Combat Story: Vietnam Soldier Rescues Unit Under Heavy Enemy Fire

ByKris Osborn– Warrior Maven

More than 40-years after being shot by enemy fighters north of Saigon in 1969, Vietnam veteran Gary Vickers delivered a personal letter to his fallen comrades at the memorial wall in Washington, D.C.

Vickers was shot in the hip while seeking to reinforce fellow soldiers who were outnumbered and under heavy gunfire and mortar attacks from North Vietnamese fighters in Tay Ninh Provence.

Eight soldiers from Vickers’ infantry unit had gotten pinned down on a trail ahead of where he was moving.

Editors Note: This story first appeared in 2015 and is being republished due to reader interest.

“They were reinforced and ready to fight. The point man was shot real bad and had taken shrapnel. He was down on the trail. We circled up behind them. A sergeant was on the phone trying to communicate with us, but he had been hit also,” Vickers recalled to Warrior Maven, citing detail from an attack more than 45 years ago as though it were yesterday.

The pinned down soldiers were overwhelmed by a very heavy attack, he remembered.

“We had not been able to get any artillery on them. They had hit these guys with mortar rounds and some heavy arms fire and some small arms fire,” he said.