Paul Harvey and 'the rest of the story'...

The Sergeant Major provides 2 more...

Warfighters are notably reticent regarding their experiences...

Some things seen are so intense that they sear the memory, stimulating a reflexive effort to keep those memories suppressed.

I have had the honor and privilege to have served with some amazing combat studs during my six years on active duty.

Further, thirty years of interactions with veterans in my private practice have enriched me so much.

Years after enduring the carnage of war still find these guys reluctant to talk about their combat experiences.

God has blessed me with the ability to overcome that reticence by gaining their confidence in my dental chair.

Each appointment with these remarkable men revealed more aspects of their most suppressed memories; I listened, sometimes in awe, as they related horrors that should not be experienced by anyone.

The curtain is pulled back just a little with each dental appointment, with a bit more detail than previously offered.

Over the years, with the tapestry of their experiences woven in my mind, I developed a sense of comradery with these soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen.

Again, without exception, these heroes are reluctant to get into details of their firefights or casualties encountered on the battlefield...

... or losing a brother in arms.

The Sergeant Major is not different.

And, like virtually all of these combat veterans who survived the battlefield, my father is deeply religious.

I cherish those dental appointments with my father...

Each appointment with the Sergeant Major provided bits and pieces of some pretty hairy situations he encountered as a Jungle Warfare Special Operator.

The Sergeant Major's first 'rest of the story' he recounted to me ...

... relating to my broken neck as a seven year old.

At Fort Carson, Colorado, this second grader had never encountered quite this much snow and ice.

We did, however, have enough precipitation to make snow cream in eastern North Carolina.

Yummy... Who needs Baskins and Robbins?

Again, those pesky Laws of Physics dictate inescapable consequences.

Actually, a cervical fracture...

The significance of the injury did, however, pull my father, Sergeant Daw, from a Rocky Mountain excursion later that evening.

He and my Mother were in my hospital room until we were discharged the next morning.

It was decades later that I learned details of yet another example of God's protection of my father.

Sergeant Daw's mission that dark evening - overwatch for his convoy in tortuous terrain...

My father's mission that night, as part of his mountain warfare infantry training, was provision of heavy caliber protection for his convoy traversing the Rocky Mountain's dangerous and narrow dirt roads.

At night.

Tragically, that APC (armored personnel carrier) plummeted off a narrow road, killing the gunner.

God acquired another Warrior that evening.

His plans for my father had not been completed.

Remember the Tet Offensive?

1970 - I am folding laundry when I made a discovery in my father's sock drawer...

One of those unforgettable moments in life...

Not only are combat veterans reticent; they often do not display their awards...

More than three years later, I discovered my stud father had further sealed his unquestioned Manly Man status...

... during Tet.

Wow!

Sergeant First Class Ted Daw is officially a War Hero.

Tet, 30 January, 1968: After an all day Search and Destroy mission, a well deserved respite...

Staff Sergeant Daw, after ensuring his FOB's security perimeter was completed before hitting the sack (actually the hard ground), was looking forward to a few hours of shuteye before 0-dark-thirty.

The sweltering heat, however, and in contrast to a frigid winter in North Carolina for his family, made sleeping elusive.

Bug Juice took care of the insects, but it was so blasted hot and humid.

In an effort to acquire that precious rest, my father removed his jungle uniform jacket, retaining his T-shirt.

So much better...

He draped his jungle jacket over concertina wire adjacent to a machine gun position and fell asleep.

As previously recounted, a battalion sized element of the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong - with Chinese backing - assaulted SSG Daw's FOB with mortars and small arms fire.

The rude awakening by these communist bastards was rewarded by my father's provision of egress for his soldiers, via 800 rounds per minute of 7.62 mm ammo, and the killing or capture of 245 of the invaders.

SSG Daw's heroic actions that evening bought enough time for Hueys to rescue many of the soldiers, including my father.

As my father was sprinting for the waiting Huey for his extraction, he encountered a badly wounded NVA soldier.

Had I been presented with that same situation on the way to the chopper, the enemy would have had to fend for himself.

Not the Sergeant Major.

SSG Daw was a Christian before anything; he threw the wounded enemy over his shoulder and tossed him into the waiting Huey.

Three days later, US and ARVN forces recaptured the FOB, recovering corpses.

The body of a burned-beyond-recognition ARVN soldier was covered with a US Army jungle jacket found draped on concertina wire next to the burned corpse.

A few days after his narrow escape from the FOB, my father encountered a quite surprised soldier...

SSG Daw was quite surprised himself when the disbelieving young corporal, stammering, uttered:

"YOU'RE DEAD !!"