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thedrifter
03-31-05, 06:38 AM
Two Vietnam veterans, friends reunite after more than 30 years


Darrell Laurant / Lynchburg News & Advance
March 31, 2005

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There is something about getting shot at together that tends to solidify a friendship.
Thus, even though it had been more than 30 years since Ken Coleman and Jerry Bumgarner had spoken to each other, the years fell away immediately when Bumgarner picked up his phone in Lynchburg one day earlier this month and heard the voice of his fellow Vietnam medic.
“I told him who I was,” said Coleman, who lives in Hobart, Ind., “and he said, ‘Kenneth Roger Coleman?’ And I said yeah, and he said: ‘Buzzy!’ And I knew it was him, because he’s the only person who ever called me that.”
In fact, Bumgarner shared the longest night of Coleman’s life in the spring of 1969, after Coleman had been hit in the face and legs by shrapnel from a rocket-powered grenade in the Ashau Valley.
“We were up on top of a hill, trying to get him and a bunch of other wounded guys medivacked out,” recalled Bumgarner on Wednesday morning at the Marine Corps League on Lakeside Drive, “but it was so foggy that the choppers couldn’t land. So we had to wait for morning, just talking to them and trying to keep them from going into shock.”
That night taught Bumgarner, a former emergency room technician, about the unpredictability of death in the field.
“This one guy, a tough Italian kid, had a sucking chest wound, real bad, but he was determined he was going to make it out of there, and he lived.
Another guy was hit in the legs, and was pretty much stabilized, but he kept saying, ‘I’m not going to make it. The helicopters aren’t going to come.’ And he slipped into shock and died.”
More than anyone else, though, Bumgarner talked to the badly injured Coleman, because the two shared a special bond. Both Ohioans (Coleman from the Cleveland area, Bumgarner from near Columbus), they had gone through basic training together, were shipped to Vietnam together and wound up in the 1st Batallion of the Ninth Marines. And both appreciated a common irony - they had enlisted in the Navy as an alternative to dangerous “grunt” duty in the jungles of Vietnam, then wound up there anyway.
“The (Navy) recruiter asked me to list four choices,” Coleman said, “so I told him I wanted the Seabees as a first choice, followed by
machinist’s mate and aviation. He said, ‘You have to have a fourth choice,’ and I said I couldn’t think of anything, so he said, ‘I’ll just put down ‘medic,’ even though it won’t mean anything.’”
Apparently, it did - Coleman wound up lugging a rifle, ammunition and medical supplies through South Asian jungles in temperatures upwards of 115 degrees, treating infantry Marines not only for bullet and shrapnel wounds, but also heatstroke, leech infestation and even snakebites.
Bumgarner did have some medical training before he entered the service, but had no advance plans for the Achau Valley.
“I told them I was allergic to lead,” he quipped. “They didn’t listen.”
Just a few days after Coleman was wounded, another rocket-propelled grenade killed the man standing next to Bumgarner and left the medic bleeding profusely from myriad facial wounds.
“I fell into a foxhole on top of this Marine who was still firing his weapon,” Bumgarner said. “I asked him, ‘Do I still have a face?’ He said, ‘Doc, I’m a little busy right now.’ Then I asked him again, ‘Do I still have a face?’ He looked over at me and said, ‘Yup, you’re just as ugly as ever.’
“It was a big relief. I did have to have my eyelid sewn back on, though, and a piece of shrapnel perforated one of my eardrums.”
Bumgharner and Coleman went home on the same troop ship (“Handing out Dramamine like candy to lots of seasick Marines,” Coleman said), “and wound up serving together at the Great Lakes Naval Station hospital. Although they traveled with and treated the Marines while “in-country,” they were actually Navy men.
“It was wild,” Coleman said. “I walked into Jerry’s house, and he had it done up in a nautical sort of style. And my house is the same way.”
Coleman was also Bumgarner’s best man, the latter said, “at my first wedding.” But then both moved a few times, and they lost track of each other. Finally, Coleman stumbled upon the “1/9” Web site serving veterans of the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines - run by someone nicknamed “Stubbs,” for obvious reasons.
“When I heard about the site, I signed on and asked about a number of guys, including Jerry, and Stubbs gave me Jerry’s e-mail and phone number. The e-mail bounced back, and the phone had been disconnected. But Stubbs found out he’d transposed the last two numbers.”
Before long, he was loading his car with his boxer dog and hundreds of slides of photos taken in Vietnam and heading south.
“It was great seeing him again,” said Bumgarner, who came to Lynchburg 14 years ago to work for Southern Air. “I’m sure I’ll be going up there, too.”
Like Bumgarner, Coleman spent his post-war working life fixing machines instead of people. But both said they had used their corpsmen knowledge on several occasions when they came upon highway wrecks.
“And I stitched myself up a couple of times,” Coleman added.
On Tuesday, the two friends drove to Blacksburg to visit retired Col. Wesley Fox, their commanding officer from Vietnam and a Medal of Honor winner. On another night, they sat in Bumgarner’s living room and watched Coleman’s slide show.
“There was one that was just beautiful,” said Bumgarner. “It showed the sun setting over Quang Tri, a gorgeous sunset, with barbed wire in the background.”
Obviously, you had to have been there.

Ellie

Gy7ras
04-22-05, 04:46 PM
Great Story!

I found the squad leader I replaced in Nam 30 years later (L/Cpl Rodney Sharp) I was a Corporal back then. We both live in the same state! I live in Sallisaw, Oklahoma and he lives in Yukon, Oklahoma! We were both with Delta Company 7th Marines 1st MarDiv. out of LZ Baldy 69-70-71.

Gy7ras ( GySgt. Roger A. Sanchez Sr. Ret.)