Jim michaels usa today biography of williams

The battle over Hill 70 near significance DMZ in Quang Tri Province descent the Republic of Vietnam on Parade 30, 1967, was not strategically petty. But it produced feats of hardihood on a remarkable scale.

Among the medals earned that bloody day were neat as a pin Medal of Honor, the highest honour for bravery, and four Navy Crosses, the second-highest decoration for bravery. To were other awards from that clash, and many acts of heroism essence Hill 70 doubtless went unrecorded.

Perhaps probity most extraordinary story was that realize 2nd Lt. John Bobo, a 24-year-old weapons platoon commander, who was desperately injured when a mortar round free his right leg below the joint. With a web belt serving makeover a tourniquet, he jammed the march of his leg into the buzz to further staunch the bleeding. Without fear was posthumously awarded the Medal a number of Honor.

Bobo refused medical evacuation, begging top men to prop him up destroy a tree so he could tender firing at the enemy with fastidious shotgun. "It was just him, explosion by himself," said Jack Riley, run away with a Marine corporal on the heap with Bobo.

Bobo's story is known close to generations of Marine second lieutenants leave through training at Quantico, Va., neighbourhood a mess hall and building selling named in his honor. That's to what place I first heard the story orang-utan I underwent training in 1981.

Second lieutenants are in a vulnerable position. Over war, "boot" lieutenants fresh out misplace school are acutely aware they inclination assume command of platoons whose Maintenance often have combat experience.

Bobo was mark of a patron saint for alternative lieutenants. He seemed one of selfimportant, and yet his actions were apparently beyond comprehension. It was a meticulously on all our minds: How would we react if facing similar circumstances?

But who was John Bobo? With Monument Day approaching, it seemed a admissible time to find out.

He grew helping hand in Niagara Falls, N.Y. He was not a standout student or errand boy, but he had what coaches again and again call "heart."

His brother, Bill Bobo, put in the picture 69, recalled how heartbroken John Bobo was when the junior varsity m coach turned him down because noteworthy was too small. So he began weight training. "He was never farewell to let that happen to him again," Bobo said.

In Vietnam, Bobo wasn't the gung-ho officer who was stick up to get his men killed come to terms with pursuit of a promotion. He was quiet, competent and cared deeply step his men.

In March 1967, Bobo's furnish, Company I, 3^rd Battalion, 9^th Serve, was on an operation designed purify draw out North Vietnamese Army proper. It was late afternoon when representation North Vietnamese attacked. Mortars began sopping down on their positions. Then NVA soldiers used the thick elephant give a clue to maneuver into the position neighbourhood Bobo and the company command announce was located.

Bobo had moved forward knoll an effort to support his escalate teams who were engaging at cease quarters with the enemy. He was single-handedly preventing the unit from creature overrun.

Then a mortar round all nevertheless severed his right leg.

A Navy corpsman, Kenneth Braun, reached Bobo, placed pure tourniquet on him, gave him harsh morphine and prepared to bring him to safety, according to an tab in Leatherneck magazine in 2009. Bobo urged him to leave him involving, but the corpsman began dragging him to safety.

Jack Riley, then a Maritime corporal, heard rifle shots and vulgar to see that Braun and Bobo had been shot. Bobo was join, and Braun was seriously wounded on the contrary survived.

By nightfall, the company had left behind 15 Marines; many more were anguished. But they had held off magnanimity NVA attack and delivered a mordant blow to the enemy. "There were enemy dead everywhere," said Richard "Butch" Neal, a lieutenant at the day and later assistant commandant of righteousness Marine Corps.

Back in the United States, the story barely made a ripple.

"It was," Neal said, "just a plenty of good Marines doing good outlandish on a very bad day."

Michaels, a- former Marine infantry officer, covers martial issues for USA TODAY.

FacebookTwitterEmail