The American dream is built on freedom, and that freedom comes at a cost. American Heroes Stories presented by Life Liberty Happiness is a new series honoring the men and women who've sacrificed to protect that dream. We're proud to play a small part in preserving their stories for future generations. Life Liberty Happiness, a media squatch podcast, presents American heroes stories. All right, folks, welcome to the program. US marine and Vietnam veteran Gary witt Well. Folks, thank you for taking time out to join us. We'll start off with, uh, where was where were you born and raised? I was born right here in Lynchburg at the uh Well goggin anmer House, Virginia Baptists, I guess back in that day, but yeah it was. Lenzburg has been my home my whole life and still is, and grew up here, went before high school. So did you play sports in high school? I did play some innermural sports, basketball and stuff like that, and ran track. But but yeah, I had, you know, general life. I mean, I was real skinny. I've probably weigh one hundred and thirty pounds. Wow. But but when I got out, ended up, ended up, going into the Marine Corps when I started putting on weight and muscle, you. Know, were you was there a motivation to join the armed forces or was this you know, the only option? Well, I I was, you know, in high school, I had a girlfriend and ended up getting her pregnant and and ended up deciding to get married on my eighteenth birthday. Nice And we had a son that was born. And now you're right out of right out of high school. He's so young. I don't really know what, you know, what I'm doing. I was playing in the band, playing music and we had in fact, we had a pretty big band in Lynchburgh called the Epics, two black singers, and back in the day in the sixties, it was you know, there was something that wasn't too much herd around town. But we used to play that Sportsman Club on Fifth Street. So it was an interesting and a lot of a lot of wild things that went on in my life. And I thought I knew what I was doing. But after being out playing music and uh, I ended up. We broke up and ended up. It's kind of like, because I had a son, it it kind of put pressure on me to, uh to get involved in the military because back then, if you were married, you didn't have to you didn't have to worry about getting drafted. But because I had broke up with my wife, and next thing, you know, I started worried about getting drafted, and sure enough I got a draft notice and so I just h David Harker, who was one of my schoolmates. He had been joined the army and was captured. And another schoolmate that I used to drive to work to school, and Russell Blatz is one of my h one of the school mats. He he went over there and joined the army and next thing you know, he get killed. And uh so it was kind of like I was I was looking for I thought I was gonna go over there and look for David Harker like I was, you know, going to be uh be a hero myself finding him. But no, I just I volunteered basically to what I actually when I when I went to get to boot camp or went up to went up to rotro to get my uh physical Yeah, that's when he walked to marine recruiter and he said, I need to tow uh two of you guys to volunteer for Marines. Well, one of the guys who was also in the band with me, the black guy. Uh. He and I looked at each other and said, well, we can go with a buddy plan. You know, it's gonna sound like an easy way out. So we both raised a hand and uh and we got uh. I had to go for another physical. Well when I would went in for the second physical, I passed, but he didn't. He flucked as he had flat feet or something like that, and so he didn't make the physical. So ended up I had to go to Paris Island by myself. Did he end up serving anywhere or was he kicked out? You know, he got out completely after found out he had flat feet. So anyway, I went on into Paris Island and I decided then that I was gonna volunteer for whatever. You know, I figured I was gonna get killed, and so many people get getting killed back then, so I uh, I just all the training I went through, I tried to do the best I could, especially rifle. I was a top shooter in my in my patoon for the rifle, I had uh, I mean almost a perfect score, but they uh, I wanted to get you. I really wanted to get into like a uh a riflement of some where I go out. Rather than just carry a rifle around. I wanted to go out and be a sniper. I was gonna be something special. But I tried to get into jump school and they said, well, you got to be able to fly, and because you've got so many cavities in your teeth, you'd probably get a headache or I'm flying, So they didn't want me to go to jump school. So anyway, I still volunteered for everything I can think of. When I got over there, believe it or not, I carried a guitar with me to Vietnam. I mean, how many people you see show up with a sea bag and a guitar. You know they let you get on the plane with a guitar. Well, yeah, I actually had head to guitar. And I didn't really think about it, but the when I got in line out of in the Nang airport, that's where I was at. I came in there and I got in line to be checked in, and I had the guitar there on my seat bag, and this guy come up and he said you played that guitar And I said, well, yeah, a little bit. He said, well, what kind of music? Player. I said, well, just you know, hoot and I played in the band. So I played a little bit of every kind of music, and so he said, well, how about you coming up to that. He showed me a little house up on the hill there and he said, can you come up with that house tonight? And he said, well play some music for us and I said okay. So he went up and told the guy was checking us in. He said, just you know, for me to fall out, and so I did and wait until that night about eight o'clock and showed up over there and playing Hoot and antie music and stuff, singing stuff with some of the people that was in the area. And it was the Officer's Club. They were buying me beer and all this stuff. Yeah, treat me nice. And then but I don't know. At twelve o'clock, one o'clock in the morning, I got to clean it up the bartenders over wiping the barrow, and he said, well, got to get out of here, and I said, well where am I going? He said, I don't know where you're going, but you's staying here. So here I was in Vietnam on my first night, and I had no clue where that wasn't checked into anything. So I went back down to the airport, which was nothing but a little room as big as this, and it had a bench there, and so I laid them a seabag on top of the bench, and I and get to on top of that and I crawled up under the bench. And that's where I spent my first night in Vietnam, kidding Holy cow. And got up the next morning and I got back in that same line A was in the day before, and he chucked me in and I ended up going to the golf company second Tay fourth Marines, which were called the Magnificent Bastards. That's where it was a group of Hell's Angels that had joined the Marines and they went in as a group, and this was a company that they served in Wow. So when I got to the company, they said what do you want to do? You want to what job you I said, well, I'd like to be on recon or something. He said, well, we got some reconn we're gonna be going up and he's in North Phannam any in what they called I Corps. And so they they asked me if if I want to be point man, I said, well that yeah, I do that. So I like walking the point because I never walked on the trail. Normally everybody walks on the trail, they end up with a booby trail or something. So I just I would cut a trail trail from once one pot to the other. Tell me where you want me to go, and I'd pick out that that mountain or whatever hell we're going to, and I would cut a new trail over there. And now you're you're from Lynchburg. Yeah, if you go to Paris Island and now you find yourself, I mean, what's the terrain like for you? I mean is this I mean this is jungle work. I mean you're in the middle of I mean, how hot is it? Just what? Well, it's kind of completely different. Yeah, it's it's all hot weather and uh some sometimes it would get monsoon season when it would be so much rain and everything's wet and just going going through these rivers and stuff. Yeah, it's it's a different environment altogether. And I'm well, let me tell you a little story about uh why why I think that I was pretty good with a rifle Because when I was in high school, we had a I was in the f F A future Farmers of America, and they had a contest to see who could sell the most magazines. Now this is high school, and I sold. I was one of the ones that sold the most magazines. And I ended up getting My prize was a rifle. And they brought it to me in high school and presented it to me, right. Yeah. And I used to take that rifle and go out and it was a twenty two magnum lever action and I'd set out in the field there and and I could I could have dove. You know, people dove hunt. They take a shotgun. I take my rifle and I shoot the heads wow of doves on the wired. But anyway, that was how I was. I got pretty good at what I was doing. But you know, he got over there and I I wasn't fred of anything. Like I said, I made it through boot camp, and uh, there was some dudes in boot camp and liked to whip up on people and and I stood my ground because the pogo sticks I had. That was the point when it was going through that part of boot camp. I I beat off my the person I was against, and then I beat a second part. They put two people on me and I was beat both of them. So then the drug instructor come around and he uh said, Okay, I'm gonna put another So he put three people that he said, I want you to fight these three. So he took my helmet and it turned it around sideways, and I couldn't even see what I was doing. I was just fighting these three guys and they finally beat me. But h but yeah, I was. I was trying to be real tough. I was a real tough guy. But uh uh, you know, I was scared to death when I got over there. I took my guitar and all that, but I left the guitar in the rear area and uh and the supply in the rear and I went on out there in the bush. And but it was they'd send me out on things like LPs, where you go out at nighttime and and go about a couple of hundred yards from the rest of the company and listen for people we might be moving through the jungle and it'd be about four or five. I was do that LP watch, and I did that quite a bit. And then they sent us upon a reconmission up into North Vietnam to check out the where the trails were people were coming down from the north and we were right there on Ai Cole, which right off of the Ben High River. And I didn't we wasn't but ten miles I guess from a Ben and our river. And so they centisen up there one time and we we went actually went into North Vieadam. We came back over the river and we thought the mission was over for that day. We kind of laid back and just uh taking it easy. And there's the sandbar there on the side of the river. So I'm sitting there and everybody's kind of unzipping the flat jackets and laid back and everything's cool, and uh, but we got radio silence and the uh this marine Bronco was flying around over top of us. And you know, in North Vietnam, you think, well you protected because you hear this this plaine that's got to be America plane. So uh. Anyway, we got kind of easy, easy out there on it in the sandbar, and this Marine Bronco just came down and he came down so low that we just we say, giving his thumbs up, you know, and he he saw us and gave us thumbs up back. And well, right there beside us was a bunch of gooks that were getting ready to to hit us, and they thought, well, we could shoot this plane down. Oh wow. So they go cat cat cat in the bottom of the plane. And he thought that we were part of the group shooting at him. So what does he do. He flows fliers around, He comes back in and this time I'm looking back, I'm shooting at the gooks down. They're they were shooting at us and pin us down. And I'm looking back over my shoulder and I saw this, this Bronco release these rocks and these rockets on the fingers coming through the air right right off the top of us, and I said, oh crap, put in the world. And he had white phosphorus, those white, white, white phosphorus rockets and and uh, actually they landed right on top of us, right up position. And uh. One of the rockets hit right beside me and strapped and went in my left right leg. And then the white fosters went up in the air and landed on my left leg. And also was people were laying right beside me that the white foster was laying. One guy had it on his head. Of course, now I was right there on the sandbar. So I took the sand and knocked his knocked the fire out. But the guy that had landed on his head, he jumped in the river and water didn't put it out. Oh. So he was struggling trying to get to get that out. And we got to grab him, pulled him back up on the sandbar, and she shoved his head in the sand and finally got it all put out. And this while you're also being shot at still. Oh yeah, we were pinned down from that. And then not only that, he went around again and this time he came in many guns. He's got these these these many guns, just like a burt just a rapid fire, UH, many guns and they just they came in and he was I had I saw bullets actually tear my pants. Oh good. Anyway, now there was four men, the top four UH officials in the in the group. There was that there. They they got wounded. One of them had a rocket land right between his legs and he had just got a letter in the mail that he had he had had a baby back home, and so we had to we had to call a chop that. The one of the the radio man actually had his hand blown off and so this friend of mine named Billy Steiner, he picked the radio up and got the cussing and he and he got the channel that this uh, this this marine Bronco was on and he got got on and he cussed so so well that he convinced the gather he was an American you know marine, and so he he actually called in the chopper for us. And and anyway, the chopper was that came in was uh uh. It had three wheels instead. It wasn't a big chopper. It was just just big enough to get the the four guys on. So they brought brought chopper and set it down on a on the river is the river bank, and we we put those four guys that were wounded, and I just talked. Believe it or not, I just talked to one of those four guys. I talked to him last Saturday night. He's still alive. And he was telling me. The reason I'm telling you this because the same I was telling this guy that I'm in the military, purple heart, I'm in in the uh that organization with this guy and this guy that's in this region was in my company had golf to four in his shirt. And I met him, and we got the talking and and he told me, he said, well, I had another fellow tell me the same story, and come to find out he was one of the guys that was with us in in Vietnam. And so he went home and told him, gave him my card, and he called me last Saturday night. Wow, and we talked about it, and then he he was thanking me for saving him, putting him on the chopper getting him out of there. Unbelievable the years later. Yeah, I couldn't believe it's still alive. So that was on January thirtieth. And then, uh so I was. I was in good shape. So they they sewed me up, I put my seven stitches in my right leg and gave me a whole backpack full of bandages from a left leg where the white fosters should burn a hole. And so they sent me right on back after the bush. Oh my goodness, because they needed the people in the bush. So I'm out there and and things progressed, you know, it's more and more things were going through each each week. And how about how long had you been there when that occurrence that the river happened? Uh? It was, well, it was after because I went to I remember Christmas that even that year sixty sixty eight, I remember going on search and kill patrol and we found these little laflets that they'd thrown out, thrown at all over the jungle. That was you know that day. That was a very disheartening day because it was Christmas at Christmas Day and we go out on this patrol and we're picking up these little leaflets said yankee go home, and this, that and the other I got. I've got one of them by Bible now that I kind of keep as a rememberance of what all happened. But but you know, the uh it was, it was right. I've been there probably in about August is September. I got there in Vietnam, so this was after Christmas, and this January thirtie, this was after we went on the recon patrol. So here I am, and this is one of these when it's socked in weather comes in. You know, we were just uh you couldn't get resupplied because it's so much cloudy weather. You couldn't get anything into you know, fly in or dry. So we had set in on this hill and uh, well I guess it. I had also been on a another mission. They sent us into uh to this hill. They called it Fox Ridge Hill. And what happened was Fox Company was on top of this hill and they they sent golf company, my company and hotel company to go in reneeve, renieve them and get the bodies off the hill because they got wiped out. So we go in late one evening and and Uh, I go out there and pick up bodies. And I had to go up on this trail and UH come back with bodies and and we we put don't know, several bodies and body bags and just you know, waiting for them to to get everything organized so that we could probably take the hill. You know. So anyway, the that night they got us to back away from the hill and they came in and strafed the hill with everything. And the big, big bombers come in and they would drop just napalm and everything you could think at it on the hill, and it was it was pretty devastating if you'd think, you know, you could stand back and you could feel the heat. Wow, it was so close. But anyway, the next morning they were gonna send us out to go up and take the hill. So they called me into the headquarters which is just to set up temporary tent. And they, uh, they said, look, you, you and you and your fire team are going to be the first ones going up to hill tomorrow. Uh so we don't want you to go back and write a letter home. Oh wow. So you know, we kind of by then. I mean, I'm kind of getting, you know, used to seeing things happen and people getting killed, and I mean I pulled enough bodies off that hill to putting body bags and all that, it just makes you still just just feel that you've been through something already's traumatic, you know. And so I figured, well, I'm I'm probably gonna be one of the next ones. Anyway, we the I went back to told my fire team that they need to write a letter home, and they they were all I was writing a letter, and I was trying to write letters. And I started writing a letter and said, if you're reading this letter, then you're probably I'll probably be in heabit. Then I got to thinking about that, I said, well, what have I done to go to heaven? Oh wow? I mean I didn't really deserve that, that's for sure. So I figured, well, I I had this little bible in my backpack, and so I got that out and got the reading and read that the Plan of Salvation and how to get saved, and and I shared it with my guys and and so we Yeah, I made a commitment to the Lord that night, you know, the the you know, I wanted to live for him. So next morning, we're we're getting ready to go up this hill. And I was already also told that I had to walk on the trail, which is against my religion. Altogether, I didn't even think. I'm thinking, well, I've got to walk on this trail. They wanted my fire team to be on each side of me, like we were three three ranks going to this hill. So I'm thinking about that, and I'm laying there just waiting for everybody to get, you know, in the lined up and everything, and the I said a little prayer. I said, Lord, do you get me up this hill and I'll live my life for you. So anyway, I didn't think a lot about it, but I went on got on the trail. I'm going up there. Sure enough, I hadn't gone a couple hundred yards, and there I saw a head sticking out and a rifle sticking out of a bunker. And I passed the word back that I spotted the enemy and I wanted permission to fire. Well, the word came back up to me, he said, don't fire till they fire first. So what am I to do? I got to I can't fire, So the only thing I could do is pray. I mean I was. I said, well, this is probably gonna be it, So I'm praying. And I got up, stood up, and I'm watching this guy in the bunker and going up there, and he's he's not even he's not even manning his rifle or anything. He just he's kind of he's he's scarier than I am. He's he's frightened. And then when I got up there to him, I pulled him out and I sent him on back down the line, and I kept on going, and we actually captured three three gooks that they off the hill and and I don't know where they all that others came from, but I know that they took them and interrogate them. But I got to the top of the hill. I was one of the first people up there, and I dropped down in this bulker. It's kind of looking around to see if anything is any anything, you know, that might blow up or something. But I sat down in the bunker and I said, thank you Lord, you know, for getting me up this hill. And I heard old voice say, well, I've done my part. And so anyway, it turns out that there's a hospital and all kinds of ammunitions. You wouldn't believe this stuff. It was up on that hill. It was unbelievable. And they the people that they interrogated, they found out that they had left a fifty man squad behind to slow us down. They knew it was gonna come over on the hill. So we took the hill and h and we were up there for the next couple of weeks. But like I said, it was still it was that time when everything was socked in. You couldn't get resupplied. So we went on and finally we left that hill and we went over to another hill and then I had to go through I mean, we're going through rivers and in the leeches and stuff and the rivers. It was unbelievable. They was attached to you, and so is there because. I'm not familiar with Vietnam, but is there wildlife? Is there? Like? Yeah? They actually when I was going through a river, I'm looking at fish that have never seen man before. I mean, that's how wild the areas are. And the fish would come up and like be looking at you like you know, hey this is this might be something good to eat, you know. But uh, but you know there was a wildlife we ran into. You hear, sometimes a deer or something like that would be in the woods. In fact, I heard I didn't kill anybody. I heard some guys talk better. They killed a deer of snakes and things, I mean big bulk of restricters. That's what I'm just saying. Right there, I did see one of those that one of the guys run up on and killed it. Then we actually had a little meat off that. But uh, but uh, anytime you got into a battle, it was like, uh, you had a great time because we would usually the goose we carry a rice sock. So when we had sea rations, they had this beef gravy and stuff in there. We get that rice out and cook it up and it's like having a delicacy. You know. That was a good meal we had whenever he had a battle. But but anyway, we were socked in in these places and everything kind of going very slow. Is you didn't know what was going to happen next, but a lot of us were, like you said, it was scared. We was scared, and we finally had to resort to digging into fire pits where on these hills that the Marines had been before, somebody had been their army who have been on the hill. We got digging into fire pits and finding these little canisters of permena cheese. Nobody liked permina cheese, so they'd always throw them away. That's how we that's what we was living on, were eating these ermena cheese. So when you when you're taking these hills or at least is this a day process? Is this a week process or half a day? It sometimes would be just a day or so, and then you stay there and you're going to it. They have another mission for you to go on. It was like they got it. Are you staying in like sleeping in the jungle? Oh yeah, you stay. The only thing you had was your like a poncho or maybe a poncho blanket something like that you wrap up in and keep you if it's cool it. Most time you didn't have anything at all except going on with Sea rath Ye had sea rats. And things like that. But was it hard to sleep? I mean, were you able to get. I didn't have sleep at you back then, so so you were able to catch some z's when you did on these trips. I'm sure. Yeah, we we those off sometimes. And what are. You nineteen twenty years old? Are you going on? I turned twenty in Vietnam? Yeah, wow? And we were being socked in. It was we went without any resupply for so long. We were getting pretty desperate. So finally they decided to have a day where it was gonna be restocked. It was gonna bring in the sea one thirty and you could fly over and a I mean the cloud You still couldn't see anything but the clouds right above you. So we heard this plane and it came over and he crash and it was a big crash down the jungle, probably about two or three miles from us. And they made a correction from that and came back over and they dropped the next one almost right in the middle of our perimeter, so we had plenty of food. Then they dropped another one just outside of our perimeter, so we got three three uh pallets dropped to us, and it was ammo in those pallets too. So after after we got plenty to eat, they said, well, we need to send a group to go pick up that palette that crashed in jungle. We knew approximatey war it was, but we didn't know where it was. So they sent fifty of us about two hundred and fifty in a company. So they uh, they sent fifty of us to go find that pallette. So we took a group and the machine gun whos was with us, and we went down down the ridge most of it was downhill. We got down there and probably I don't know, probably two or three hours we were owned a pallette. But the pallette was stripped and all we could do was just follow the trash through the jungle. And what it was they would opened up a seat rash and they were getting this stuff out and they're throwing the trash and we just kind of followed that. We had a trail, the whole big trail of you know, that we could kip over them. Finally we caught up with them and we killed seven that evening. Wow. And so. Where we had got to they it was kind of like in this ravine. It was real, real, low down, and so they said, well, we're going to leave five of you guys down here to set up an ambush over the bodies. And forty five of the guys went back up about halfway up the hill towards the rest of the company. So they are, you know, forty five up there. And it was five dinners. I was one. I was leading the group. It was any ambush you keep getting put on the point, I volunteered. So you know, it came ready. It couldn't complain because I didn't care at that time. I was just. How do you feel? Are you feeling invincible? Are you feeling that you're If it's your time, it's your time. And I mean, well, like like I said, I had had prayed this prayer, and I did feel a lot better off knowing that, you know, I had the Lord on my side. If I did did die, I didn't have to worry about it, you know. Wow. But we set up over the ambush that night, and then it was so dark you I mean, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. It's still still socked in. And the machine gun us on one side of me, and the radio mans or the other and uh, we had to click the radio every hour and let him know we were live. Oh my goodness, the the machine gunner. We were sitting there and all of a sudden, you hears something like somebody moving or out in front of where the bodies are, and he wanted permission to fire, and said, no, we're not gonna fire till till we can. We can't see anything, so no use firing because if we if you do fire, you're going to give it up your positions. Yeah, so we'll probably be dead then. So I just kept on clicking the radio and we passed the radio between us and make sure somebody stayed awake. So Matt Dawn, we decided, you know, let's try to get back up the rest of the forty five guys. Because I mean, you couldn't see, you couldn't really tell anything or nothing to shoot at. So we started up the trail and caught up with the guys and uh, they probably a couple hundred yards up a trail. Now we sat down and had breakfast. I could just say whatever some of the sea rats and so we was telling him about we're hearing some noise, but we didn't shoot. They said, you guys, should have shot. We could have give you some lunaries, you know, some flares with a luna. So anyway, we said, well we didn't do it. So they said, well y'all going back down the hill. First. So I had a guy that I had been breaking in on Point. He had been there a couple of weeks. So I asked him, I said, you feel like walking point because the point man is the only one who can have around in his chamber. Because what happened was if you if everybody had around the chamber, somebody falls down, they discharge a weapon, they could kill somebody, or they shoot him in the back. And that happened more than once. Sometimes it wasn't It wasn't mistakes. I think somebody dis did like somebody, so they would they would kind of fall down and yeah, anyway, we uh. This guy had volunteered to be points, so I figured he was brave as I was. So he's walking in front of me and he comes around a bend. Now keep in mind I had had the chevrons of corporal chevrons that and one of the one of the little pins that go that puts goes to the cover was mission off the back of one on one side of it, so I only had a pin on one side of my chiverns. Anyway, he he walked around the same rack, the same trail we just came up, and there was three cooks standing in the trail setting up a rocket too, and I figured we'd be coming back down the trail, so they're setting up this rocket, and so we When he saw him, it scared him so bad that he just because he had a riot round in the chamber, he just pulled a trigger start shooting up in the air. When he turned around and ran straight into me. And when he did, he hit those ship runs and you know, knocked me down, and I set up in his blood, running them my face and what in the world happened. I didn't even know why he ran, or why he shot or what anything. All I know is I'm laying on the ground. I'm trying to figure out what's going on. And and all of a sudden we're back engaged in fire again. We're back doing a fire to maneuvers and moving up, moving up, and and he had it just scared him so bad when he saw those three set up these rockets. He h. He scared him. So we we kept on going and ended up getting back down the hill almost where the bodies were, and so we and by then they had got the bodies up, and it was a whole battalion that we didn't know it. Oh my gosh. We were right working that way, right into the middle of this battalion, and and all of a sudden, somebody passed the word cease fire because we're running an AMMO, because we've been fighting the night before and we're getting low on AMMO. So they asked us to, you know, don't don't shoot unless you actually see somebody or something in the jungle. A lot of people just shoot at movement, you know. So we're laying on the ground and I'm looking out and I know that most of the company is to my right. I'm the only one who left, and I'm looking there, and I saw this guy get up and he's he's probably forty to fifty yards from me, and he stood up and he's looking down through the jungle the other way. Nobody, like I said, nobody that I knew was over there. So he's looking that way. But I've got my rifle trained on him pro position, and I watched him and he had two check ons, which wouldn't handle grenades. And he had him in his hands like this with a you know, between his fingers, and they've got they are activated by pulling a string. And I watched him he pulls a string, and now then I know that there's a certain length of time they're gonna go off, and instead, all of a sudden, he turns and looked right straight at me and he calls off throws these two grenades. They're coming right at me, and I just all I know is I pulled a trigger, and I know he he went down, but I balled up in a ball right there where the grenades were and they went off, but I you know, I don't even think I got hit at all, just maybe some strap rope went through my ear or something, but it was not bad. So I jumped up from that point and went over and dumped over behind this tree that had a real long route coming down. I jumped over there, and there was the same guy that was both me walking points to the first. He was hiding back out behind the tree and he's scared. He's just sitting there his shake and he's scared to death. And I'm trying to I'm trying to look act brave to him. Said, look, look, Mariene, you got to get back in the fight. We've got to keep you know, we're up against the enemy, so we got to I said, now you give me a cover. I'm gonna go to that spot right out there, which maybe fifteen twenty yards from where I was. I said, now you give me cover and then I'm gonna be out there. You then you better come up. So he said, okay, so he's giving me cover, you know, I'll go crawling out there. And like I said, I hit the ground and I had just been there just seconds, and all of a sudden, I heard these grenades are falling all around me. And sure enough he comes up. But when he did, he landed on the grenade. Oh my god, and he had his flag jacket unzipped, and the grenade went right on one side of his flag jacket. Well, the flag jacket was pushed in, but he kind of blew him up in the air and uh and when it went off, and uh, anyway, I felt his pulse. He was still still alive, and so the flat jacket kind of kept him from getting all the damage, but it did go in and hit his lung on one side, and so there I got my backpack, and I got a rifle and all that stuff. So I laid everything down, I picked him up, put him on my shoulders and carried him back to the coleman. And I had to go find a coleman because he's he's back in the you know. And so I finally got up to him and and the coleman says, all right, where's your backpack? I said, I said, I left it up there where I picked him up. He said, well, I need your backpack, he said, we got everybody's wounded. I need. I need some bandages. I said, well, okay, I'll go back and get my bandage. So I got back up and UH dropped him off and went on back up, and dang it, I got well. When I got back up front, the line had pulled back about twenty fifteen twenty yards from where my backpack was. It's still land out there. So I'll go up to the machine gunner and I said, can you give me some cover? I gotta go there and get my backpack. He's sure I got you. So anyway, I go crawling down there, and I reached out and got my hand on my backpack and when I did, I turned just to come back up a hill, and the RPG round landed right where I was, and a piece of strapnel from that RPG round about about two and a half three inches, went all the way to my hip, all the way to my bone in the back and it and so it blew a hole back here in my rear area. So I go back up to the machine gunner and we're laying there in the middle of the battle trying to figure out here's another marine there too, And we were trying to figure out how can you put a bandage on you butt? And we were laughing. We I mean, it wasn't funny, but it was funny at that time. So we tried to do that. And then. Anyway, we had to get that the marine that fell on the grenade or the grenade boot in front. We put him on a cable and they took him on up over top of the jungle. He was the shave cable down through the jungle and he was going up. He got shot in the same wound going to the cable, and I saw him on the hospital ship later on and he said, I can't believe you guys got out of there. Wow. He said you you were just completely surrounded, looked like ants all around you. And anyway, I had to walk because they didn't they had he couldn't get safely get a chopper in there where we was at. So they brought another chopper up on the hill and the rest of our company was coming to us, and and so we just kind of retreated. We didn't marines never retreat, but we were back back pedaling this get up a hill, but we had to go click from where I was wounded up to where the chopper was. And I was using my rifle like a cane walking and got up there. And as I was going up the hill, the squads in front of me would they put claimo mines on trees and it handed me the uh the activated a little thing it cuts, you know, cuts makes it go off. They would hand me that and and go on hid on up the hill. Well, I'm sitting there waiting. I'd see heads popping up and I would hit the act to click it up to make it go off. And some of them didn't go off because they'd take the sea four out of the claymovers and use it to cook the chow uh uh and so it was kind of like you're you, You're just if you didn't go off is you got to run real fast. But I was just scrambling to get up a hill and uh, finally got up there. And when I did, they put me on a basket and pulled me up and into the chopper. Right after that, a rocket hit right into one of the fox holes in front of were my guys, especially the machine gunner he was he was in a foxhole and that killed four gas in it. Uh, right right after I got on the chopper. I mean, just I was fortunate to get out of there. But you're a You're a and I mean, these stories are just unbelievable. Your bravery is just incredible. And I know reading the bio, your two time recipient, the Purple Hearts, are those the stories that you've told there And that was March than that that was the first one was January the thirtieth, and then March the nath was the next one. And so both of those stories want the river and the one in the middle of the jungle there in that down in that valley, those are the the efforts that you made that that got you the Purple Hearts. Yeah, yeah, man, those two stories are just chilling. Steve Boseman's talked about this, and we've had some and I've seen some other guys talk about So the Marine Corps is really set up where you are the baddest dudes. On the planet. I mean, the pointment, and everything the Marine Corps does is support of those guys that are in the field, that are in the jungle, and you're the point man. I mean, what an honor it is to talk to you. Well, it was an honor just to be here a period, because I mean, I'm blessed to be back to the truth. I mean to go through all that and to get up in front of that you know, munker with the machine guns sticking out and capture the guy. I don't know why he didn't shoot. I mean, it's more I know that there's a lot of other brave people out there that didn't make it back, and I feel like I've been given the opportunity to live for them. And that's one of the reasons I've become a veteran advocate to try to up anywhere I can help veterans at uh, you know that. And I've run into all kinds of different situations and and found out to help help people because when you when you get out, uh of like I got at the Marine Corps. Well, I didn't tell you the whole story. My my uh my uh uh son was actually I was given custody to him before I left going to Vietnam. Now, when I went away to boot camp, I didn't have custody. But when I come back, uh, some things worked out through the lawyers and everything, and I ended up getting custody him. So that was I had a reason to come back. Now the first first reason I was voluntearre for everything because because I didn't, I didn't think I had a reason to come back. But now so and I had I met a lady before I went over to Vietnam, uh, and we became she she rouged to write to me all the time and and I sworemed down I would never get married again. Well, as of last Friday, we've been married fifty five years. Well, so. And I don't. And I'm sorry I had to jump in and thank you for your service with those stories when you got lifted out of the jungle, and are you then going to a navy ship or or a hospital? And then they work on you in the hospital ship. Uh. And then do you have light duty after that? Or is what? Well? I spent almost a month on the hospital ship Sanctuary, and then when I came back to my rear area, they uh, the top sergeant day he says, Uh, I need somebody to be supply sergeant, and I need somebody to be n CO I c of troops in the rear noncommissioned officer in charge of troops in the rear. And then the other one is, I want you to be a barber. So anybody comes out of the bush and heeds going r and R, you gotta trim their hair. Plus you gotta trim my hair. It's cut his and he All you had to do is just take everything off of the razor and just hit it, you know. But anyway, I agreed to do that, And I say, I thought I was gonna be able to get back there and play with my guitar, you know. But my guitar was gone, but somebody else had left another one there, so it were you never did find your guitar you took with it. No, somebody took that one, and I guess it was a little better than this one. But anyway. But when I when I did stayed in rear, I used I knew what the guys needed in the bush, and so I would go trade, uh, camo and stuff like that. I trade some of the stuff, the things that they needed and uh and and I made trips out to the bush and got to see the guys and it uh, it was good, you know with them. You're listening to American hero stories on life, liberty, happiness. We're talking with Vietnam veteran Gary Wit. Gary, tell us a little bit about your stuff that you're doing now with veterans. Well, like I said, I I have a group that meets every Thursday for PTSD and we've been meeting up, I guess for fifteen twenty years. Because there's a lot of guys that get out of service. They don't really realize. You think it's going to go back and go back into society, but that doesn't happen if you've faced been on the battlefield like I've had, and I realize what they've gone through. And some of the some of the veterans today are being deployed more than once, you know, come back two or three months or six months later, and and that's why you see so much veteran suicide, you know, because it's discouraging to people to be deployed and see all this and then come back. And but we have a group I've been in the military of the Purple Heart in in Lynchburg, had a chapter that uh we started. Uh I was I was commander in Lynchburg for several years, and then we got I went to Lynchburg to talk to them about becoming a Purple Art city and they said, well, we're going to challenge you to to make it a Purple Heart region, you know, to get a community it's community like the Lynchburg region with all the surrounding counties, said get all them to be part of this Purple Heart community. And uh so we did that. And so I went around to all the counties and and had them they do a decoration and and uh and actually lynch Virginia itself is a Purple Art state. And uh so by being part of this, uh what they call the Purple Heart Trail, uh, we was able to get that to happen with Lynchburg and all this around the counties. And so sometimes you'll see a Purple Heart community sign. I think it's several here in Bedford over here at the grave sites that were a lot of the Bedford boys. You know, we've put a bench over there, and it's a lot of things that we've done to enhance the community and and work with the community make things better for veterans. And Lynchburg Grave Veterans Council, I'm I'm a board member of that and we we've got so many things going to all the different organizations that participate in that and and I'm glad. Even today, I was supposed to go out on a group. My wife didn't want me to go because I've had a heart attack and stroke and all this stuff, so she's in you don't need to go out in that heat. Because they were doing a ramp bill for for the Purple Heart Homes. It's another Central Virginitia chapters and they were doing a ramp bill today and I wasn't able to go help them. But this is something that you know, any veteran that needs some assistance like that, all you got to do is go to Purple Art Homes dot organ and UH and sign up for you can put in a request and we'll build a ramp for you to get into your house. You know, some veterans can't get up there the steps like you used to. And uh, you've heard of the Desmond Doss House. So we got open Lynchburg. So we kind of taken care of that and keep veterans in that. So we're trying to cut down on the veterans homelessness. And but you know, it's just it's good to be able to even this meeting I have. Every every week, I'm meeting somebody all the time. It's always people that want to know more about how, you know, how they can get help. And I run into people and I can tell pretty quickly after very shortly after talking with them if they've got PTSD, and I recommend them to go get over to the Ronoke Veterans uh group up in in Rono. It's a VET center. And our fellow my name of John Whitlock, he been over thirty years here in Lynchburg. He he drive up from Ronoke every week and and run this group. And that's what got me started in the groups. And and uh he's he's uh he retired now, but the group still goes and we if anybody is interested in getting in involved in that, they could do that. But just going going through the Ronoke Vet Center and sign up and you have to heav you DD two fourteen and show that your service. But it's all kinds of things out there that can help veterans. And uh, I kind of felt like I was slighted when I got out of service because when I when I got out, finally they gave me disability. And I'm saying, well, okay, thirty percent. It's one hundred dollars a month. So I thought, I, you know, was doing real good. Well, this fellow that I worked with was had been in the Air Force and he was he'd never been in combat, but some reason, he had a ward come up in his hand and he put in He went claimed a shelf shock through the VA. You never hear of that today, but that was back when World War two people talking shelf shock. But he had a ward come up in his hand and he he went and applied for disability for that ward and got thirty percent disability. And I'm working them side by side of the guy. You know, it's this, this isn't right. So he went back and appealed it and they gave him seventy percent. And I'm saying, well, you know, how did he do this? So then I went to the v a uh that sat on Leeds a road down uh he, and I said, something is not right. Why you know, I only got thirty percent, So they would reviewed my case and gave me fifty percent right away. That's that was about twenty years ago, I guess. And so he went back again, and by then I think he was getting some help with some assistant, somebody that knew what they were doing, and he gave him some pills or something to make it kind of shake a little bit, and he went back and he got one hundred percent. And I felt like, you know, that's that's not right for people to, you know, be doing stuff like that. And so there's a lot of people that back then, you know that we're getting screwed when he got out the VA, and so I feel like you need to help help any veteran that that you can to get what they deserve, you know, And so anyway that we can through the PTSD or whatever. He there's all kinds of ways that you can find things that that will help the veterans get what they deserve. But I've just been involved as a veteran advocate for the last fifteen twenty years anyway, and I joined the being on Veterans from America after well, Steve and some of the guys David Stokes and they brought the Moving Wall to Lynchburg back twenty years ago. So that's when I started getting involved, you know, when I saw that moving wall and I ended up going to the mall wall in d C. And when when I went to the wall and I saw the names on the wall of some of my buddies, I mean, it touched my heart and it just made me, you know, realize that I needed I'm here for a reason, you know, we all give it a second chance for some reason. So I'm trying to find that exactly what I can do to help help these people. You know. Well, thank you so much for spending time with us today. It was certainly an honor to interview you and hear these stories. Thank you so much for your service and everything that you do for the veterans as well. Do you want to ask the Yeah, you can't get out without the hardest question. We've got the hardest question. We got to ask you if you could pick anybody in history, dead or alive any time in history. Who would you pick and who would you hang out with for twenty four hours? And where would you hang out? Well, I was gonna say George Washington because he's the originator of the Purple Heart metal. But I mean that's probably a good answer because you're actually going up on August the eighth and ninth. We're going to Mount Verne, his home. Yeah, and they're going to have a celebration of National Purple Heart Day, which is August to seventh. Oh wow, And so that'd be a good one to yeah, ask you know what all happened because he's when he came up with a badge of mur or. They called it. Wow. So well, thank you again, appreciate you being on the show.
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