All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
And welcome to Veterans Radio.
I am Jim Fossone with veteransradio.net.
We are recording today from the Legal Help for Veterans Studio in Northville, Michigan.
Legal Help for Veterans is a Veterans Disability Law Firm.
You can reach us at 800-693-4800.
We want to welcome to Veterans Radio today James McClellan.
Jim or Doc served in the Marine Corps, but we have him on today on Veterans Radio to talk
about the Medal of Honor.
He is a recipient of the Medal of Honor in July of 2017.
Jim, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Yeah, thank you.
That was two years ago yesterday, by the way, that I received the medal.
And two years ago today I was being inducted into the Hall of Heroes at the Pentagon.
Well it's been an amazing two years, and we're going to talk a little bit about that.
But before we get there, let's set up who you are.
Just a simple boy from South Haven and Bangor, Michigan.
Give us a little bit of your high school and college background.
Yeah, well I'll just go briefly back all the way where we didn't have electricity in my
house until I went running water until I was eight.
My dad got a shell of a house from his grandparents and it was rural Bangor.
And I went to a little one-room country school one mile down the road, walked there and back
home uphill both ways every day.
And my brothers and I packed our own lunch and that kind of thing.
And then of course when I got into junior high and went into the junior high and high
school there at Bangor, I then became very involved in music and athletics.
Like four leads and four musicals in high school and 11 varsity letters in football,
basketball, baseball and track.
Also very involved in student government and key club and those kinds of things.
So I have been busy all my life.
Was a candidate for West, not West Point, I'm wishing West Point, was a candidate for
Annapolis and was one of the top candidates in 10 states.
Until we got to the physical part where they found out I was colorblind and they do their
signals in red, green and white flags and I'm red, green colorblind.
Held me over next to day and gave me these charts.
Can you see any letters or numbers in there?
And of course all I saw was dots.
So it wasn't until two days before I graduated from high school that I found out I was not
going to be wavered on the colorblindness and that I was rejected and eliminated from.
So I worked that summer in a factory literally in a factory and thought well I'll just be
another blue collar McLuhan.
My brother had started school and he was a, my older brother's two years older than me
and he'd started school.
He was the first McLuhan to go to college.
I became the second McLuhan was a lord to a college called Olivat College south of Michigan
state.
And when we went in I saw practice and football.
I don't remember what the registrar said in an hour's time but when she got done and she
said, is there any questions?
I said yes, can I still go off the football even though they've already started practice?
And she said yes.
And the rest of the story is I earned seven varsity letters from Olivat and football wrestling.
I started wrestling the first time in my life and baseball and was very involved again in
music was in a barbershop quartet and all kinds of solos through high school and in college
of course and still do a lot of that solo work now.
So that set me up for probably the next question whatever it is about going into the Army.
Well let's put a cap on the college career in that you graduated with a bachelor's of
arts and a teaching certificate and you were, you accepted a teaching and coaching position
at the South Haven public schools and then the Army said, hey Jimbo we've got a plan
for you.
Yeah actually in May just prior to my graduation in June 4th I had signed that contract with
South Haven.
I'd be coaching two sports and teaching actually elementary PE at that particular time.
That was 1968 and I got a letter from my uncle, Uncle Sam and he said that they would like
me to take a physical and I really just thought they were trying to see who in the area was
physically fit and that's not the other thing but no they said they wanted me to send me
to a tropical zone before I started teaching.
And one of the things that's always interesting particularly for Vietnam Veteran Medics which
you became is how you ended up being an Army medic.
Tell us a little bit about that.
Yeah as a matter of fact yesterday I told you prior to the beginning on radio today that
I was at the Boy Scouts Jamboree, the world Boy South Jamboree and a question was asked
to me in my talk to some of the scouts and their leaders and there was a medical unit
there of course they're like a city with themselves and the medical unit was the Army medical
unit and some lad said hey you know how was it that you didn't have any medical background
here, why did they choose you to be a medic and this is what happened I'm sure.
Studying to be a coach of course I had a minor there in physical education and I took
kinesiology, physiology, anatomy, advanced first aid, strapping and taping so I'm sure
they thought that was a pretty good background.
Nothing can prepare you for what you're going to see as a medic in Vietnam.
I can tell you that because it was horrendous some of the things that I saw and haven't
told only to one person and that's my counselor, a Marine paraplegic and Grand Rapids.
And Jim you were assigned to a combat medic unit with Company C, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry
Regiment, 196 Light Infantry Brigade of the American Division and did your tour in Vietnam
from March of 1969 to March of 1970 and saw one hell of a battle in May 13th to 15th of
1969.
Why don't you give us the short version.
Okay we heard on March, or on May 12th in the evening there was some talk going around
that we may be sent into an area to block a hill.
Well the next day 13th at about 7 in the morning.
It didn't take us long, well 15 minutes or 20 minutes and we were getting shot at as
we came into the area.
13 helicopters and 89 men from Charlie Company.
We had had some skirmishes prior to that and more down in numbers.
And actually two helicopters got shot down during that approach to just at the base of
quite a, I'd say about 2 miles from or 3 miles from the base of the hill, Nguyen Hill where
the NVA and BC were entrenched.
And we had some injuries because we couldn't even land.
They didn't want to land the helicopters.
When you come in at a hot LV they tell you to jump out.
We jumped out from about 10 feet in the air with our full packs and our weapons and everything.
So I did have some injuries to take care of right away.
One of the helicopters was shot down, did get those crew got rescued right away, but
another one we had to have that platoon that was with them bring them in and in about half
way.
And one of the guys collapsed out there and that was my first rescue.
I ran out 100 yards, about 100 yards and slid in next to him and they're shooting at me.
Of course they're assaulting him.
I'd say there's 75 yards away from him, meaning they, the NVA.
And I asked him where he was shot or wounded and he said it wouldn't wounded.
He hurt his knee jumping out of the helicopter.
I looked at him about the size of a volleyball.
I said, well, hang on and hang on to your weapon.
You're moving up on my shoulders and I weaved on the way in and of course could literally
see the bullets skipping off the ground around us.
But my men were firing at them and keeping them so they couldn't get a really good shot.
And I got him in safely and got him out.
That was my first rescue in the 48 hours that we were going to be there.
That evening they asked my platoon to go out and search the area and I'm thinking these
people back at battalion, I must be nuts.
And they know we had two helicopters shot down and one of them couldn't even get rescued
because of the kind of firepower that the enemy had.
And I said that there must be a lot of them out there.
But sure enough, we marched out towards that hill and out there a mile, mile and a half,
I could only guess how close we were getting to the hill when we got ambushed.
I looked up on the hill when, when the ambush started and the hill, Leon Hill was about
mile away, I'm going to guess in that area.
And I looked like lava coming down off there.
So at this particular time, I realized there were lots of them.
I had a call from medic and I was at the trench line at this time, jumped up on a perm.
There were two guys over in the bush.
They had been on the front of that particular ambush and the squad that was in front.
Four guys got killed right away.
And these two guys, I headed towards, they were about 10 yards away from the edge of
the, the trench line and I heard a big explosion and felt the ping all over my body and didn't
pay much attention because the adrenaline was flowing.
I just had to get to these guys.
They didn't have any weapons.
They had left their weapons behind.
I drugged them across that berm and into that trench line.
Notice they weren't injured or wounded.
So they were kind of scared and in the bush areas up on top of the berm, turned and looked
up on the berm again and there was about five yards away.
An NVA, two NVA were there, one NVA was looking me right in the eyeballs.
He had an AK-47 and I had given up my weapon prior to going up on the berm.
So I said to the two guys that I drugged across, follow me and we started down the trench line.
It was slowing me up so I said it's going to be more dangerous out there, but I'm getting
up so I can run faster.
But again, bullets skipping off the ground.
Of course I didn't think at the time, but I just got wounded and so concentrating on.
My two machine gunners who were in the trench line when I jumped on the berm had retreated
and they were about 75 to 100 yards back and I could hear their M16s going by my head so
they were shooting at the enemy.
I got close to them and all of a sudden a voice saying medic and so I turned around and went
back towards the enemy that was slowly coming at me and in and out probably about five times
in that process and then nightfall came and they backed off.
We got wounded and a couple of dead on the helicopter.
We did get a Medevac helicopter in and the company commander looked at me and said doc,
I'm down and that's when I realized oh yeah, I did get hit out there and I looked down
and I had my blood all over my body.
I hit from head to toe with a shrapnel and I looked at him and I said I'm not going.
And he said, why?
And I said you're going to need me because I had seen how many were out there.
I could hear my father saying Jim, you never do anything halfway.
You always do it to the best of your ability and do it until a job's over and I'd rather
be dead in a rice fatty than in a hospital safe and sound and find out that one of my
men got killed because I wasn't there to do my job.
But I did think when I refused to get on the helicopter that I just spent my last day on
this good earth.
And really I think that's one of those questions I wanted to ask that you lead into which is
you know what's going on in your head Jim?
You're being told don't go back, don't go back out, stay back here, get on the helicopter,
but you refuse to evacuate and you continue to go out into the kill zone multiple more
times to extract your wounded comrades.
Is it your dad's voice that you're hearing?
Is it something else?
Is it a combination?
You know I often tell kids you can't, don't forget your roots and also make sure that
you take all of the mentoring that you can get from your parents and your relatives and
your teachers and your coaches.
I think that the credit has to be given to those who raised me and it does take a village
to raise anyone.
But yeah and the background that I had as an athlete, background I had as a Christian
and so on and so forth.
But the big thing is that yeah I think the thing that does it is you get so close to
those men that you don't want to leave them for granted.
A lot of it's going to take all of you to get some of you out.
And so yeah that was the big thing and they backed off that night by the way the enemy
made all kinds of noise out there and they had women screaming and dogs barking and we
kept them at bay.
The company commander called in our killery and we did get some help from the Air Force
and the Marines and shooting in from about, I'd say about four to six miles out of China
Sea was the Navy, excuse me, with their big guns.
So we did get some help and that kept them at bay.
But the next day it was real quiet and I knew the second day I knew that quiet was not good.
And this is May 14th, isn't it Jim?
This is May 14th.
This is the second day and I'm taking care of the minor wounded.
Of course I worked on anywhere from 40 to 50 in two days and there was another medic with
us at that particular time in the morning.
I'll get to that later on.
But anyway, I'm thinking you know what, they're just laying low and they're coming closer
to us and this could be it.
And sure enough at about four o'clock that night which was about the same time that they
told my platoon to go out the night before they said we want you guys to move, move out
towards the hill.
And their reasoning was then they won't know where you're at.
And I'm thinking they know where we're at.
A matter of fact, they're out there waiting and I couldn't believe it.
The first platoon, I was in the second platoon that went out the first night.
First platoon was asked to lead the way out and they didn't get out very far before they
were hit.
And so that night I was very busy and was hit twice more once with AK-47 while I was
sitting like a duck in the rice paddy because I couldn't move one of my wounded soldiers
who had some of his organs had been hit in the stomach.
So I had to get them back in and put pressure bandages on those and put water on those two
and then I drug him into another trench line that the French had left there.
And kind of was in trying to figure out how am I going to carry this guy.
I can't throw him up over my shoulder.
So I decided that I would cradle him and run through the.
This is one of the times I was glad I was short because all I had to do is squat as
long as I could and run as fast as I could at that particular pace.
And all of a sudden out of nowhere, a thought came over me that it had been since I was
a small boy that I told my father that I loved him in the 50s and 60s.
We were not, we didn't do that.
We didn't tell men didn't tell men that they loved each other.
I knew my dad loved me and I'm sure you knew I loved him, but it just wasn't a social thing.
And so I had a conversation with the Lord and I said, Lord, if you get me out of this
hell on earth so that I can tell my father that I love him face to face again, I'll
be the best dad, I'll be the best coach and best teacher that I can possibly be.
This incredible peace came over me.
It wasn't in my bull park anymore.
And if I was to die in that battle, that was the Lord's will.
And if not, then I had to keep my bargain and ran to my father in the airport in March
of 70 and threw my arms around him, told him I loved him and he did the same like we've
been doing that for the 24 years that I had been alive at that time.
And that was our greeting and our departure, taught my children, my grandchildren, my athletes
and even the guys that I fought with.
We tell each other we love each other.
And the rest of that night, I had another couple major wounds and then they backed off
and they were chased off the hill.
Hunter first came in and helped us out.
Marines really came in.
Of course, by that time, the Navy had blown the heck out of that hill.
So, yep, we were pulled out after 48 hours.
Well, and I want to give one more little fact and we'll move on here.
And veteran radio listeners were talking to Jim Doc McClung who received the Medal of
Honor from President Trump in May of 2017.
But on the night of May 14th, 1968.
In July.
In July of 2017.
I'm sorry, July.
I received them.
Yeah, that's right.
But going backwards to the battle on May 14th of 1968, one of the problems in any kind of
extended encounter is you run out of supplies.
And naturally, your platoons did both food ammunition and medical supplies.
You volunteered to hold a blinking light in an open area as a marker for a nighttime resupply
drop.
And this is while folks are, you know, the NVG is shooting at you, but the importance
of that mission couldn't be underestimated.
Jim, as you're raising your hand or saying, I'll go do it, as the only medic that's left,
what's going through your mind?
Well, I, I, no, nobody jumped up and I knew how important it was.
We needed more ammunition.
So I just, I just jumped up and went out there and crawled out there, so to speak, and was
in a prone position and you're firing our RPG over the top.
I mean, but their big problem was they were too close.
They were, unless they did a direct hit on me, and that would have been the end of the
world for me.
But they were also, yeah, they were shooting at that blinking light.
And the biggest thing that I thought about was while I was laying there, wait a minute,
if they hit this light down here, that ammunition is going to be heavy.
It's in crates and I'm going to be dead anyway, but we needed it that much and they never
got it in.
The pilot called back after he retreated.
He couldn't get close enough to us and said he had 27 bullet holes in his, his helicopter.
That's what we found out later on that he had 27 holes in his and nobody in his helicopter
got hit.
That's the amazing thing.
So we were down, I know when the battle was over, I was down to a half of my magazine,
which is about not anywhere from nine to 10 bullets.
We had passed it down the line.
If we got overran to save one bullet for yourself, we were not going to get captured.
And that's, that's pretty amazing when you think about that.
That's almost, it's hard to even imagine that any, any group of individuals would be in
that predicament, but that's where we were at the time.
And we were rationing and the head, head platoon, of course, what they call a CP main platoon,
they were sending their ammunition out to us because they were back there calling in,
you know, help and they didn't need their ammo.
We had them as protected as we possibly could, could make it for them.
Now, we get to the next morning, May 15th, you actually get knocked out by an RPG.
A grenade shot into the area, I guess, and, and yet continue to after that come back and
treat casualties.
Tell us how this battle comes to a conclusion and the rest of your time in Vietnam.
How this, this battle comes to a conclusion.
Yeah, on the 15th, the day of May 15th.
Well, the NBA moved off the hill.
And so we were back to, you know, really well protected too.
We got the 101st Airborne in there and the Marines are flying over the top in the Air
Force and again, the Navy is at, at the position to shoot in if we needed, but I guess got
calm and they were gone.
It was, it was going like from night to day.
It was just calm and, and I actually had not had anything to eat and drink and you can
imagine the effort that I had put to carry people and to work on other people and to,
you know, still fight.
I was one of the fighting men too.
Vietnam was first time medics carried weapons and so I had my M16 and was fighting also
and I, I kind of collapsed after we got everybody on helicopter and the next thing I woke up
in an A station and they, then they took the IVs out and I went back to my unit after they
took the IVs out.
So this battle is in May of 1969, a few months, months after you start in Vietnam, you stay
in Vietnam till March of 1970.
And then get out of the service and have an amazingly productive career as a teacher and
a coach and a husband.
Tell us a little bit about your post service activity.
Well, first of all, let me remind you that I did have a conversation with my Lord and
I told him that if he kept his end of the bargain, I would do my best and there I carried
on the theme of my father, never do anything halfway.
I was extremely grateful for having survived that, that year in Vietnam.
So you know, to be able to do what I wanted to do and loved and to be around athletes
and to be involved in education where I can prepare kids for a later in life.
And that was my goal was to prepare kids for their own Vietnam.
Their own Vietnam might be a good friend moving away or the girl that they want to marry saying
no or their house burning down or losing a job or not getting a job, whatever that is,
their parents passing away.
I wanted to prepare them for their Vietnam like I had been prepared for mine.
And so first of all, I loved what I did.
And second of all, I put as much effort into that and I was very busy.
I was busier than most people get.
Yeah, coaching three sports.
And one of those sports also I coached in the summer, of course, I coached 35 American
Legion teams in the summer.
I ran the summer recreation program, the men's and women's softball programs.
I played on a team.
I've coached 22 league teams and 13 junior wrestling programs.
So part of that was I realized now and I realized that after I retired and things started flooding
in that I had, I had become a workaholic.
So I didn't think about those things that I saw Vietnam.
They started flooding in and now I realized that I kept myself busy.
So I didn't think about those things.
And so I was fortunate enough to come right back to where they had hoped to be in this
area.
And I had my South Haven, Michigan doesn't even know the offers that I had had along
the way, but I enjoyed where I was and the kids that I was raising.
And of course, after a while, you're coaching kids of kids that you originally coach.
And then in the end, I was coaching grandkids of kids that I originally coached in the beginning.
So well, it was, as they say, it was amazing career in coaching.
And a testament to that is that you've been inducted into the Michigan High School Baseball
Coaches Association Hall of Fame and the Michigan High School Coaches Hall of Fame and the Michigan
High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame, you know, honors delivered by your
peers to the work, really a body of work over decades.
And let me turn that concept over.
In June, sir, I was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
That was another humbling experience for me, too.
And it's interesting to say, well, I got myself extra busy, so I didn't have to think about
some of the some of the things I had to see and do in Vietnam.
And I think a lot of people find that keeping active keeps some of those demons away.
But also, it's great to be recognized by your peers.
And I guess that's I want to use this as the transition to talk a little bit about that
portion of the Medal of Honor that only a recipient knows about.
And Jim, we talked about this a little earlier.
It's a whole process for the Medal of Honor to be awarded.
Can you talk a little bit about that, that back end piece?
We all see the press coverage on the day it happens.
But there are years in front of that.
Tell us a little bit about that.
Well, four months after the battle, my lieutenant, my platoon lieutenant came to me and said,
Jeff, doc, he said to me, he says, I put you in for the Distainment Service Cross.
And they told me you were nothing but a PFC and they don't get that.
Who told him that?
I do not know.
And I don't care.
And I looked at him and I said, and he said, they told me put you in for the Bronze Star,
which he did.
And it went right through with me for Valor.
I looked at him and said, sir, I'm not here to get any medals.
And I just want to get home and be a teacher, coach, and a dad.
And then in 2009, he went back over to Distinguished Service Cross, took him six years and four
months to get it from the Human Relations Committee into the Army Board of Decorations
and Awards, which is where it has to be to really start.
So it really took him six years and four months doing a stack of assignments, paperwork about
10 foot or 10 foot.
Yeah, it seemed like 10 foot, 10 inches tall.
And nine of my men had contacted him and written eyewitness letters, notarized eyewitness letters.
So it had finally gotten into the Army Board of Decorations and Awards.
That's in 2015.
Remember he started in 2009.
And 2016, exactly a year later, August 2016, the Lieutenant and I had heard nothing for
a year.
And so we did inquire Debbie Stabenow's office because she was now the person that was my
representative.
And they called back the next day on August 13, 2016 to tell us that it was now at the
Pentagon.
I get a call October from Debbie Stabenow.
And I had declined her call because I didn't recognize the phone number.
And so she left a message and the message went like this, hi Jim.
This is Debbie Stabenow.
This is October of 2016.
She said, Debbie Stabenow, Senator Debbie Stabenow, and you know, we've been trying
to get you recognized for your heroism in Vietnam.
And the good news is it came across the desk of our Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter.
And he looked at the material the Lieutenant had handed in and he read the nine eyewitness
letters.
And you couldn't give me a medal high enough to replace those letters.
They said I did my job.
And he said the distinguished service cross was not high enough.
So the Secretary of Defense had recommended me for the congressional medal of honor.
We weren't still out of the woods, she said, because that has to be given within five years
of the action and it had been 47 years at that particular time.
So Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters combined to write a bill that had to be passed in the
House.
And Representative Upton got it passed in the House and then on December the 8th it was
passed in the Senate, 92 to 7.
And Obama signed it on the 23rd of December 2016.
The Secretary of the Army has to sign it too.
And he signed it on 27th and it wasn't until five months later then that my wife and I
received a call at home from President Trump, who had taken over a course in January to
tell us that he was going to award it.
But we had to be quiet until they found the date and they did find the date.
Two weeks later they called it, called me, actually it was Colonel Walters out of the
Pentagon and she said Jim in five minutes.
It was five minutes to allow and she said five minutes to the United States of America
and the world will know that James C. McClellan is going to receive the congressional medal
of honor on the 31st of July.
So I thanked her and I hung up and called my wife and I said, now watch the news I'm
about to tee off.
And she said they tweeted it at first and then all of the new stations picked it up.
And two guys that I was coughing with that day, I had coached with for 40 years and they
got to hear for the first time, they were surprised because I had never talked about
this of course, and they got to hear for the first time that I was, they thought I was
spoofing them at first, but they heard that on that day that I was going to receive the
medal of honor and they were both at the ceremony by the way.
My son was called, my son's a Lieutenant Detective with the Michigan State Police, his name is
James Bradley McClellan and he spent 25 years with him up to this point and though two years
ago he got a call in the evening of the day that I had received the medal and it was one
of his colleagues and his colleague said, Jamie, I saw your father get the medal of honor from
President Trump today said, when did you first hear this story?
And Jamie said today, the same time you did.
Well as you said, you don't, this, your action in Vietnam was not to receive any medal or
recognition.
You know, it was to take care of the men.
Yeah.
Well, when you, you know, when you, when you're drafted and I was a patriotic lad and of
course I didn't volunteer to go in, but I didn't run after they drafted me.
Your first mission is to serve your country and, you know, make your family proud that
you served as an American.
But once you get there, sir, it's just about how many of us together as brothers and fighting
brothers in arms, fighting men that we could get out of there alive ourselves, you know,
we're concentrating on survival.
I'm very proud to be a Vietnam veteran.
We did win the war.
That's another story that I can back up.
Professor Pike, who's a student of Vietnam, researcher of Vietnam, where he died in 2006
and he said, we did not lose a major battle of any consequence.
And it was a defeat for the NBA and the VC in 1973 when the Americans moved out.
The NBA had been defeated.
Many, many, many more killed than we did, than we had killed.
And, and, and of course people will argue that it's the truth.
The men of Vietnam, the fighting men of Vietnam could be proud that they kept communism out
of all the countries from Singapore down to the Philippines because they didn't want to
mess anymore with the United States fighting man.
They did not attack those countries.
Amen.
We're talking to Jim McLuhan, a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his action in Vietnam.
Jim, let me back up though.
I want you to give talk a little bit about the lieutenant that you served under who initially
put you in for the Distinguished Service Cross and then ultimately, you know, 40 some years
later said, this still doesn't sit right with me and spent six years working on this.
Yeah, he said in his letter that he wrote, I didn't know this, but he got the silver
star.
He got the silver star and Lieutenant Clark did not shoot one bullet in that hole.
You know, he was with the CP and doing what it was he had to do.
And he said, you know, those guys out front that were keeping us protected and keeping
the enemy from overrunning us should have got the silver star.
And he had pretty much put, he put the war behind and I'm extremely grateful to him for
wanting to do this and then sticking in there that long and telling him they made him do
one particular thing and that was the chain of command, a DD 638 where he has to get the
endorsement of everybody up the chain and he has to send that to everyone personally.
So it was going back and forth, you know, back to him and then to the battalion back
to him to the brigade back to him.
It took him four years to get that whole particular thing done.
They made him do it three times.
And yeah, for him to stick in there and for my men to not forget what we had done together
and you know, Hatton, one of the machine gunners tried to tackle me twice the first day.
He was afraid I'd get killed going back into the kill zone and I wouldn't be around for
him, you know, to be saved by myself.
So they were very protective of me.
And by the way, something that a lot of people may not know, Daniel Shea was the only other
medic to last in the second day and he was killed going out about his fourth time and
I actually brought his body back in.
And he received the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously as mother received it
in 1970 from Nixon.
So two medics, this is unprecedented as far as I know, I've tried to find any other situation
in which this occurred.
Two medics, same battle, same company received the Congressional Medal of Honor.
That's how brutal that battle was.
It certainly puts things in context and it's, again, I want to acknowledge the stick-toupness
of Lieutenant Clark to make sure that this injustice which happened right afterwards
got corrected even though it took 47 years or so to get it corrected.
If he didn't do that, we wouldn't be talking, right?
That's how this works.
Absolutely, we wouldn't be talking and I would still be, after 48 years I had the Bronze
Star and it would be 50 years now that I'd have the Bronze Star and not the Medal of
Honor.
And to put other things into perspective, sir, the two most important moments during
the two days that I was receiving recognition, the two favorite moments for me was when one
of my machine gunners finally got his purple heart 48 years later and it was pinned on
him in front of his three daughters by a four-star general.
They finally righted that and then when my men were asked to stand, 10 of those men from
my company were there in the ceremony, five of them I had saved in the battle and they
were asked to stand and they finally got to recognition.
One of those men's wife told a friend of mine who sat next to her, she was in tears and
he asked it what was wrong and put his arm around and she said 50 years ago or 48 years
ago my husband tried to tell some of his friends about this battle and they told him he was
full of shit.
She said today, they know he wasn't full of shit, that he really had experienced something
that is unbelievable and you wouldn't believe it if you told a common person that they wouldn't
believe it.
It was that horrendous.
Yeah, absolutely and it also fixes some of the injustices that our Vietnam veterans had
to go through of shame and of being involved in the war and how America treated its returning
Vietnam vets.
So you can feel her pain.
Her pain.
Exactly, exactly Jim.
Yeah, her pain.
I want to bring one more aspect to this and we've run longer than we said we were going
to but you knew I was going to do that anyway and I want to talk about what I've referred
to as the responsibility of being a Medal of Honor recipient.
As you reflect back now over a couple of years, can you talk to us about how you view and
have internalized that responsibility?
Yeah, well there's only 710 live in the United States of America that really puts a lot of
responsibility on the 7171 but there's only about 30 of us that really do go out and go
to all these different places to speak and to be recognized sometimes and kind of be highlighted
so to speak and it is a very heavy response.
I was home four days in March and on those four days I did my laundry and repack to go
to the next event.
I just got back yesterday.
I was in West Virginia yesterday to get home for this interview today but I did get 18
to this morning, 18-year-old golfing but you see I will go to three or four more major
events.
Next week I'll be in Kentucky for a golfing put together by Woody Williams who uses the
money to put together Gold Star family monuments and then I'll be going to Alaska and from
Alaska down to California and then finally back home to be able to go over to Chicago
to the 196 by annual convention where I'm a keynote speaker then back home down to Indian
apolis, Indiana where I'll be the keynote speaker at the National American Legion convention
and then I still have one more thing I don't know exactly what the oh we're going to get
together as many of us as we can because this is the 50th reunion of the battle of the 1969
battle.
We're going to try to get together here in South Haven and just spend some time together
and have a wonderful time as brothers.
But it's more than just an active schedule.
As a Medal of Honor recipient you really become the embodiment of military valor that
not only other veterans but civilians and kids.
Talk to us about how you received out there.
Yeah that is tough for us because we just considered we did our duty and my wife has
pointed out you know every once in a while that Jim you need to recognize that you really
are a hero or what you did was heroic and that there's young people out there and other
people that need to know that there are those kinds of people in this world.
And we have what's called the congressional Medal of Honor character development program
that goes at the elementary, middle school and high school level.
And so we train teachers can be trained free they get a scholarship to be trained then
the material is all free.
So what we really want to do yeah your responsibility is to make these children understand and everybody
else that don't quite understand yet that freedom isn't free.
And I often use those that didn't make it home as the example.
They really gave up two lives.
They gave up the life that they were living when they were killed in action and then they
gave us a life they never got to live.
They never got to meet their soulmate, marry her and see the birth of a child and maybe
coach that child and be at that child's graduation and maybe walk that baby girl that was a baby
at one time and now she's a grown woman walk her down the aisle and have that father's
daughter dance at the ceremony afterwards and every holiday, every anniversary and every
family gathering they gave that up.
So they gave up two lives.
I want people to realize that those 18, 19 and 20 year old men the flip side of my job
is not saving but watching men say their last words and watching them take their last breath.
They gave up two lives so that we can have the one that we're living now.
That's the responsibility that we feel and we know who the real heroes are.
Those men are the real heroes.
And though we will always recognize them as the men that gave up something we didn't have
to give up and we survived.
Well, I think these stories and talking with Medal of Honor recipients helps us realize
as you mentioned sort of heroic actions by those who lost their life on the battlefield
as well as those of you who have been awarded this honor.
And in a world that is so flaky and Twitter and Facebook and social media and movies,
I think it's easy for kids in particular maybe to lose sight of what real values are, what
real heroism is as compared to what it looks like on a graphic game screen on your computer.
So I think the work that you and the 30 active Medal of Honor recipients are doing is really
important and we're glad that you had some time to share it with Veterans Radio today,
Jim.
Yeah, and of course all Veterans who have been out there fighting for freedom, the war
does not lead them when they come home.
So once we've had that experience, it becomes a part of the rest of our lives.
And we need to reach out to those 22 that are dying each day of suicide because they
are having problems internally and psychologically with what they were kind of forced into at
times to fight for freedom.
Well we want to thank Jim McLuhan, Army Veteran Medal of Honor recipient for taking some time
out of his busy schedule to talk to Veterans Radio today about his experiences.
We're glad you got 18 holes in today, Jim, in that you played pretty well.
And thanks for doing this.
Well I'd like to thank you.
I'd like to thank you and all of those radio stations out there, but thank you personally
for what you do, Jim, because this is another avenue of helping those that can't go to the
events that we're at or they don't get to hear from those who have been right out there.
You're taking these across the air to people that may not have the opportunity to be educated
by us.
Well, we're glad to bring this to this wider audience, Jim, and thank you again for being
on Veterans Radio today.
God bless you, Jim.
And I want to thank everybody for listening to Veterans Radio today.
I am Jim Fawcone.
It's been a pleasure to be your host.
I'm a Veterans Disability lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans, and you can reach us at
800-6934800 or legalhelpforveterans.com on the web.
You can follow Veterans Radio on Facebook and listen to its podcasts and internet radio
shows by going to veteransradio.net.
And until next time, you are dismissed.
If you have a VA claim denied by the Board of Veterans Appeals, contact Legal Help for
Veterans at 1-800-6934800.
They're experts in handling cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.
Their number again, 1-800-6934800.
Veterans Radio needs you.
If you like our shows that are informative, surprising stories, and relevant information
on what's happening at the VA and the military, we'd like your support, individual support
of $5 to $50 a month, or corporate sponsorship of $1,000 to $10,000, would be welcomed.
You can go to veteransradio.net, click on the Sponsorship or Support tab, pay online,
and keep Veterans Radio on the air.