Comments:
To Betty Welch: I was the medic who treated your brother Ralph Hill the day we were ambushed and he was killed. Please feel free to contact me. My e mail is platoonmedic36@gmail.com
To Betty Welch: I was the medic who treated your brother Ralph Hill the day we were ambushed and he was killed. Please feel free to contact me. My e mail is platoonmedic36@gmail.com
Added: May 1, 2015
Name: Hurst Palfey Rinehart
From: England
Website: http://drpalfi.co.uk
E-mail: Contact
I was a Medic with the 37th Medical Company from August 68-69. I was drafted in December 1966. I was 23 years old and burnt out from trying to finish my University Degree in Detroit and working at the same time to pay for it. I signed up, while I was in Basic Training at Ft Leonard Wood in December 1966 to be an Operating Room Theatre Technician, because they said it would guarantee that I would not be in combat. I had to sign on for an extra year and the "guarantee" did not work out as you will soon learn. I was assigned to Blackhorse and the 37th Medical Company. Each medical Company needed two ORT(91D20), because we were trained to sterilize surgical instruments and assist on operations. I spent a short time at Blackhorse Camp working in surgery and at the Vietnamese Hospital in Xuan Loc. I then spent from about September 68 to April 69 running the Aid Station at Regimental Headquarters in Bien Hoa. It was a relatively secure area, but we did have some rough times. Dealing with the wounded, dead and dying is never easy and we were fire upon.
I was sent back to Blackhorse Camp around May or June and worked in the Emergency Room of what had been the 7th Surgical Hospital the 37th Med. Co had taken over. I was also assigned by Top to be the unit photographer. Sometime around the end of July I went in convoy to a place I still do not know the name of about 4 hours drive north along a mainly dirt road with(after a while) many blown-up curled railway tracks beside it. There were many near naked Montagnard herdsman and women as we approached a large compound in another Michelin Rubber Plantation. I am still trying to find out what the name of it was. It was possibly near Loc Ninh.
I only started on computer about 4 years ago and started discovering dozens of sites about the 11ACR and Viet Nam about 3 months ago. It IS overwhelming, but important to say the least. I am hoping to find out the name of this base, the night defence position next to an airstrip I was sent out to by Chinook 10 days before I was to go home because of the shortage of Medics in the Field, the name of the unit I was assigned to for the three days of heavy combat before I was wounded and sent home. I need to know the name of the platoon leader whose tank I rode on(I think possibly Lt. Postlethwait from Kentucky), the area the Firefights took place in, our loader that was wounded by the RPG that went through the front of our M48 Tank and killed the engine, a guy that died in my arms in the tank beside us( a guy named Peter Alan Kidd of B Troop was KIA 22 August 69. He was the only Blackhorse fatality between the 13th and possibly 30th of August.) We went out from the NDP the next morning and had a track blown off the command tank I was riding on, spent the night in the boonies and I caught some shrapnel in the face the next day busting brush pushing Charlie back. I could not get it out. Someone said that I should go see the Doctor at the end of the airstrip next to our NDP. I was dusted off back to the compound around the 26th, sent back to Blackhorse Camp and back in The World on the 29.
I started applying for compensation for Hearing Loss and PTSD, that I have suffered terribly with ever since, in September of 2012 while visiting my brother in my home town of Midland, Michigan. They quickly denied me saying, for instance, that I would not have been exposed to loud noises as an Operating Room Nurse. I appealed. I sent many letters from family, Psychiatrists, Doctors and even the Regimental Surgeon of Blackhorse who stated categorically that I would definitely be suffering fro PTSD. I have lived in England since 1972 so this is all being done by the Midland County, Michigan Veteran's Advocate. I received a second denial because the VA said I had not attended the appointments in London with the Psychiatrist or Hearing Specialist. They were both practically the tops in their field in England. It cost the VA $1,400 for this arrangement. I sent them the letters wherein the Psychiatrist stated that I had at least 30% PTSD and the Hearing Specialist the same from my war experiences. Last July I received a letter from the VA stating that they had assigned a special DRO officer to review my appeal.
Sorry, I did not intend to write you all of this, but I just wanted to put things in perspective. I want to get some pictures up onto the website so that someone might recognize and remember me and other guys and fill in these blanks. I may need, at sometime, to have someone else be able to say I was in the thick of it like many poor dudes were ALL the time. I wrote to the records department to see if they had a record of my wound and combat assignment over a year ago, but have never received a reply. I received all my medical records two years before that, but there was nothing about my wound or the pleurisy I contracted at Ft Leonard Wood in that harsh winter. I never received a Purple Heart or a Combat Medics's Badge. I'm not bothered about that, but I would actually like to talk to someone who was there with me. I took one picture of us being ambushed on my first day out, but only one before the sound of "Doc; git yer * * * over here." I was new to the Field and found there wasn't even Morphine in the Medic's bag I was given. The next day I met a Medic who said, "God Doc; I didn't know you were in such trouble. You should have called me over. I could have helped." I was too busy trying to figure out if the first guy I went to was dead or not, filling out his casualty card and rushing past an ARVN corpse and back to the wounded loader on our tank.I was in a total state of shock and remained so for about six months. I have these two pictures I think might be of the African American Medic that spoke to me that day. I found in on the D company site. It would be good to put it up on the Medic's website and see if I might get in contact with him. He might be able to verify my tale. Someone may know him. I may need that for my appeal even though, as I've said, I had several harrowing experiences at Headquarters under fire also.
Thanks for your time and effort in reading this. I hope I can get on the site and put a load of pictures up. If you can give me your telephone number it is free for me to call from England or we can Skype or Facebook. You can see about 451 Viet Nam photos in my FB Photos/Albums/ Clown at War. I make my living as a clown and a photographer. Have a look at my websites and especially my Facebook Site Go to Palfi Laughologist Rinehart/Photos/Albums and scroll down to "Clown at War" the Album Cover photo is one of a very hard looking Afro American Blackhorse Trooper. There are about 451 others. I took over a thousand others I have not looked at much over the last 45 years since Nam and have not scanned them all yet Have a look and feel free to make comments. You may recognize and name someone or place you know and correct me on some. detail.
Enough for now. I must take my pooch out into the woods for a walk..
Allons,
Palfi AKA SP5 Hurst Palfey Rinehart.