My Lives As A Medic
Subtitle: A Soldier's  Journal In Vietnam
Publisher: Michael T. Gruchalla (self published)
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Fargo, ND
Language: eng
Number of pages: 92
First sentence: As you will see, I am not a writer.
Description: Review of "My Lives As A Medic:A Soldier's Journal In Vietnam" by Michael T. Gruchalla Review written By Bernie Weisz, Vietnam Historian, Pembroke Pines, Fl.  e mail:BernWei1@aol.com    This book can be bought directly from the author at the following address:
Michael T. Gruchalla Box 5321 Fargo, ND 58105-5321   $10.00


Was he too dumb to die? That was "the joke" about this hard headed "Pollock". Despite being shot on 3 different occasions, crashing in 4 separate helicopter accidents, and being run over by a tank, the joke was that Vietnam Medic Michael T. Gruchalla was too dumb to die! In hearing that, Gruchalla's response was: "At least I'm still here making everybody's life miserable". 

This is another obscure, hard to find Vietnam War memoir. The book is only available in softcover, with no index, no page numbers, and no footnotes nor bibliography. Is this a story, with so many near lethal incidents occurring in a 1 year tour "made up"? With so many memoirs out about Vietnam, sometimes it's hard to pick out which stories are the products of over active imaginations, with hopes of big buck movie contracts.  Although as I will point out later in this review that some of Gruchalla's dates are off, it does appear that this is a true catharsis, written more so to not take an amazing story to Gruchalla's grave than anything else! 

In his forward, Gruchalla openly admits he's neither a writer nor historian. Although embarrassed, he even concedes, due to dyslexia, that he was illiterate until age 16, and that his story was preceded by 24 years of silence.There are many other Vietnam combat medic memoirs, but absolutely none with such candor as this! Gruchalla simply states that the main purpose of this book is to show the American public what the Viet Nam Veteran went through, and are still to this day going through. Gruchalla explains his mission as follows. By writing this, the American public will: "Have a better understanding as to why we suddenly get quiet, want to be left alone, get angry or get a sudden urge to get away. And once in a while someone may become violent. There are 2 million of us that served in Viet Nam. Most of us are doing our best to live productive lives. We have families, friends and good jobs. Your neighbor may be a Viet Nam Vet and you don't even know it". 

To defend the veracity of his amazing story, Gruchalla maintains: "This is my story. It doesn't contain many names. I don't remember many. I didn't want to get to know who anyone was when I was in Vietnam; I didn't want to get attached. The names that I do remember, I for the most part left out on purpose. I didn't want to embarrass or intimidate anyone by using their names. Some of the events I've written about will never be acknowledged by the military. They will say they didn't happen. But they did happen. I was there! Maybe your dad, uncle or brother was too. Ask"! 
Gruchalla starts off his memoir in July, 1969. He went one year to college, and with poor grades took a student deferment to save for another year of school. While working for the Northern Pacific Railroad, Gruchalla finds out that his brother, Dick, had gone A.W.O.L. from basic training. Getting his draft notice in September, and not wanting to go to jail, Canada, or for his brother to serve in S.E. Asia, he enlists in the Army. Since he had worked earlier in his life as a hospital orderly, he tells the recruiter that he wants to be a medic, and gets exactly that as his M.O.S. Before leaving to Vietnam, Gruchalla asks his girlfriend to marry him, but to wait until he returns from Vietnam. Although she says yes and promises to write every day, this later has dire consequences on Gruchalla, as the "Dear John" letter phenomena can give a grunt out in the bush a death wish!  The story rapidly picks up from here, with little let up in the action. 

Boarding "Flying Tiger Airlines 707" from Oakland, Ca. to Tan San Nhut Airport in Saigon, Gruchalla and fellow "newbies" have to run off the plane and find defensive bunkers as the plane is being mortared by the Viet Cong upon landing!  Although Gruchalla continually maintains that he volunteered for Vietnam so his brother wouldn't have to go there, he expresses his thoughts as such after arriving: "Will I make it home? Will I be sent home in a box? What kind of unit will I get assigned to? Will the guys in my unit show me the ropes, or will they let me get my butt shot off? The Second Tour After arriving in his final destination in I Corps, Pleiku, Vietnam becomes more confusing. All his luggage is lost, and he is treated as a "F.N.G". He witnesses sweating like in a sauna, salt and malaria pills, feces burning, inedible c-rations and jungle training. Before his first patrol, he is given this final admonishment about the enemy, "Victor Charlie": You got to take him out before he gets you, or else we have to send you home in a box, if there is enough of you left". Combat Corpsman 

On his 10th day in Vietnam, while getting instruction on handling M-16's, M-60's, L.A.W.'s and .45's out in a jungle clearing, a sniper shoots and Gruchalla is hit in the right armpit. Although a flesh wound, he muses: "I've been in Vietnam for 10 days, don't have a unit yet, and I've been shot. I don't think I'm going to make it out of Nam alive". However, he does get his assignment, which was as a medic to the 4th Medical Battalion, Company A, and immediately notices the "F.N.G. Syndrome". He quips, when most guys shy away from introducing themselves the following: " They say they don't want to know who I am. They say people over here have a tendency to die, so the less they know, the better". He is initially assigned as an "Orthopedic Assistant", then a guard for the mess hall. He laments, "Who would steal this food anyway". Disregarding the advice of "never volunteer for anything", he does just that and goes out on a 12 truck convoy hauling ammunition and gas to 3 Fire Bases. Drawing fire, he learns that he qualifies for the "Combat Medical Badge" (an award among others he says he earned but due to "lost paper work" was never awarded). His cavalier attitude is reflected by this comment: "I've been in Nam for a month and I think Charlie has my number. I tell Top that I'll go on more of these if no one else wants to go, in fact, I'll go anywhere that they need a medic". 

In March, 1970, Gruchalla volunteers to go on his first dust off "Med Evac" mission and this is where this memoir takes a surreal sense. Gruchalla's Huey lands to pick up 6 dead G.I's, and as his chopper is about to lift off, "Charlie" shoots his bird out of the sky with multiple rounds in the tail rotor. Eventually, another chopper takes Gruchalla and his load of corpses back to the base mortuary. Then, just 13 days later, while flying on another Huey doing a "strafing run", his chopper is hit by enemy fire again and shot out of the sky. The door gunner is cut in half and killed, but Gruchalla jumps out of the downed bird unscathed. He goes to join the fire fight and right next to him a G.I. is shot 3 times in the chest by an AK-47. Injecting the the mortally wounded grunt with morphine, Gruchalla applies dressings to a sucking chest wound. Gruchalla writes that the G.I. in his death throes says: " Don't let me die. I don't want to die. I tell him he's not going to die. He calls me by someone else's name. I answer, he mumbles something, his eyes roll back in his head and goes limp. I never had anyone die on me before. Not a nice feeling".  Showing the sham of K.I.A. ratio's and the false reading of "enemy attrition", because 12 enemy bodies are found near Gruchalla, he is given credit for 4 enemy K.I.A.'s. 

For the sake of this review's brevity, you will have to find this book to read all the amazing stories of Gruchalla's exploits on becoming a "Tunnel Rat" , fighting the enemy in desperate hand to hand combat, witnessing B-52 air strikes, napalm strafing's, being wounded twice more and almost meeting his maker in more chopper crashes. However, the high point of this book is right after he gets a "Dear John" letter from his girlfriend, Sue. After not hearing from her for months, Sue writes Gruchalla that she met another man, fell in love with him and is getting married. His reaction? He writes: "I kind of feel like I'm not going to get out of here alive and I don't care". Adopting a "Kamikaze Attitude", Gruchalla continually volunteers and actively seeks out the most dangerous missions and assignments available. 

In July, 1970, after recovering from being shot in the kneecap, Gruchalla volunteers as a substitute medic in a remote firebase called "Dak Seang". Assault on Dak Pek: A Special Forces A-Team in Combat, 1970 After reading how Gruchalla witnessed the base completely overrun by NVA sappers and Communist commando's and U.S. artillery being called in on his own position, I can truly understand why Gruchalla waited 24 years to have the courage to write about this. He vividly describes the calm before the storm, as with Johnny Cash playing on the base loudspeakers right before the attack, Gruchalla wrote: "Sort of makes you feel like there isn't a war going on. Watching the sunset over lush green forest with rays of red, orange and yellow". 

Suddenly without warning, mortar rounds walk up the surrounding hills to the base. 
Gruchalla describes the attack as such: "I make it to my position, everyone is hunkered down, waiting for something to happen. Nobody is saying a word, they are all watching the wire. All of a sudden, bunker 8 explodes, the entire left side of the camp opens up. Tracers flying all over the place, claymores going off. Good God they are throwing ladders across the wire". What follows are extremely graphic descriptions of violent death that only a madman would invent. With the base completely overrun, "Puff The Magic Dragon" is called in to try to thwart the N.V.A. With 200,000 candle power flares to light up the night and 3 mini-guns each able to spit out 6,000 rounds per minute, a squadron of jungle-camouflaged AC-47 fighters (also called "Spooky") is unable to stop the Communist assault. With most American defenders killed, Gruchalla takes 12 severely wounded G.I's in an aid station to hold on and weather the enemy onslaught. Detonating "bee hive rounds" (thousands of bomblets and flechettes flying in all directions at supersonic speeds) at the oncoming enemy, Gruchalla writes "Rockets from overhead. Air strike! Wish they would drop some inside, the Gooks are all over the place, I suppose they can't, not with us here. They probably don't know how far inside the Gooks are". 

What follows is very hard to read. Gruchalla painstakingly expresses himself: "The gooks are hitting the guns with grenades and satchel charges. Just then the Aid Station explodes. I lean my head on the blast wall. 12 guys gone and I put them there. Pull myself together and bail over the blast wall. Start crawling towards the Command Bunker". After watching the 12 soldiers die, Gruchalla and 38 other men spent that night in the Command Bunker trapped with no food, light or water, surrounded by the North Vietnamese Army as the base was being overrun. At dawn, the NVA broke off the attack and vanished. Gruchalla says he was trapped in there for 17 hours as napalm and artillery was called on the overrun base. At first light, Gruchalla and 38 others were rescued. He had to assist identifying the dead, of which there were 63 Americans killed that day in July. 

I tried to find Gruchalla's description of this attack in July, 1970, using all historical resources at my disposal. The only account of this was described in Leigh Wade's book, "Assault on Dak Pek". Wade has this attack on "Dak Seang" as occurring on April 12, 1970, not July, as Gruchalla writes. However, Gruchalla reminds us at the beginning of this book that he is not a historian, has some dates mixed up, and with great reluctance, kept this story pent up and repressed in his memory for 24 years. Only with great reluctance, he finally put his pen to paper and let it out. There are various photo's in this memoir that all lead credence to Gruchalla's story. In fact, as Gruchalla was identifying the bodies the morning of the rescue, he wrote: "The sun is coming up. There is the smell of death in the air. Thank God for dog tags in boot laces. These guys are busted up pretty bad. I feel sorry for their families, you can't tell what some of these guys used to look like. The third guy I come to is face down. I roll him over. Clutched in his fist, tight against his chest is the Flag. It used to fly over this Fire Base. Why did he grab on to it? Who knows. I pry his fingers apart and stuff the Flag inside my shirt, start filling out the tag so we can send him home". 

At the very end of the book, Gruchalla, from Fargo, North Dakota, has a photo of this flag. It is on permanent display in the AmVets Club in Fargo. Gruchalla ends this incredible story by explaining that he has incredible antipathy for country music, especially Johnny Cash. It was being played while the Fire Base was being overrun by the N.V.A. and sends Gruchalla into flashbacks. He also says that he attended Sue's wedding anonymously when he came back from Vietnam. Still bitter over the "Dear John" letter she sent him, he got there late, stayed in the back and just long enough for her to see him when the couple turned after exchanging vows. Gruchalla then left without saying a word. He claims that he hand carried his paper work from Viet Nam that showed that he received 3 Purple Hearts, 2 "Bronze Stars" and a "Silver Star" but the paperwork when he was discharged didn't include any of that. Even with Congressional help, the Military, according to Gruchalla, can't find anything on those medals Gruchalla won, and to this day the issue of these awards has not been straightened out. 

Michael Gruchalla ends this fascinating memoir by explaining that he can never be treated by the Veteran's Administration for the injuries he suffered in Viet Nam because of the fouled up paperwork. He also says that he was credited with 35 enemy "kills", of which he is not at all proud of. I personally thought that this was one of the most incredible, raw and touching memoirs, out of hundreds, that I have ever read. Gruchalla ominously ends this incredible tale by asserting: "After all was done I figured that I should have come home in a box at least over 38 times. These are but a few. The ones that haunt me the most". This book must be reprinted and mass distributed so students of American history can really get a sense of what it was to be "in the 'Nam".
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