Remembering Vietnam – Jim Barlament

During the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War

I was an army brat. My dad spent 23 years in the army retiring as a sergeant major. We had 31 different addresses and I went to 17 different schools. I wanted to be just like him, the green beanie, as they called it, army all the way. He said, no, son, you need to join the Navy. You’ll have a warm bed and three hot meals a day. So I took his advice and joined the Navy. Not knowing I would turn out to be a marine corpsman. 

We had no idea where we were going once we got to Vietnam. We loaded up on a C 47 and ended up landing at Chu Lai. I remember looking out the window just before we landed and seeing all these sand dunes and thinking, what the hell? I thought Vietnam was all jungle. 

As we’re taxying, there’s a hull of a tank sitting there all blown to pieces and smoking. I start thinking, okay, I’m in a war zone. I don’t have a gun and I don’t know what’s going on. I ended up getting attached to a medical unit, but they didn’t know what to do with me. Well, it didn’t take long before they found out. 

My first patrol. Wow. Here I am with a bunch of Marines walking along a dike in a rice paddy. For most of the patrols. My position was right by the radio man and platoon or squad leader. They’re telling me about the spider holes and booby traps, and I’m thinking, okay, well this is really a delicious situation I’m finding myself in.

I remember the first time I had to go out under fire. A guy was out in the open and he got hit in the stomach and went down hard. Somebody yelled, ‘Corman up!’ I started to go and the gunny grabbed me and slammed me back down. He said, ‘Doc, you don’t move until I tell you to.’ Then once the guys were throwing out enough heavy fire, he said, ‘Okay, go.’

I ran out to the guy and I’m trying to get a dressing on his stomach. Now, in training, you’re taught to shield the patient with your body, but the Marines are taught that if you’re wounded, your body should go between enemy fire and the corpsman. I go, ‘quit pulling on me’, and he goes, ‘Doc, doc, you’re on the wrong side.’

Once I got him dressed, I put him over my shoulder and made it back to cover. I remember telling Gunny about what that guy said. I told him I was just so impressed that he was more worried about me than himself. That has just really stuck with me. It was a bond that started that day, and continues to this day.

As a corpsman, you had to deal with a lot of difficult things. There was one time we brought this poor kid in and there was hardly anything left to him, but he just wouldn’t die. He would not quit. He kept hanging on for at least 20 minutes and it just tore everybody up watching him. Just such a helpless feeling.

As gruesome as it was, it could be good at times. It was actually an interesting job because one week I might be with a line company another week with artillery, maybe a mortar unit. I moved around like that for almost six months, including one two week tour with the swift boats. Their corpsman got wounded, so I filled in.

I have to be honest, those guys were crazy. I’m telling you. Wow. The tension when you pull up to search a boat, wow, everybody is locked and loaded and you’re thinking, what if somebody makes a wrong move? Does everybody start firing? They would say, ‘Doc, just stand back. We’ll take care of it.’ But boy, just thick, thick tension all the time.

There’s a group that was really loyal to us that I will never forget. The Hmongs. When people used to complain about them coming to America, I would tell them, ‘You don’t understand. They fought for us and we abandoned them.’ I have many, many Hmong friends to this day. 

The young Marines I was around were probably just as scared and uncertain of what was going on as I was. But they also put on a false bravado talking tough all the time. When we were out and the crap hit the fan, well, they did exactly what they had to do, what they were trained to do, even though you knew deep down inside they were every bit as scared as everybody else. 

At the end of 14 months, of the eight guys went over there with five of them, including one in his very first patrol, were killed. Strangely, all the ones who died were married.
The ones who survived like myself, were single.

 I always had to laugh when I thought about my dad’s advice as to why joining the Navy would be better than the army. There was a time halfway through my tour that I wrote him a letter. ‘Dear dad, it’s been raining for six weeks. I’m cold and I’m wet all the time. I’m eating sea rations from 1945. Where the hell is the warm bed in three hot meals you said I’d have if I joined the Navy. Love, your waterlogged son.’ 

The part I dream about on a regular basis, and I’m sure it’s the same for nurses and corpsmen and medics and everybody else in that field, sitting there telling a guy he’s going to be okay when you know he’s not going to make it.

I’ve been asked many times, ‘would you do it all over again?’ I always say ‘yes, because then maybe I’d have the opportunity to save one more guy.’ It really hit home when I watched the movie Hacksaw Ridge and Desmond Doss is saying, ‘Please, God, just let me save one more. Just one more.’ That stands so true for all of us who were corpsmen.