Iowa Veteran Describes his Experiences Fighting in the Vietnam War

By 1969, more than half a million Americans were stationed in Vietnam. Fighting in the jungle was chaotic and the goal was not only to accomplish the objectives of the mission, but to survive. Iowa veteran Lieutenant Dan Gannon describes his experiences during the Vietnam War.

By 1969, more than half a million men and women were stationed in South Vietnam. Among them were several Iowans including Dan Gannon from Mingo.

"I wanted to serve my country but it was not in my foremost of what I was planning on doing when I graduated from school. At the time I was planning on going back to the family farm. And then I had a brother that was shot in Vietnam and was kind of like, you know, I've got to go over and get those suckers for shooting my brother. That was part of my motivation. But I knew I was going to have to go and I definitely wanted, if I have to, I want to go serve my country honorably in the best way I can."

Gannon was deployed with the Marines somewhere north of Da Nang. The lieutenant spent more than 300 days living in the jungle. In order to stay sharp on the battlefield, he chose to save his rest and recuperation leave until the end of his tour of duty. 

Encounters with the enemy often lasted only a few seconds, but sometimes they drug on for days. 

"It was extremely noisy and so I call it controlled chaos. You've got people running all over the place, you've got things happening. In a fire fight where you're getting shot at and you're shooting at them and the terrain is rough and nothing is ever completely planned out and is going to work exactly the way you want it to."

"You don't stop and think I want to be patriotic right now. You had a job to do and I'm going to do it the best way I can. For those who are on their left and on their right and those who have supported you, you were doing it for them. You become extremely close in a combat environment, closer than you would to your own personal family because it's life and death. In my platoon I had Ph.D.'s, I had troops that were,  you're going to go to Vietnam or jail or prison. The term we would say, when it hits the fan, it's amazing how, it's life and death and surviving as a unit, they all pull together. 

On patrol, Gannon's Marines often were spread out along narrow jungle paths for distances of up to a quarter of a mile. One day, a soldier tripped a booby trap. The explosion killed several men, including a corpsman.

"And the corpsman who was right behind me had heard on the radio that so-and-so is down. They went through all their training together. And so he just kind of lost his head, instead of staying on the trail he just automatically just took off and cut across. He had made about 15 steps and tripped a mine and was killed immediately. So here I've lost both corpsmen and we had injuries anyway, so then we had to improvise. That was a very bad day for me because both corpsmen I was quite close to."

Gannon barely received a scratch during multiple fire fights in Vietnam. But one encounter was different. 

"I felt a sting in my arm and I'm still fighting and blood is running down my arm. And somebody, 'Hey lieutenant, you've been hit.' So I'm looking at my arm and so the corpsman came up and wrapped it up and cleaned it out because they always clean out wounds because a lot of times the rounds themselves were buried in manure or whatever and then they were used, so they had a lot of bacteria."

Gannon's arm quickly became infected. He collapsed and was evacuated by helicopter for treatment. 

"I felt bad that I had to leave my Marines. I was that committed to them and so I was hoping, I told them I want to get patched up, I'm okay, I can go back out, I don't need to go home. I have a job to do here."

Gannon was recommended for the Purple Heart but declined the commendation.