By Honor Bound Page 18
“I rode with him in the ambulance over to the big C-141, where they took him aboard for the trip to Clark AFB. He was still awake, but just barely. I said the standard line when someone left Vietnam, ‘See you back in the world,’ and he answered, ‘See you back in the world.’ Then I went back up to Thuan-An to finish my tour. By early spring of 1973, all of us were back home, back in the world. Some of our LDNNs managed to get out before the NVA came south for good; others were left behind and made to suffer under the new communist regime.”
Through the efforts of the Navy SEAL community, a great many of the LDNNs, along with some Kit Carson Scouts and interpreters who served in combat with us, managed to leave Vietnam and come to this country. Some made it onto helicopters during the last chaotic days of the final North Vietnamese push south. Others crowded onto junks or were repatriated through Thailand. Lieutenant Thuan and Quan made it out and today are U.S. citizens. The North Vietnamese caught Deng and executed him.
“I received a call that morning from our ER [emergency room] that there was an inbound head wound,” recalled then Major Walter Grand. Grand was the only neurosurgeon in the region and stationed at the hospital at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. All massive head wounds came to him. “When he arrived, we took him directly into the OR [operating room]. At the time, general military/battlefield protocol held that the patient needed to be or should be conscious going into surgery. And I was surprised that someone with that serious of a head wound would be conscious and conversant. Fortunately he was. He was still dressed in his operational gear, which were blue jeans and a black T-shirt of some kind. As I was conducting my initial examination, I remember that he was conscious, but just barely. I could tell he’d been through a lot. Then, he seemed to become more alert and asked, ‘Sir, can you tell me about my men. I know we got all of them off the beach, but can you tell me if they’re okay.’ He called me ‘sir’ because he could see I had on my major’s oak leaves. I’d been told that he was a SEAL lieutenant. I didn’t know about his men, but I said I’m sure they’re going to be fine. And I told him, ‘Son, you’ve got a pretty bad head wound, but we’re going to get you fixed up.’ I don’t know why I called him ‘son’ at the time except that he looked so young. After all, I was thirty-two at the time and he was twenty-seven.
“I worked on him for about six hours, perhaps seven. The bullet had torn away a section of his skull from the left orbit—the eye socket, back to close to his ear. There was irreversible damage to his left eye. The brain itself had a long laceration to the frontal left lobe. Nothing could be done with his left eye but to remove the remnants of the eye and debride the left orbit. There was little else I could do but find and remove the remaining bone fragments, clean up and debride, and sanitize the surrounding tissue, and use the remaining skin and scalp tissue to cover and close the wound. It was critical to create a sterile sac and skin closure over the exposed brain to ward off infection. With this kind of wound, there was the ever-present danger of infection. Past that, his survival and recovery were chancy. It all depended on how much trauma the brain had suffered and the will of the patient. From what I’d seen, this SEAL had plenty of willpower.
“When I made my rounds the following morning, I was surprised to see him up and moving about with assistance. I asked him how he was feeling, and he sort of shrugged. His head was still bandaged up with only his right eye visible. On removing the bandage and inspecting the wound, we talked and I sensed that he didn’t know that he no longer had a left eye. I was reluctant to tell him, as he’d endured a great deal. But he was a pretty tough fellow, so I told him that we were unable to save his left eye. He thought about it a few seconds, then said, ‘Do you think they’ll kick me out of the Navy because of that?’ I said that I couldn’t really answer that, but I took it as a good sign that he still wanted to be a SEAL.”
Following his service in the Air Force, Dr. Wally Grand went on to become the director of the Brain Endoscopy Center and clinical professor of neurosurgery, pathology, and anatomical sciences at the State University of New York at the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. He has lectured widely on endoscopic neurosurgery and minimally invasive brain surgery for residents and neurosurgeons in Buffalo and throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. He is now seventy-six and still practicing.
“Mike and I invited him to a Medal of Honor dinner in New York in 2009,” Tom recalled, “and it was great to see him again after all those years. What a nice man. We got to talking about the operation, and he said, ‘You know, when you came in, we just went through the procedures. To us, you were pretty much a dead man, but you just wouldn’t die. We did what we could as best we could, but none of us thought you were going to survive.’”
Because of Tom’s condition, his parents were flown to Clark Air Force Base to see him. His condition was still critical—too critical for a transpacific flight. Yet he remained cognizant and positive, and was able to reassure his parents that he would come through this. When he did begin his journey back to the United States, it was a leapfrog odyssey from one hospital to the next. Along the way, a great many doctors wondered why he was still alive. But again, he simply refused to die.
Tom was admitted to Bethesda Naval Hospital just outside of Washington, D.C., in early 1973. From 1973 through most of 1975, he underwent a number of major surgeries, and from 1976 to 1978, a number of minor surgeries. Bethesda was close to his home in Silver Spring, Maryland, so family visited often and he could return home between operations. For a portion of that time, between 1973 and 1978, Tom lived with your narrator. He also lived for a period with Ryan McCombie. Both of us remember Tommy as the perfect house guest, always looking for projects to stay busy and to help out around the house.
Lieutenant Tom Norris was medically retired from the U.S. Navy in April 1975.
PART THREE
THE AWARD AND LIFE AFTER THE AWARD
ABOVE AND BEYOND
There is a saying among Medal of Honor recipients that it’s more difficult to wear the Medal than to earn the Medal. While the criteria for earning this highest of all military awards for heroism is steep and singular, much is expected from those who wear the Medal. Yet it all begins with heroism in combat. The action for which a recipient receives the Medal is often a life-changing event—literally. Since the beginning of World War II, 60 percent of all awards have been posthumous. That ratio between living and posthumous awards since Vietnam even more dramatically favors the posthumous. For those who do survive and are privileged to live with this distinction, theirs becomes a life before the award and a life after. Most find that it is both a heavy burden and a humbling one. In all cases, there is change. America has evolved to bestow nobility on those who achieve success in the media, political, and corporate worlds, but it confers a very special status for those who receive the Medal of Honor.
Like America and its military, the Medal has evolved in its form and the criteria for which it is awarded. Yet since 1942, it has been reserved only for those in combat action, and the requirements have been somewhat standardized. Public Law 88-77 of 25 July 1963 codified those requirements. A recipient has to “distinguish himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.” Such conduct must occur under one of the following circumstances:
1. While engaged in action against an enemy of the United States.
2. While engaged in military operations involving conflict with an opposing foreign force.
3. While serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in an armed conflict against an opposing armed force in which the United States is not a belligerent party.
Awards are usually initiated by the commander in the field, documented by at least two eyewitnesses, and passed up the chain of command in a highly regulated and formatted process as detailed by Title 10 of the U.S. Code. Recommendations for the Medal are made in compliance with specific procedures established by the service secretar
ies, and these recommendations are passed along, with supporting documentation, to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Once endorsed by the chairman, the recommendation for conferring the award is passed on to the secretary of defense.
Given the rigorous criteria for the award and the public honor afforded a recipient, there has been controversy over who does and does not qualify for the Medal. There are statutory time frames for submission and the awarding of the Medal, yet exceptions have been made to those existing parameters. Without getting into the controversy and, yes, the politics of the Medal, the criteria for the award, since the conferring of the first medal in 1863, have become increasingly more stringent. Yet who receives or does not receive the Medal is subjective. In the words of General David Petraeus, “There’s a band (gray area) there, and the difference between the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross (or the Navy Cross or Air Force Cross—the Army, Navy, and Air Force’s second highest award for valor) is sort of in the eye of the beholder on a given day. And that’s tough. But decisions do have to be made.” Which actions do or do not qualify for the Medal today are ongoing and contentious. For his actions at the bridge at Dong Ha in 1972, then Captain John Ripley received the Navy Cross. A great many Marines of the Vietnam generation feel his courage merited the Medal of Honor. This unique award, the Medal of Honor, does represent our nation’s highest notion of valor and service above self, and is the very essence of patriotic service.
As one Army recipient told me, “I wear this decoration for all those who served with me, and served with great honor and distinction. It’s not my Medal; it’s our Medal.”
* * *
The Medal itself is awarded in three service-centric designs, one for the Army, one for the Air Force, and one for the Navy, Marine Corps, and coast guard. All three are cast in a burnished brass alloy. Each medallion costs the taxpayers about thirty dollars. According to the U.S. Institute of Heraldry, the naval service medal is “a five-pointed bronze star, tipped with trefoils containing a crown of laurel and oak. In the center is Minerva, personifying the United States, standing with a left hand resting on fasces (a bundle of wooden rods that symbolize power and jurisdiction) and the right hand holding a shield blazoned with the shield from the coat of arms of the United States. She (Minerva) repulses Discord, represented by snakes. The Medal is suspended from the flukes of an anchor.” Surrounding the depiction of Minerva is a circle of thirty-eight stars representing the thirty-eight states at the time of the Civil War. The Navy medal, as with the Army and Air Force versions, is suspended by a sky-blue ribbon with thirteen stars for the thirteen colonies. For all still in uniform, the military ribbon worn with other military ribbons on the uniform of the day is a sky-blue entry with five stars. The civilian decoration is a lapel button in a modest six-sided light blue rosette with thirteen white stars.
The Medal confers a number of benefits on the recipient. One is a monthly pension that, with the recent cost-of-living increase, amounts to just under $1,300. There is a 10 percent increase in the recipient’s military retirement pay. Sons and daughters of recipients, if fully qualified, may attend a service academy without regard to quotas of the normal nomination process. Most states (forty) allow for free vehicle license registration and a special license plate that identifies them as Medal of Honor recipients. In addition to other travel, ceremonial, and burial benefits, there are those that are granted by custom, not by statute. A recipient is rendered a salute by those in uniform, even by those senior to the recipient. And then there is the reverence afforded by the public at large to our greatest heroes.
The Medal is presented by the president in the name of Congress, which is one reason the award is sometimes referred to as the Congressional Medal of Honor. The president, in a formal ceremony, presents it to the recipient or, in the case of a posthumous award, to his or her family. By convention and practice, the ceremony is accompanied by a visit to the capital with pomp and ceremony associated with the formal White House presentation. And the recipient and/or his or her family is treated to a trip to Washington and a night on the town at government expense. Yet even with the standardization of the criteria for the Medal and the statutory benefits, each award is different and each recipient is different.
MIKE THORNTON AND THE MEDAL OF HONOR
Since Mike received his Medal first, let’s look at Mike’s award. The action for which he received the Medal of Honor took place on 31 October 1972. His Medal was presented by President Richard Nixon in a White House ceremony on 15 October 1973. The citation reads:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while participating in a daring operation against enemy forces. PO (Petty Officer) Thornton, as Assistant U.S. Navy Advisor, along with a U.S. Navy lieutenant serving as Senior Advisor, accompanied a 3-man Vietnamese Navy SEAL patrol on an intelligence gathering and prisoner capture operation against an enemy-occupied naval river base. Launched from a Vietnamese Navy junk in a rubber boat, the patrol reached land and was continuing on foot toward its objective when it suddenly came under heavy fire from a numerically superior force. The patrol called in naval gunfire support and then engaged the enemy in a fierce firefight, accounting for many enemy casualties before moving back to the waterline to prevent encirclement. Upon learning that the Senior Advisor had been hit by enemy fire and was believed to be dead, PO Thornton returned through a hail of fire to the lieutenant’s last position; quickly disposed of two enemy soldiers about to overrun the position, and succeeded in removing the seriously wounded and unconscious Senior Naval Advisor to the water’s edge. He then inflated the lieutenant’s life jacket and towed him seaward for approximately two hours until picked up by support craft. By his extraordinary courage and perseverance, PO Thornton was directly responsible for saving the life of his superior officer and for the safe extraction of all patrol members, thereby upholding the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
Tom described Mike’s actions in his own words. “Mike did good work that day—courageous work. He was heroic and he saved my life. It’s a given that we don’t leave a team member behind, but it’s more than that. Mike had every reason to think that I’d been killed. He also had responsibilities for the other members of the team. Yet he risked his life to come back for me. But you know, Mike’s one heck of a fighter; he really is. If you get into a dangerous situation, which we certainly were that day, you want a guy like Mike Thornton with you. I’m only glad that I got hit instead of him, as he would have been a big man to carry off that beach. The Medal of Honor? Absolutely. Not just because I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t done what he did. His actions were in keeping with the precepts and requirements for those who receive the Medal.”
On reflecting on his actions that day—the actions for which he was awarded the Medal—Mike put it this way: “The teams are a brotherhood and our teammates are our brothers. Tommy and I both have brothers, but I think our blood brothers feel a little shortchanged because of the bond we SEALs have for each other. So when Deng got to me on the beach that day and said that Tommy was dead, I didn’t really think about it. I just told the others to wait there while I went and got him. We’re trained from day one to look after our swim buddy and our teammates. This was simply a reaction to how we were trained. I did nothing more than to look out for my teammate that day. And in the back of my mind I was thinking, ‘What if he isn’t dead? Then what?’ We’d killed a lot of NVA soldiers that day. What would they do to Tommy if he was alive and they captured him? Proud to be a recipient? Of course. Do I think I deserved it? No—I was just doing my job. Had I not done all I could for Tommy that day, how could I have lived with myself? Maybe in my heart I didn’t really believe he was dead or refused to admit it. Or maybe I had to know for sure. Either way, I couldn’t leave him behind.”
* * *
Mike’s Medal of Honor ceremony and the events surrounding it were like Mike himself: unique. In addition to his family
and a few other SEALs and their families, Mike wanted Tom to be there at the White House when he received his award.
“Mike really wanted me to attend his ceremony. Even though it was close to a year since I’d been shot, I was still undergoing treatment. At that time, I was in the Bethesda Naval Hospital. I’d been in and out of the hospital so many times and had so many procedures, I’m not sure if I was recovering from one operation or getting ready for the next one. At any rate, Mike came to see me at Bethesda. We asked the doctors if I could go and they said no. Given my condition, and even the prospects of my recovery, which was no sure thing even at that point, they said it was not a good idea for me to leave the hospital. Well, it’s bad business to tell a SEAL that he can’t do something. ‘Can’t’ is not a word in our vocabulary. So we made a plan, kind of a domestic SEAL operation.”
“Late the next night I sort of kidnapped Tommy out of the hospital,” Mike continued. “It was just another nighttime SEAL mission. My folks were up from South Carolina and staying at the Madison Hotel with my wife and kids. I checked Tommy in under a false name so there was no way they were going to find him. Once they knew he was missing, the search was on. They called his parents and then SEAL Team Two in Norfolk, and no one knew where he was. There were no cell phones back then, so we were on our own.”
“The night before the ceremony,” Tom recalled, “we had a night on the town—Mike and his wife; myself; his parents, brother, and sister; and a few friends. We headed for Georgetown and made a night of it. There was this poor Navy junior grade lieutenant assigned as Mike’s escort officer. He was supposed to drive us around to wherever we wanted to go and pay for whatever we wanted to eat and drink. And Mike was buying drinks for us and everyone around us. The lieutenant kept saying, ‘Sir, I’m not sure we’re supposed to be doing this,’ and Mike would reply, ‘Hey, it’s my night, right?’ Our escort officer, who even though he was an officer and Mike was an enlisted man had to address him as sir, said, ‘But sir, that’s a big round of drinks,’ and Mike would just laugh and order another round. Mike even ordered him to have a drink. When the lieutenant said he couldn’t, that he was on duty, Mike put a drink in front of him and said, ‘Mister, I’m in charge here, and I order you to have a drink with me.’ The only guy who didn’t have a drink that night with Mike was me. That part of the doctor’s orders I did follow. We finished the night in some upscale restaurant in Georgetown with Mike ordering expensive bottles of champagne for our table and every table around us. We spent a lot of money that night. I sure hope that young officer didn’t get into trouble for the cost of that evening. But when Mike’s on the town, he knows how to do it up big.”