Dan’s Papers March 16, 2012 danshamptons.com Page 23
John Behan Reflects on War in Vietnam By Robert Sforza Christmas Eve 1965, 18 miles south of Da Nang, Corporal John Behan, a Montauk resident, sets foot on the far away country Vietnam. Most Americans are gathering with their families for the Christmas ham and celebrating a year’s passing with company. But in the distant land of Vietnam, it is all war. The jungle holds both curiosity and fear in its depths, the most frightful of which is man. “I was a little depressed,” reflects Behan on when he first arrived in Vietnam. “I came by ship and walked off with a sea bag with no pistol.” It would be five days until Behan would be assigned a rifle. “They led me to a mud hole,” where they had previously stacked several rifles in the soft, damp dirt, “wet, rusty, muddy” describes Behan, “what is this?” he asks, to which the solider succinctly replied, “came from the guys who didn’t make it.” Several days passed before Behan had the rifle operable, he did such a thorough job he had to rub it with “shoe polish so it wouldn’t shine like a mirror.” His life before and after Vietnam is quite different, and Behan was recently reunited with fellow Marine Tom Morrison, who saved his life almost 45 years ago. Before being shipped to Da Nang, Behan was living a Hemingway-esque life. He traveled the Mediterranean countries before moving onto the Caribbean. But fighting would reach its height in Vietnam during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, and Behan, like any good solider, heeded the call. It is now May 23, 1966 and the 9th Marine Corp is in trouble. Behan, previously with the first Marine Corp, joins the endangered platoon. “It was a strange day for me” he recalls of that fateful day. Behan and his squad of about 14 troops had the objective to defend Hill 55, “We didn’t know the trouble they were in but in a day we knew.” He describes the hill as a big hump in the rice patties, “the first big fire fight.” The unit then went out on patrol, where they came to a large river they had to cross. “We had to cross with all our gear, the river was deep—over our heads.” They had to swim to cross. Behan, being a strong swimmer, helped four of his comrades cross, to where they came to a village. “There was a little old lady, I tried to stop her to talk to her…I followed her until she turned around and started shooting,” recalls Behan, “not an old lady but V.C. (Viet Cong)” Not the last time Behan would have shots fired at him. “I was very eager to get even” just like any young solider after such hell, “seeing my guys get killed, wounded, mangled” remembers Behan. The fighting broke out in the grass and Behan spotted some prey, two V.C.s, but they took off running, leading him to a dreadful place. “I remember a bamboo fence, they must have knew the secret path, and then the bomb went off. I hit the ground, started crawling on my belly and then stopped because I thought another bomb might go off.” Behan never passed out or lost consciousness, but his ears were racked as if by an explosion of steam whistles. “I had no idea of what might physically have happened to me,” all that settled upon his ear drum was a solider yelling, “I don’t know we need a chopper Corporal
Behan lost both his legs.” And that’s when he met Morrison. Tommy Morrison was on that helicopter. “We got a little friendly,” Behan says lightheartedly. Behan, loaded on morphine, kept thinking of his mother and how she would handle the news, but Morrison kept poking him and lifting his chin. “But if Tom hadn’t come, I wouldn’t have lived.” Before he knew it, he was back in Da Nang. Behan was flown to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. There he was reunited with his family . He remembers his mother coming in, “she looked dirty and tired— looked like she came by horse.” Behan jokingly told her, “You look worse than I do.” Behan
continued, “So we both laughed and cried. That’s what kept me alive.” Behan would spend the next 10 months or so in a naval hospital in Philadelphia. Behan retired from the military, honorably discharged, on March 1, 1967. He finally went home. “I didn’t want to come home like a cripple…depressing, but mom’s cooking helped,” Behan chuckled. Walking remained a difficulty as Behan had to assimilate to his new legs. One morning he awoke in a puddle of blood, he immediately went to the Veterans Administration Hospital in Brooklyn. After a month’s stay there, Behan finally returned home for good. (continued on page 30)
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