“Chopper's waiting, man. You got to hurry up.”: A Medic And A Rifleman In The Oh Deuce Recon

Richard Cobb and Jim Rizzi served together in the recon element of the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry in Vietnam, meeting up in 1967. Both Richard and Jim were born in 1947. Jim Rizzi grew up in the Bronx, New York, the oldest of five children. His father was the manager at the local A&P grocery store and his mother was a housewife. Richard grew up in rural Maryland, raised by his mother and grandparents in what he describes as a happy, free-range childhood. His father was never in the picture. Richard’s mother and grandmother “ran a tight ship” in a matriarchal family. During World War I, his grandmother had left her family farm in Illinois to get a government job in Washington, D.C. Jim enjoyed playing high school baseball, and Richard and a friend considered themselves “woodsmen,” cutting down trees with an axe and blowing things up with black powder. Starting at 15, Jim and most of his siblings had to work in the grocery store, stocking shelves and unloading trucks. Even his sister worked at the cash register. Jim’s high school, DeWitt Clinton, was so large that the students reported on shifts. He went to school from 0700 to 1330 and then he took a bus to the grocery store for work. Richard did well in high school until he fell in with the “bad boys,” and his grades dropped. He ended up with a 1.8 GPA, and most of his friends ended up in motorcycle gangs. Jim struggled with math and, failing the New York Regents exam, he did not graduate from high school. He attended summer school, but met a girl and failed the Regents exam again. When he turned 18, on July 13, 1965, he went to the Army Recruiting Station on Fordham Road in the Bronx and enlisted because he had listened to his uncles’ war stories growing up and felt that he had no direction after high school. His mother was upset that he had not completed high school and when Jim reported to Ft. Bragg, his mother called the Sergeant Major, who made Jim get his GED. Richard also enlisted in 1965. He was working at the post office but he was looking for an adventure. The war in Vietnam was going on, and popular music like “Hello Vietnam,” influenced him. Jim reported to basic training at Ft. Dix, New Jersey, and AIT at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas, to become a medic, while Richard completed both basic and AIT at Ft. Gordon, Georgia. In basic, Jim was appointed Squad Leader since he had enlisted and had a Regular Army designation. Both enjoyed shooting the M-14, and Jim remembers first getting the M-16 at Ft. Bragg. Jim ended up pulling 30 days of KP (Kitchen Patrol) for being late to formation at the end of a weekend pass after getting stuck in traffic in the Holland Tunnel. Jim had wanted to be an infantryman, but high test scores led him to become a medic. Jim trained at Ft. Sam Houston, but felt that he really learned medic skills after he was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division and was sent back to Ft. Sam for an advanced medic course, where he trained with Special Forces medics in a hands-on environment in the Emergency Room at Reynolds Army Hospital. Airborne school followed for both of them. Jim describes his fear of heights, which he still has. He remembers his chute not opening on a jump and having to pull his reserve. When he hit the ground, he quit, but a SEAL medic (Underwater Demolitions Team at that time) told him he could not quit. The SEALs grabbed a truck, drove him back to the air field, and put him back on a plane to make another jump that day to get over his fear. Richard remembers the SEALs’ antics like putting a frogman mask on a statue of a paratrooper, and hanging a sheet from the 250-foot tower painted with “UDT.” After airborne, Jim reported to the 82nd in March 1966, where he was assigned to the 307th Medical Battalion and periodically attached to the headquarters of the 504th Infantry. Even though he conducted some training and made 22 additional jumps, what he remembers most is running, and spit-and-polish parades for visiting dignitaries. After a little over a year at Ft. Bragg, Jim deployed to Vietnam. Richard had already been in-country for a year, having requested Vietnam immediately after airborne school. Initially assigned as an MP (against his wishes). As an MP, Richard recalls policing the bars and whorehouses that popped up wherever a base was built (Phan Rang, Tuy Hoa, and wherever the 101st was stationed at the time), guarding the gates, directing traffic (which he hated), and escorting the engineers on road clearance missions (which he enjoyed). Richard kept requesting to transfer to the Infantry and specifically to a recon unit. After 11 months as an MP, Richard finally got his wish. He extended, and transferred to the recon element in 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry. Shortly after, Jim arrived and they served in the same unit for four months until Richard was wounded and evacuated to Japan. Richard describes arriving at Phan Rang, where the 101st was stationed, a little over a year after the original boat people had arrived, and the camp was still a tent city with no permanent structures. Jim too experienced a longer tour in Vietnam. Near the end of his first tour, he went home on emergency leave because his grandmother had died, and after three weeks back home, he extended his tour in Vietnam. He was assigned to the 326th Medical Battalion stationed at Phu Bai, where he worked in the aid station and flew as a dustoff medic. When Richard finally got to the recon section, he was thrown into the mix with very little specialized training. He received some weapons familiarization and patrolling techniques, but much of the learning was hands-on and came from experience. When asked if the training was good enough, he laconically replied, “I guess it was adequate. We're still breathing.” They both describe carrying heavy rucksacks, but Jim was given one with a broken strap, and occasionally his rucksack fell off one shoulder. Sometimes the momentum of the falling pack spun him to the ground. Occasionally the recon element moved at night, which they describe as “the most God-awful, fearsome thing you ever wanted to do” because “you can't be quiet when you got 80 pounds on your back, schlepping through the jungle.” Jim remembers that when his father’s generation fought during World War II and in Korea, they trained as a unit, but remarks, “We were all individuals, got together, and you became a family real fast.” They describe how the unit moved through the jungle, hacking their way through the vines with a machete, and the roles of the point man and slack man. They describe the time they killed an enemy trail-watcher in the jungle, who they happened to encounter as he was walking with an SKS on his shoulder. They both describe their recollections of their first firefight. They recollect the patrol when Rich was wounded and later evacuated out of country. Bob Rera was the point man and Rich was slack. Bob triggered the booby-trapped grenade, which exploded closer to Rich (due to the 5 second delay) and wounded Bob, Rich, and Eric Sanders. For years, Jim thought that Sanders had died, and he carried that guilt until years later when he learned that Sanders had lived. Rich describes his experiences being medevac’d to the hospital and eventually being sent back to the States. He eventually linked up with Eric Sanders in Walter Reed, and later called him at his home in Mississippi, but feeling guilty because he was able to walk away from the blast while thinking that Eric suffered paralysis prevented Rich from meeting up with him in person. Later, they discovered that Eric, who was doing well but was in a wheelchair (due to a car accident – he had been able to walk with crutches), had come to a few reunions, but never the same ones as Rich and Jim. After Eric died in July 2008, they paid for Eric’s sister to attend a reunion, and that was an emotional experience for all of them. They also describe capturing a North Vietnamese Officer with some documents. At one point, a Platoon Sergeant, Willingham, was hit in the head by a Huey rotor that had landed for a resupply mission. The helicopter was on the slope of a hill, and Willingham walked too close to the blade. Jim was able to keep him alive and get him on the helicopter, but Willingham died on the way to the evac hospital. At the end of his time in the 502nd, Jim extended and ended up in the 326th Medical Battalion at Phu Bai, where he treated wounded as they came in. The critically wounded went to an evac hospital, but the lightly wounded came to the 326th. He also visited local villages to provide medical aid as part of a MEDCAP (Medical Civil Action Program), once delivering a baby. He also flew two dustoff missions, which he describes as “scary,” especially the one at night. When Jim returned home, his large family and their depth of military experience helped him assimilate, although he had a drinking issue for a while, and he has also suffered from recurring malaria and lingering jungle rot. When he met his wife, she became his lifeline and helped him overcome anger issues. Jim was able to land a job in a hospital in the Bronx. The doctor who ran the lab, Charlie Hockman, a World War I Medical Officer and Reservist, trained him, and within six months, Jim earned his city license. In 1975, Jim joined the National Guard in communications, and eventually transitioned to the Active Guard and Reserves (AGR), where he served for 20 years, retiring just before September 11th. When Rich returned, he still had a year left of his three-year enlistment, and since he had a permanent profile, instead of going to an airborne unit, he was reassigned to Ft. Meade, Maryland, where he was on riot-control duty during the summer of ’68. Rich remembers thinking, “Wait a minute, I just left this over in Vietnam. What the hell is it doing here?” As he prepared to transition out of the Army, he went to GM school for eight weeks to learn to be a truck mechanic. Rich describes being rudderless at this point in his life, a real “wild card,” and he moved in with his drug dealer and his wife, who actually provided him an “island of stability.” When Rich began working at a lab, he saw how well some of the young engineers were doing. He called the VA to see what kind of G.I. Bill benefits he could use, and that began his academic journey. Eventually, the guy who left high school with a 1.8 GPA moved into a dorm as a married, thirty-year-old RA. He finally earned his PhD in Mechanical Engineering and worked for 20 years as a defense consultant. Both have occasionally experienced post traumatic stress. Rich describes a recurring nightmare he has had, where, whatever his current life situation is, he dreams that he has re-upped for Vietnam, and he thinks, “You had everything going so good right back there, and you came back here again. What the hell were you thinking?” Since the early 2000s, both Rich and Jim have been coming to reunions, and reconnecting with old comrades has been beneficial to both of them. They also are glad that their wives enjoy interacting with other spouses at the reunions. When they returned from Vietnam, they felt like their government let them down, and Jim especially feels anger towards Jane Fonda for her actions. They were angry about how they were treated, but the bonds among the Soldiers at the reunions helps dissipate that anger. They are glad they have each other, and these days they try to outdo each other with war stories.