Jeff Fortenberry: “A friend of mine works part time in a hardware store. He is retired from several other careers, but he continues to…”

“A friend of mine works part time in a hardware store. He is retired from several other careers, but he continues to enjoy helping people in a retail-service environment. Recently, he kindly gave me, as we were talking about gardening, some hosta plants that he had grown. As I drove through his neighborhood looking for his house, I suspected his home was the one flying the large American flag. I knew that Mike, my friend, had served in Vietnam, but, as we spent some time digging up the plants and visiting around his garden, I learned a lot more about his harrowing experience as a marine. You see, Mr. Speaker, Mike's squad was assigned to protect an area in the northern part of south Vietnam. They were a pesky bunch, as Mike put it, and the north Vietnamese grew tired of the constant haranguing, so they launched a counterassault. Mike's squad was outnumbered 10 to 1, and they were hit pretty hard. A call went out for help, but the first helicopter to arrive was blown apart. Mike sustained severe wounds. A bullet to the chest collapsed his lung, shrapnel tore through a foot and a leg, and another bullet grazed his head. To breathe, Mike had to keep clearing his throat with his finger to remove the gurgling blood. And at the point where he could no longer physically fight, he crawled to a slightly more secure place and propped himself up on a sack. Mike told me he remembered two things-- the wind blowing through his hair and his mother.…”