The Mine

First, actually as an addendum, let me try to describe this as an observer might remember:

Another APC hits a mine. One GI, the medic, is rocketed straight up but manages to tightly grip the 12 foot antenna just at the top snapping him upsidedown. He falls back and lands on the track, butt first, knocking him unconscious, then falls into the hole made by the mine. Lying in the hole, still unconscious, yet somehow still clutching the antenna, he awakens to four onlookers who watch the antenna snap back to it’s original position when he turns it loose. Seemingly unhurt, he dusts himself off and returns to his own track, Sgt. Shehan’s Sheridan.

Well, now I'm having problems with my spine and may be unable to work soon. Anyone of you guys who remember this, please email me. I was the medic for G troop and a close friend with Paul Marion Dailey, the medic who was killed May, 1st, the first day of the Cambodian incursion. This incident occurred in February or March, 1970.

The following is the same incident from my viewpoint:

The time was about 13:00 hours, the place was Highway 13 near the Cambodian Border. It was one of those hot, squinty days that makes one want to just keep closing his eyes until sleep overcomes. G Troop was pulling security for rome plows, bulldozers, whose job it was to cut strips of jungle out for easier visibility for the aerial photography that took place at night. Since the abortion of the Agent Orange program this was what we were left with.

   Being new I was closely observing the guys who had been there a while. They took chances, routinely jumping off the tracks for short periods of time figuring the odds were against jumping directly on an anti-tank mine.

   A rome plow had hit a mine about 70 meters from the road where I was. I grabbed my aid bag and ran towards it. The only problem was that I was running across a mine field. After reaching the bulldozer and making the determination that the driver was alright, I began the walk back. An APC had been in hot pursuit of me to tell me we don’t run across mine fields. When they found me I jumped aboard and had a seat on the folded back drivers hatch, grabbed the antenna to steady the ride, then looked down at my right foot hanging slightly off the side of the vehicle. I remembered in my little school that was a no-no. A foot could be taken off with the blast of an anti-tank mine if it were off the side. So I moved it... one... two... BOOM! 

   Time was frozen. I was up-side-down, in a funnel of turbulent dirt just over twelve feet above the APC, that had moments before stopped to, quite literally, give me a lift. Looking down, I saw that I was the only one who had been blown off the vehicle, which meant that the mine had been directly underneath my sitting position. The other riders on the back of the APC remained in their positions while I, with my hand resting on the antenna, was shot up like a rocket from the force of the blast. The force fared through the vehicle, to my behind, which was resting on the driver’s hatch lid, a favorite place to sit when riding on an armored personnel carrier. When the mine blew and I lifted off, I felt the antenna sliding through my hand and instinctively clamped, just in time, with one inch to spare. The force of the blast on my body was apparently equal to the force of my grip, which kept me from being launched into orbit, but also pulled my spine to the side in a bittersweet, mighty jerk from hell. I fell back down on the open driver’s hatch, exactly as I was heretofore seated, butt first, and passed out.

   When I awoke, 20 seconds later, I was told, I was in the hole the anti-tank mine had made. I opened my eyes and saw four G.I.s peering down at me with looks of wonder and amazement, for I looked dead yet had a death-grip on that blessed antenna. I let go, slowly, and watched the taut bend in the antenna in a snap retake it’s intended shape. My return to kilter was somewhat less snappy, although I did—after feeling for my feet to insure their presence—get up, shake it off, and hitch another ride to my original track, a Sheridan. Everyone assured me I would be alright after a couple of days of body soreness.

   They were right about the soreness, however, wrong about being alright. About seven years after the blast, I started having episodes of back pain which would incapacitate me for about three days, to the point of being unable to get out of bed. Upon visiting the V.A. hospital and having the benefits coordinator literally laugh in my face, I gave up on V.A. You see, I was the Medic and we didn’t carry with us the form on which one would put the name as “injured with a tendency for delayed symtoms.” If you walked off, good for you; if you had trouble later, prove it.

   Now, it’s 38 years later and I've had neck surgery which fused three vertebrae together, seriously decreasing my range of motion, and I can’t even prove the incident happened. The only two people in that troop whose names I remember are dead and very old. I was with the llth Armored Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Squadron, G troop, 1970. Sgt. George Shehan was the platoon leader and I was medic on his Sheridan tank. Soon after this incident, I was transferred to H-Co. and lost contact with the guys in G-troop. I can't remember anyone's name.

 If anyone saw this please email me.