, as a nickname was a "DUSTOFF".

- One of the interesting things about the book is it talks a little bit about how you would prepare to have those helicopter and one of the first things that your company would be required to do would be to prepare a place where a helicopter could in fact land.

- Yeah the whole goal was to find a secure enough area that had no trees so that you could land the helicopter, wouldn't it .hit all the trees.

Occasionally they had to drop a penetrator down to pick somebody up off the ground, but hat was really dangerous to the helicopter of being suspended for that period of time.

But yeah, sometimes you had to use chainsaws to cut down and secure an area.

- Does the company medic get the privilege of doing this too?

- No, that was a laborers job, I was management at that point, thanks man.

- Management in the line of fire.

- Right.

- So one of the things that I thought was interesting about the book is you make a reference to, I hate snakes.

Tell our viewers why your experience in Vietnam for a year would cause you to say you hate snakes.

- Well, I'm a Minnesota boy and I'm familiar with a gopher snakes and some of those other kinds of garter snakes we have around here.

- Occasional rattlesnake in Southeast Asia.

- My experiences in my youth.

- you're St Paul kid, - I'm a St. Paul kid yeah, but in any event we knew that they were there, but there was several times I had encounters with snakes and every snake I saw was a pit viper, they are very poisonous.

And there's two types of snakes, there's a rattlesnake type, which is a pit viper that attacks the bloodstream and the the blood system, takes a while for the poison to work.

And neurotoxic snakes, which are much more toxic and affects your nervous system and immediately shuts it down.

And I've actually treated people who got bit by a pit viper, thank goodness he's on and survived the ordeal.

But one time, I think early in country, and in September 67 as I recall, we were securing a bridge on a Sand Bay River they had a squad on each corner of the bridge, of course I was positioned with the squad and a fellow came over to me as we dug their little fox holes and he said, "Doc" he says, "Let me borrow your flashlight because I got a snake in the bamboo thicket by me and I can't sleep knowing that snake is there."

And I said well, I'm not gonna give you my flashlight, I'm the only one, I'm gonna lose it.

And so I put a red filter on a flashlight and I said that it fellow, you grab the shovel right there and I'll take the machete and we'll go see what kind of snake you got going on there and says it's dark.

And I look in the bamboo thicket, then I could see this snake and I see there it is right there, I said just throw it out in the clearance, I'm gonna wack at it with the machete.

And he did and he threw it out the behind me and I turned around with the light, the light hits the snake and the snake coils up.

And a moment later the hood pops up behind its head and I go, oh my God this is a cobra, and I fortunately had the machete ready and I took its head off.

- That will limit its utility.

- Yeah hat was a very impressive moment for me and I had a lot more respect for snakes after that.

But yeah, it was pretty interesting experience.

- So these lists of reflections include a couple of other things we should comment on.

You talked about B-52 bombs make a big hole in the ground, how does that come up?

- Well, you know when you're dug in out in the field and we spent a lot of time in the field, not much time in a base camp.

A lot of times at night, there was a high concentration of enemy in the area and were up near the Cambodian border, so the whole team trail was very close to the border on the other side of the border, but they would be bombed by B-52s and the B-52s continuous carpet bombing in the areas and they weren't nearly as sophisticated as they are today with smart bombs, but they would bomb areas and particularly the newest high concentrations of enemy.

And so that was the main battle source at night for big concentrations of an enemy.

And what was amazing to me you know we we would go on patrol the next day and go through some of the area and you'd see these B-52 bomb craters, they might be 25 feet deep in the sand already filling with water, you know, how does anything survive this, these massive 2000 pound bombs that was incredible, quite a weapon.

- You make a reference in this list to the baseball stitch, to your favorite stitch, tell our viewers a little bit about that.

And what is the baseball pitch and why is it your favorite pitch?

- I'm not sure that that's the one they actually taught us in medical training at Fort Sam Houston when we do suturings but it was easier for me to do, I could suture cuts, they'd be temporary for the most part, but I could just do the baseball stitch, just do an X and maybe a four inch cut or wound.

- Think you could do it today if you had to?

- Sure, sure I think I could.

- So talk a little bit about your experience with actually treating soldiers and what was that like and what do you recall from that experience?

- That was really interesting, you know, I think there's a lot of emotions at play, as you think back upon it now and what really happens at the time is that you realize you're the one the person has hurt.

The firefights commenced, everybody's down, everybody's protected and all of a sudden you hear a call from medic that meant I had to go to work and that I had to move to where that person was, where that injury was, and hopefully my comrades and my brothers, and they certainly did all the time, will lay down fire to protect me as I got to my casualty.

And you wanna analyze all of that and see what's kinda going on with that person and I tried to demonstrate empathy at the same time, it's nothing, that's a scratch, it would be fine.

And then you really go through this process about where's the injury, where's the entrance wound, where's the exit wound, what can I do?

And I stopped the bleeding, and you just go through your little series of check marks of things you're supposed to do for that person.

And it was each situation was a little unique because the injuries were a little bit more unique, some were simple, some were very complex, some were deadly and sometimes soldiers died right there but it was an emotional experience, but you had to demonstrate confidence to that soldier that was really important because they needed you there, that's what we were there for, that gave them confidence, I gave the infantry soldiers confidence to go on patrol and do what they had to do because if if the unthinkable happened to them, they knew that a medic was there with them to hopefully take care of the situation and make it better.

But at the same time those brothers protected me too, they had my back, I knew that.

So that was the case and so I think flashback a little bit to talking about the EMTs.

It's an interesting situation when you are there, you make the call and I've been in situations at three o'clock in the morning with 11 people on a patrol at night on an ambush patrol, and somebody gets hit, I've gotta take care of that person until the light comes on.

And everybody's looking to me and saying, "Doc, take care of that guy" and I'm saying wow, I had 10 weeks of training the emotions are pretty intense, but I just do my best because they are counting on me and I'm counting on them backing me up and so you just do what you can.

And then eventually that problem, that adversity, that problem gets resolved because I eventually get them to a secure area in the morning and then get him Dust off helicopter and out of there and then I could relax, it was somebody else's problem to deal with.

But it was hard talking to casualties, talking to people throughout the night saying you know, I'm doing the best we can.

I couldn't get IVs started, they were in shock and I even though I carried plasma and albumin, lump albumin and salient solutions, it was too hard to start IVs at night with a flashlight, it was very difficult to do, particularly when they're already going into shock or something, so you just do what you can and do the best you can.

Because that's where the training never prepared you for all of those kinds of experiences, but you dealt with it.

- And some don't make it?

- Some don't make it, and so you render their care to God 'cause I couldn't help them.

And like the EMTs and paramedics and first-line responders today, doctors in these hospital dealing with the COVID virus, I think about that because they have to live with the consequences too, they don't like losing a casualty, they don't like losing somebody under their care.

And it's hard, but you move on because you know that you'll have opportunities throughout the rest of your life to deal with those circumstances.

But those demons are always there and the outcome is always the same, so you learn how to live with it because you gotta move forward.

- Have you had occasion in the years since your time in Vietnam to meet with, or to be with your fellow soldiers from that era?

And if so, what have those experiences been like?

- They've been very rewarding, I do belong to the Blue Spaders, the 1st of 26 Infantry Regiment Division, first 26th Battalion Regiment Association.

And I also belong to the 1st Infantry Division Society and I've gone to some of the reunions, although I've never encountered or met anybody that I was actually physically country with.

We all have the same experiences and that bond of brothers is pretty strong and we have a chance to relate our experiences and relive some of those experiences amongst each other, which long-term I think helps you deal with the mental side of war and combat.

- You wind up as the medic, also providing counseling services.

And you mentioned in the book a couple of stories, we won't go into the details, but you mentioned a couple of stories where a soldier received dear John letter I believe, one of those examples.

Did you ever get any answer for what happened in that situation?

- No, I did not and I can certainly tell you briefly the story, but first of all, let me set the stage for you.

As a medic, it was interesting the relationship you had and I was 20, I turned 21 at Vietnam and everybody else's 18, 19 years old, so I'm a little older if you will, a little bit more experienced because I had a couple of years of college.

But you ended up being all things as a medic, they'd bring all kinds of problems to you, they trust you for some reason and initially they should I guess I shouldn't say well, not for some reason, but they trust you and so you not only deal with their physical wellbeing, but you ended up dealing with their mental issues as well and letters.

And as if I were a priest or a counselor or the chaplain, because you're out in the field and there's none of those people available to you, except the first sergeant, most people didn't wanna go to the first sergeant to get advice in the middle of the night (chuckles) or late an evening.

One instance, one time a fellow did get a dear John letter and said that his wife was home, he left on the care of his father, because his mother had passed away not too long before that he went to Vietnam, but his wife sent him a letter saying, I'm divorcing you and I'm marrying your father and that was pretty traumatic for that soldier that night.

And we went through a lot of things to talk about early on and what we should do about the situation, but it's already night, there's no way to get him out of there to go back to the battalion and seek whatever kind of counseling he really needed.

So we ended up talking through most of the night, working our way through it and he finally came to a conclusion that she wasn't worth it.

And then he changed, "I wanna change the beneficiary of my insurance policy, and I'm never speaking to my father again."

But you know, that always happened with me, I just sit there and listened to them, I wasn't trained in this stuff, but my mother always said I was a good listener and so I always considered myself to be a jungle therapist ever since that time, when I was rendering such advice to people.

- What do you take from your experience?

And maybe I should phrase it this way, you come back, you resume life you go back to Mankato state as I recall, get your degree there.

- Yes.

- You resume life, do your experiences stay with you on a daily basis?

How do you deal with ordinary life having left this very traumatic experience behind you?

- Yeah and it's a bit involved because it's something that's been with me for 52 years.

First of all, when you go in the military and my case drafted Norfolk on this for three years, they were told just to give two years of your service to your country and we'll be done with it and you'll have all kinds of benefits, like the GI bill and things like that.

Well that wasn't quite true, they didn't tell you the combat part and the memories you would develop and experiences you would experience and that stay with you the rest of your life, they're part of your foundation.

I still think about these things every day, I think about some of the care I rendered.

What if I would have done things differently would have made a difference?

No it wasn't, the outcome's always gonna be the same.

So you think about all of those kinds of things and what happened is when I got back on campus at Mankato in 1969 now when I got out of the army, it was of course a lot of upheaval, a lot of social unrest, more so than it exists today as you can imagine.

But I did find the Mankato State College Vets Club when I was at Mankato down there.

And then soon after I got back on campus and we had bonded, we were a social order dedicated to the, I suppose the cake, rather than anything else.

But we helped each other, when you needed housing issues, or you had an issue with the administration on your GI bill not being processed, we helped each other.

And then we would meet all the time, we were a very tight group people, and that continued for a number of years while I was in school.

Upon graduation, several years out of school I mean we started having breakfast meetings and I still meet today, 52 years later from Vietnam I'm still meeting with a group of veterans on Saturdays for breakfast that we knew each other in college, we all came back from Vietnam at the same time, different branches of services.

And we talk about our youth and talk about the military, not specific battles, it's not a formal mental health process but I like to say that it's the longest running group therapy sessions in the country as PTSD experiences, dealing with these guys over all these years, it's been very, very beneficial.

And I know it's helped me and I know it's helped several others that experience all the way through, 'cause it's just these things you had to do, and it just they never leave you.

- With that thought in mind, thank you for the opportunity to visit about your experiences Bill.

I wanna reference the book once again, "Care Under Fire" it's available wherever books are sold today, you won't regret it.