"They Shot My Finger Off!"


by Don Gourley


May 21, 1969; Quang Tin Province, South Viet Nam--the place we referred to as Tam Ky, after the city 20-30 miles away. My (2nd) platoon along with the rest of Charlie Company, 1/501st had been on a low hill, looking out over a small rice paddy at a slightly bigger hill about 100 feet away, since mid-morning. A North Vietnamese Army unit, later we decided it was a reinforced platoon of maybe 40 men, was dug in on that hill and we had been skirmishing with them all day.

We'd been in heavy contact with NVA on the 18th and again early on the morning of the 20th. It was a strange thing but on this day, we were not particularly excited by their presence on that hill and had no interest in trying to attack them. We could have pulled back and called for air strikes on the hill but for some reason--I have no idea why--we didn't. Similarly, they didn't seem to have any interest in coming after us. I think maybe we were just tired of it all on both sides and wanted to take a break. We'd see movement through the brush every so often and were content to fire a few shots, toss a grenade or on one occasion fire a LAW (Light Antitank Weapon) rocket in their general direction. They fired back on occasion, too.

It reached the point that we were getting careless; I had fired shots and thrown grenades several times with no real effect. Then I decided to fired could watch the explosion. Not smart--a few seconds later a long burst of automatic weapons fire blasted the top of the wall about two feet to my left, rock chips and dust went in all directions and all over me. That got my attention and I got serious again but this sort of game playing went on for several hours. One man from 1st platoon was slightly wounded and evacuated but otherwise they did no harm to us at that point.

We were ordered to attack the hill late in the afternoon; our battalion commander had been flying around in his helicopter and from 5000 feet decided that this hill was not heavily defended and could easily be taken by one platoon. Third platoon was to make the attack while my platoon provided covering fire but as they moved out, the opposite hillside erupted with automatic weapons fire and CPT Gibson, the company commander told me to take my platoon and attack along with Third immediately.

Most of my platoon got hit or pinned down in the rice paddy or at the base of the hill. Third platoon veered to the right and did their own thing, although a few men got mixed up with my guys and went straight at the hill with us. I found myself about one third of the way up the hill with three men from my platoon and one from Third, who was sitting just to my left. Three of us had taken cover against a stone wall, thinking the problem was to our front but in reality what we had done was over run a number of camouflaged NVA fighting positions at the base and on the lower slope of the hill. We realized what had happened when a burst of fire came from behind us, moving across the wall from left to right, killing Louis Fenceroy from my platoon who was about 15 feet away and wounding the third platoon soldier beside me.

This guy let out a yell and I looked down and saw that he had been hit in the hand and knee--his hand had been resting on his knee and one round had gotten him in two places. His index finger was lying on the ground beside his knee and he was staring at it and yelling in amazement, "They shot my finger off; they shot my fucking finger off!" The problem was that under the circumstances, the only way for him to get help was to crawl down the hill himself. No one could come get him from down below, no one near me could be spared to help him down the slope and I couldn't stay with him since I was still going up the hill with the men that were left. He was yelling about his finger in the meantime, still more in shock than pain so I decided to take a minute to try to calm him down and get him on his way.

I grabbed the finger and tossed it away then asked him why he was so upset. I told him he had a million dollar wound, would be evacuated that afternoon and would be spending that night and all future nights in a real bed. No more combat, round-eyed nurses taking care of him, good food, back to "The World" and that girlfriend of his real soon, blah-blah. I just assumed he had a girlfriend and sure enough, he did and it worked--he calmed right down and got totally engrossed in what I was telling him. He must have been in shock but it was going the right way; he kept agreeing with me and saying things like, "Yeah" and "That's right." I was all set to tell him to crawl on down the hill when he suddenly said, "Sir, did I ever show you a picture of my girlfriend?"

I didn't even know his name but I went along with it and when I said, "No, you never did!" he pulled a big photo album out of the cargo pocket of his fatigue pants and we started looking at his pictures, still pressed up against the stone wall and the world going crazy around us. I was amazed that he brought his photo album with him on a deliberate attack; everyone else just dropped their packs and grabbed extra ammunition, grenades and water but he took his pictures, too. OK, why not? What was really funny was that after showing me a couple of shots of his girl, he then showed me about 10 pictures of his car--he was clearly more excited about the car--then some shots of his parents...it was unbelieveable now that I look back on it.

Finally to get things back on track, I told him the girl, the car and the parents were all really great looking. Then I said he was crazy if he didn't marry the girl as soon as he got home. He decided that was a fine idea and said that he was going to invite me to the wedding. I said, "Well, you'd better," then pointed him down the hill and off he went--he was all fired up to get home. The finger was momentarily forgotten, the knee wound didn't hold him back and he made it out of the field, OK. I still don't know his name but I have to laugh when I think about us looking at his family photos in the middle of the worst firefight I experienced over there.

Don Gourley
Platoon Leader
C/1/501