HISTORY
ONE SPECIALIST’S STORY
The following was posted by Thomas Hogan on a FaceBook page for Vietnam Veterans. I’m re-posting it here with his permission. Tom was with the 20th PMU and his story is a unique one in the 20th’s history. I’m proud to have served with him at Headquarters for about a half year in late 1967 to the middle of 1968.
I was sitting here thinking about my life and how truly blessed I have been. My life did not start off that way as I had a very mean adult in my life that overpowered my way of thinking for awhile. I did get drafted in the Army and as they say the military will make a man out of you quick, which it did. I trained to be a combat medic with a add on of Preventative Medicine School, which allows the medic to assist with diagnosing certain diseases that can be dangerous to a soldier. I also knew how to make water drinkable for a platoon or brigade.
I received my orders for Vietnam or SE Asia which was supposed not to make the men so nervous. I arrived in Long Binh, Vietnam July 19, 1967 in the middle of the day. The 125 degrees on the Tarmac was breath taking as the humidity was over 80%. The Major said to us on a little reviewing stand that the life expectancy in Vietnam was 15 minutes and we had already been there for 16.
They loaded us up in a school bus with chicken wire over the windows as you don’t want grenades popping in on you. Anyway, they took me to the 20th Preventative Medicine headquarters unit at Bien Hoa. There I was promoted to Specialist 4 and I was told they wanted me and 4 other guys* to volunteer for a mission. I had been told by my Uncle never to volunteer for anything. I didn’t see any out on this one as the commanding officer said if you volunteer when you get back you get another stripe if you don’t volunteer your going anyway. That my friends was the Army volunteer program.
So I went to Qui Nhon, Vietnam on a C130 where I caught a Huey chopper and flew to An Khe, which is in the Highlands. There I caught a tank. They put all my medical supplies on the back. Here is where you have to take in consideration that I was from a small town in Georgia and was, to put it mildly, freaking out on this drive through the mountains. We traveled around those mountains for about 2 hours and at the top of one of them the convoy stopped and the Captain came back and dumped my medical supplies on the ground, jungle all around.
As I surveyed the situation I was realizing they were going to leave me right there, which certainly put me in a very bad mood. I asked the Captain if I was reading the tea leaves right and he said “yes.”. So, it being my turn to speak, I said that didn’t work for me. There was no one out there in that jungle but us. The Captain said “Son, that’s an order” so at that very moment I started having a very intense talk with my Lord. I explained that I was going to be captured soon and I need his help. I couldn’t explain to him why I hadn’t been talking to him much lately but this was an emergency.
At that moment I saw these troops coming out of the jungle and I put my hands up and said to myself it figures – five days in Vietnam and you’re captured. Thankfully it was a Korean Marine Tiger Division that walked with me for about two hours to a forward base that they protected and out of which fought the VC. The kicker was they didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Korean. I did learn to speak ‘chicken’ as they took food out of villages and the food was awesome. The nights were lonely and I got so I got caught up to talking God. To this day, I realize how fickle life can be and how fleeting. What I have learned is God is in control today, tomorrow and forever.
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* Neither of us knows what became of the other three volunteers or where they were sent. Tom doesn’t mention that he didn’t do much preventive medicine work with the ROK Marines. He accompanied them on combat missions as their medic. He has told me that they took excellent care of him (as might be expected for their only medic), usually parking him in a relatively safe spot during operations. He said as well that they were so effective that he rarely had to treat more than minor wounds in the six months he spent with them. The CO of the unit did speak English, so he had at least someone to whom he could talk now and then. He got no mail from home and could send no letters. He was, for all intents and purposes, cut off from his country and countrymen. What gets me is that, in spite of that part of his service, the Tet Offensive (which he arrived at headquarters just in time to enjoy) scared him far more than being out in the highlands jungle.
THE 172nd PREVENTIVE MEDICINE UNIT
I noted someone looking for the 172nd Preventive Medicine Unit. It was headquartered in An Khe, the old stomping ground of Eugene Brady, Mike Morgan and Phillip Elkins, and later moved to Bong Son (someone please correct me if I’m wrong). The 172nd became operational in July of 1968, allowing the 20th to stand down in the northern part of the country. There are a lot of photos of the 172nd on the net* but no history blog.
There were five PMU units in the Army, but only the 20th and 172nd were ever stationed in Vietnam. One of the five units, the 714th, was in the states at Ft. Bragg, and was essentially a training unit. The 485th was the training unit at Ft. Sam Houston in Texas. There was another stationed in Thailand but I have not yet determined its number.
I wish the vistor had left a comment. If you are from the 172nd, why not start a blog about that unit? It’s not that hard (feel free to ask me about how to get started – it’s free) and I’d love to link sites to get a better picture of the Preventive Medicine mission in Vietnam. Let’s hear more about the 172nd. Comments here are welcome.
(My guess is that the first picture in the series below was taken when the subject was very new in country. Though it would have been 1968, he’s still wearing cotton fatigues. Jungle fatigues weren’t issued until one was in country.)
*FOR PHOTOS OF THE 172nd ON FLIKR, CLICK BELOW:
20th PMU HISTORY EDUCATION
As I receive comments from former members of the 20th PMU, I’m beginning not only to get a broader picture of operations but a sense of its history. Though it’s only an impression (I wish I could sit down with commanding officers of the 20th and those in the 44th Medical Brigade overseeing the 20th to get their take), my take is this:
The formation and mission of the 20th were as much concepts as finished designs. Not long after the start, it seems a long process of slowly pulling in the 20th’s horns ensued. The cost/benefit ratio, regardless of the grand overall mission, was just too high. Sticking members in far-flung, dangerous outposts, just to collect mosquitos and their larvae for instance, was simply not worth the risk. Some members’ assignments seem almost random in retrospect; missions made up on the spot as if command didn’t have any specific plan about what needed to be covered, and where, or what to do with incoming soldiers.
It was a grand concept — introduce a unit (and later another, the 172nd PMU) whose mission was to reduce morbidity and mortality from disease among combat and support troops as well as conduct some related civil affairs operations. Historically, those factors have often resulted in more casualties than actual combat and it made at least face value sense to try to reduce such non-combat casualties. I have no doubt we made an impact, but trying to do so in a war where there were no front lines and little in the way of what might be considered rear echelon was something short of practical. That the preventive medicine units were decommissioned after the Vietnam war is telling in itself.
WAR IS SAD
One of my hobbies is composing music. After a lot of thought about Vietnam, I decided that the best word to describe it was “sad”. Click the link below to hear Vung Tau II. (Vung Tau was/is a beach resort in Vietnam.) Perhaps the biggest struggle of troops and veterans is finding beauty and happiness. Those things just seem to go away, sometimes forever. Most of the thunder, and all of the surf, is electronic), but the rain and some thuder were recorded on a Zoom H2 digital recorder. I highly recommend the Zoom for folks interested, as I am, in recording sounds the way most people take photographs. There’s an H4, but I couldn’t afford it.
http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?genre=Electronic&songid=10002739&q=hi
STILL MISSING
With the help of Oliver Pettit, I’ve pretty much exhausted all search sites in looking for Gordon Hansen of Minnesota (20th PMU, Vietnam). Please: If you have any information on this soldier, please leave a note. My fear is that he may have ultimately died of his injuries and not ended up on the wall. I’m bummed.
Prayer Request
Off and on for 45 years I’ve been trying to locate Vietnam buddy John Petric. A former Marine, Oliver Pettit, who noted my search on a veteran’s site sent me some leads. In return, he asked that I post prayer requests for 10-year old Lily Grace Pettit who is battling what will be a life-long illness.
Please do include Lily in your prayers this holiday season, and thanks to Oliver for the leads.
VETERANS DAY … a few days early
Back before the internet, there were CBBSes (computer bulletin board services). I was sysop for the Pig Sty for several years and it became an annual tradition for me to post the following on Memorial Day and Veterans Day:
Today, along with most of the rest of my countrymen, I would like to offer at least a small remembrance of those who have fallen in battle during their military service to America.
I remember, not long after he came home from WWII, going to a national cemetery in Minnesota with my father. I recall asking what all the white crosses were for (I was only about three at the time, and had no ken of such things). My father explained that they were for men who had died in the war. I remember feeling shocked. I knew that my father had been away in the war (that had been explained to me), but not that lots of people could
die in a war. I also remember being awestruck with the sheer number — the sea — of white crosses stretching across the field. I, who could not yet count very high and truly comprehend a number that large, simply could not fathom the carnage, or what could possibly justify it. It further scared me because I had some vague idea that my diminutive condition would end some day — that I would be grown up and might some day have to be killed as well. Pretty spooky idea for a three-year old to contemplate.
I did go to my own war in my own time, and was lucky to draw relatively easy duty. The worst I had to face, in the final analysis, were 80 or so clumsy rocket and mortar attacks, and a few anxious weeks during the Tet offensive.
Sometimes, in the evening, I would walk out to the wire and look across the mine field beyond and let the experience settle into my mind and soul. Out there — somewhere, right now — there were people who wanted to kill me
and, given half an opportunity, would do so. I didn’t know them. They didn’t know me. I had done nothing to them personally. Hell — I didn’t even want to BE in their friggin’ country. Still, they wanted me dead. If I had been given to more expressiveness in those days, my jaw would have hung slack while I stared and slowly shook my head. To this day, I can’t get that feeling out of my head — of people wanting, and trying, to kill me. How terribly odd!
In the end (obviously) I was lucky. I could have cock-strutted around like Col. Kilgore in Apocalypse Now — never ducking, never entering a bunker, never even carrying a weapon — and sailed off in a Freedom Bird at the end of my 13 months none the worse for wear.
A lot of my comrades did not have it so good, nor were they so lucky. I knew only a handful, but — having shared some of the same experience — I knew them in their hearts. They didn’t really want to have to be there either, but they saw it as their duty and they did it. Some may have been more gung-ho and willing than others, but they all did their duty — and many died in the process.
For all those who have fallen in battle, I send now my prayers. It doesn’t really matter whether or not their country’s causes were just. It doesn’t really matter whether or not there was tangible gain from their sacrifice. What matters is that, with what ever degrees of enthusiasm, they embraced their duty to their country, and gave their lives in that service; and, as I salute them, I cannot forget to salute the brave families who survived the deaths of their loved ones — families who, in their own way, sacrificed so terribly much as well.
I only wish that no one would ever have to fall in any battle again, and that no bride, no mother, no father would ever have to grieve over a white cross in a seas of crosses — or ever again have to explain the carnage to a three-year old.
20th PMU, VIETNAM 