In spite of my obsession with hunting and fishing, I managed to graduate from high school in 1961 in Eureka, California. Although my work building Forest Service access roads and bridges were interesting, it was also dangerous and did not seem a sensible long-term plan. With no other practical goal in mind, I enlisted in the Army; the "Fun, Travel and Adventure" was real, and I got along well.

News from South Vietnam in 1963 inspired me to work my way there via the First Special Forces Group on Okinawa. Vietnam was beautiful and relatively quiet when I arrived there in February of 1965. There were only about 20,000 Americans there, and hardly anyone fought on the weekends. I had an interesting desk job as a Staff Sergeant and joined a sports parachute club through an Air Force connection. We had plenty of parachutes we modified and packed ourselves, and for two-fifths of good scotch we got an H-34 helicopter every weekend and made all the freefall jumps we wanted.

As with all good things, the free fall fun and the "gentlemanly affair" that had been the war did not last long after the first American combat units arrived in the country. My desk job no longer had any appeal, and in September 1965, I found work with the American Advisory Team for Vietnam’s Airborne Brigade. My duties were varied, but the most satisfying was hunting bad guys with some great paratroopers. Over a year later and after a few significant battles, I received a direct commission as a Second Lieutenant, Infantry. My rank went up; my pay went down!

As one of the earliest NCO’s to be promoted in this manner, I was allowed to choose my job for the rest of my second year in Vietnam. I picked an area of coastal plains and mountains that I knew still had a good supply of bad guys, so the next three months produced about three dozen firefights. We found them in the jungles, hills, rice paddies and hedgerows, and even fought on a white sand beach. Despite many close calls, I returned home in January 1967 feeling 10 feet tall and probably bulletproof.

Like the rest of the reward for the direct commission, I was able to achieve my goal of becoming an Army Ranger Instructor at the Florida Ranger Training Camp on Eglin Air Force Base in 1967. It was an intense and gratifying experience that also introduced me to the Emerald Coast.

In July 1968 I returned to Vietnam as a First Lieutenant for my third year and was assigned to an infantry battalion in the 25th Infantry Division as a rifle platoon leader. I was back in the fighting my first night on the job, and the next month was filled with major battles with the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong. By the time the enemy offensive ended I had taken over the rifle company I would command for the next six months. We searched daily for bad guys and set ambushes every night in what seemed an endless summer of high heat and humidity.

October 5, 1968, was one of those hot and steamy mornings when we went looking for trouble and found it. About 8:30 am, I walked by a bad guy in a "spider hole" in grass tall enough that no one could see him. As I passed, he rose up enough to shoot me in the back with a burst of AK-47 fire from a range of fewer than 10 feet. I was lucky that he was excited enough not to aim carefully and the bullets all passed between my side and right arm. The first bullet hit one of the clips that held my canteen on my belt and then broke a signal mirror sitting in an ammunition pouch with grenades on both sides. The last bullet in the burst blew an M-16 magazine out of a bandolier hung over my shoulder. I dove to my left thinking to roll and shoot him, but he shot one more time, and the bullet went through my steel helmet, cut a groove through my scalp down to the bone, and knocked me unconscious. The men behind me saw pieces flying out of me, the helmet was blown off and the blood flying; when the blood stopped pouring from my head after a few minutes, they reported me dead. I came to after about 30 minutes and found that everything seemed to work except that I couldn’t see. Cleaning out my left eye that was full of congealed blood and my right eye full of dirt, I realized I wasn’t blind, and I called for cover and rejoined my men. A medic put two battle dressings on my head, and I stayed in the fight until late afternoon.

The wound took 22 stitches to close after it was finally cleaned up about 11 pm that night. My eyes would not close completely for the next three days; I’d had an extreme facelift! The news of my death got around much faster than the fact that I had survived, so I surprised several people over the next few days. Fifty years have passed, and I’m perfectly happy being well under 10 feet tall and only semi-bulletproof.

Photo work for the Marshall Sharp article done by photographer, John Amour, who has joined the staff of Plantation Living Magazine.