I never did anything anywhere near magnitude of what you guys did, but I should have gotten two purples...

In two mortar attacks, suffered a badly wrenched lower back which eventually led to a VA 20% disability, which paid a whopping $59/month... not even beer money. I waived it after about six months, mainly because I felt better, passed a physical, and went back in in Nov '74, Combat Arms... altho the back continued to act up now and then, I made it another 19 years and some change..in '82, spent three weeks flat on my back, full of Tylenol with codeine, and almost got boarded out just two years before retirement...I should have gone for it!

The second was a blow to the head (from a door header) escaping to the bunker behind avionics in another mortar attack. Knocked me OUT, and it's a long way to the floor for me. Thank HEAVENS for steel pots. The docs who replaced the lens in my right eye in '89 told me that it COULD have been that blow to the noggin which eventually ended up in a cataract, and total blindness in one eye, two weeks after it was discovered. Wally World fixed it 7 months later, but at the expense of going to bifocals, then trifocals. Really took a toll on my pistol skills...

I have yet to find anyone who remembers those incidents, who can corrobrate on submission for my "hearts". Both issues should be well-documented in my "prior service" health records, but WHERE to find them?? Both were most def as a result of enemy action, but I guess it's also attributable to clumsy bad luck while under duress, as in:
Awsh*t... incoming!!

Bumpy