The Brutal Reality of the Vietnam War 😔
A Vietnam War veteran recounts a harrowing combat experience involving soldiers discovering a wounded girl hidden in a bunker after a grenade attack, and the moral anguish surrounding her subsequent death.
Summary
The speaker describes a combat operation during the Vietnam War where soldiers located enemy combatants taking shelter in a bunker. After throwing grenades into the bunker and having grenades thrown back out, the soldiers believed all occupants were dead. However, when they searched the bodies, they discovered a girl who had been hidden under wooden planks inside the bunker in an apparent attempt to protect her from the grenades. She was severely wounded with a cracked skull and visible brain damage. Recognizing she could not survive her injuries, another soldier suggested ending her suffering. The speaker recalls being ordered to shoot her with a .45 pistol, which he identifies as a weapon he carried as a machine gunner. The speaker indicates this is a memory that has stayed with him.
Key Insights
- The speaker witnessed soldiers discovering a girl hidden beneath wooden planks in a bunker, indicating deliberate attempt to shield her from grenade blasts
- The girl survived the initial grenade attack but sustained severe trauma with visible brain damage and cracked skull
- Soldiers determined the girl could not survive her injuries and made decision to end her suffering
- The speaker was ordered to shoot the injured girl with a .45 pistol, which haunted him as a lasting memory
- The speaker carried a .45 pistol as part of his role as a machine gunner during combat operations
Topics
Transcript
[0:00] We just saw three go in this bunker. Move up on it. Start throwing frags. Frags are coming back out. They're throwing them back out before they go off. We hold the pin longer, flip it in. There's no way they could be alive. We send a guy in to pull out the bodies. Well, he only dragged out two bodies. We saw three go in there. And there were wood planks [music] inside this bunker. It was a girl. And they buried her under the wood planks so she could survive the grenades. He found her. He drags her out. Her skull's cracked up and we can see the brains. No way she was going to live. Somebody…
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