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LTG (Ret) Quinn Becker

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His second assignment in Vietnam was the command of a medical battalion for the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile.) Quinn Becker was an orthopedic surgeon but his main job there was to manage the fleet of Medevac helicopters and their crews. Their ships had a feature that other units did not have, machine guns. (4:46)

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Quinn Becker was the medical battalion commander but he was also a surgeon. He describes a heart wrenching experience in the operating room regarding a man he had sent to the field earlier in the day. A lot of the injuries treated there in Vietnam were caused by booby traps and there were also a lot of gunshot wounds through extremities. (5:34)

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Quinn Becker describes the primitive sterilization units he used in Vietnam at an Army hospital. Smokey Joes, they called them. It was a demanding environment for medical personnel who were tasked with quickly getting casualties off the battlefield and into care and treatment. (4:38)

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He felt like a whipped dog when he returned from Vietnam. Quinn Becker couldn't wear his uniform and he practically had to sneak in at night. The next assignment for the Army surgeon was at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii where he met a most remarkable young man who was severely wounded. (6:09)

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Army surgeon Quinn Becker almost retired but he was selected to attend the War College. That usually meant they were grooming you for higher up. As he moved up to higher commands, he set out to modernize antiquated field medical equipment, a need he had first noticed years before. (6:12)

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A lot of good people fought and died in Vietnam and we have to take care of our veterans who served there. That's the message from LTG (Ret) Quinn Becker, who saved some of them as a surgeon. He recommends you read the book A Different Face Of War written by another Medical Services officer who was an advisor there. (2:51)

LTG (Ret) Robert T. Clark

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Bob Clark was a third generation soldier. His father served for thirty one years and was highly decorated, so soldiering was in the younger Clark's blood as he went off to ROTC at Texas Tech. It was a fairly conservative campus, but the war in Vietnam was inflaming opinions everywhere. He knew he would be going there as soon as he received his commission. (4:43)

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He got married shortly before he went to Vietnam and once he got there, Bob Clark had very few options for communication back home. The new lieutenant wrote letters, of course, and there was a system in the rear which allowed you to make phone calls over short wave radio, but he was almost always in the bush. (3:47)

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When he got to Vietnam, newly minted lieutenant Bob Clark was assigned to the 8th Cavalry which was heavily involved in the new air assault concept. He was fortunate to have good NCO's in his platoon and to have a company commander who imparted some advice that stuck with him for the rest of his career. (5:14)

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Bob Clark's first contact with the enemy in Vietnam was memorable. His platoon found a bunker complex they'd been looking for and soon a firefight began. When it was over, a search for intel in the pockets of the dead revealed a photograph of the family of an NVA soldier. That provoked a little soul searching. (4:33)