Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
4:06 | After his Vietnam tour, the Army tried to send John Cahill to Fort Hamilton, where the chaplain's school is located. He wound up at Fort Dix, though, as an instructor for his last duty in the Army. Declining the chance to re-enlist, he started a career as a carpenter, which was very rewarding.
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The tough streets of Boston were where John Cahill came of age. His uncle was a paratrooper so when he enlisted in 1965, that was his chosen path. He learned there that you don't laugh at another soldier who's having a problem.
After jump school, John Cahill assumed he'd go to the 82nd or the 101st Airborne. Instead he got orders to go to Vietnam with the 7th Cavalry. It was a real shock when he got there. First, the heat was staggering. Then, the strangeness of another culture baffled him for a while but he learned to like and appreciate the Vietnamese.
He'd been to jump school but John Cahill wound up in the 7th Cavalry as part of the new focus on air mobile units which moved by helicopter. They gave him an M79 grenade launcher and a .45, neither of which which he'd ever fired in training. That didn't faze him a bit.
John Cahill was in the airlift into LZ X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley. As the battle unfolded, he took out some NVA using his grenade launcher and his .45. He saw another enemy soldier drawing a bead on him and then he saw the bullets hitting the ground until one of them found him.
John Cahill had just been wounded and was in a plane waiting on the runway. He really had to relieve himself but was unsure where he could do it. It turned out to be a little embarrassing. When he got to the hospital, he apologized to the nurses who had to cut away his filthy uniform. All in a day's work.
Having recovered from the wound he received at LZ X-Ray, John Cahill was waiting for the chopper to take him into the Battle of Bong Son. When the bird came in, he was shocked to see a door gunner dead at his weapon, shot through the head.
Just before he left Vietnam, John Cahill had a memorable demonstration of what air power can do when a Phantom came in low and leveled a hilltop. They rushed him out of the country when it was his time. He didn't even have time to say goodbye to his buddies, which really rubbed him the wrong way.
John Cahill has all the respect in the world for the Greatest Generation but he does have one bone pick with them. They sent his generation to Vietnam but they didn't allow them to really fight the war.
He was wounded at LZ X-Ray so, naturally, John Cahill bought the book, "We Were Soldiers Once...And Young." He relates how he met Hal Moore and how he began to enjoy the reunions of his unit.
