It’s been virtually six many years since Jim Seibert served in Vietnam, however he can nonetheless recall his harrowing expertise with vivid element and emotion. It’s not precisely a simple factor to neglect.
Spending a 12 months within the rigorous Central Highlands, surviving booby traps, gunshot wounds, and the specter of assault on an virtually each day foundation, Seibert grew to become probably the most embellished veteran to graduate from Webster Groves Excessive College close to St. Louis, Missouri, incomes two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, and three Bronze Stars.
If dodging bullets from the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong wasn’t sufficient, the thick, triple-canopy jungle introduced its personal nightmare.
“The one factor you chop your manner by way of the jungle with was machetes, very sharp machetes. Everyone carried one. I bear in mind someday we didn’t get greater than 100 yards,” Seibert instructed KSDK News in St. Louis. “Normally you went 2 clicks, 2,000 yards. We went 100 yards. That is about so far as we may go. You needed to take care of it.”
Throughout the dreaded monsoon season in Southeast Asia, Seibert, serving within the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, recollects virtually continuous rain for weeks.
“You wakened moist. You went to mattress moist. Then you definately needed to take care of snakes. I had a few dangerous points with snakes, and in the event you acquired bit by a bamboo viper, it was over,” he stated.
Like that lethal viper, malaria additionally slithered by way of Seibert’s platoon, and the younger soldier was not immune. After he contracted a fever that skyrocketed to 105 levels, Siebert lastly acquired obtained medical consideration.
“There have been occasions once I stated to myself, there isn’t a manner I could make it like this. There is no such thing as a manner,” he recollects. “There is no such thing as a manner I’m going to presumably sustain this tempo for a complete 12 months, however you do.”
An Act of Heroism
Seibert’s 12 months in Vietnam was almost reduce quick in 1968 when his platoon was attacked by North Vietnamese troopers. Shot within the leg, shrapnel sliced by way of flesh on his different leg, flying as much as hit his face and neck. Nonetheless, Seibert fought on, pulling a wounded sergeant and lieutenant out of hurt’s manner.
“You dragged these males with two tourniquets wrapped round your legs, proper? I didn’t know that then. (However) I knew as I used to be shifting,” he stated. “I couldn’t really feel something, however you set the tourniquets on your self. I put tourniquets on myself, yeah, as a result of I didn’t wish to bleed out. I knew I used to be bleeding badly. However while you’re dealing with constructive dying, it’s superb what the human physique can do.
“That’s what was going by way of my thoughts at the moment. I didn’t really feel something. All I needed to do was get out of there, and I didn’t wish to depart these two males mendacity there.”
His lieutenant pulled by way of and advisable Seibert for a commendation medal for valor. Seibert was given a month to relaxation and get well earlier than being despatched proper again to infantry responsibility.
Battles After the Warfare
When he returned dwelling, issues weren’t the identical. He had modified.
Seibert struggled with “deep post-traumatic stress dysfunction” (PTSD) for years earlier than searching for assist. Nightmares and flashbacks grew to become an virtually nightly prevalence.
“At the least 4 nights every week, I had nightmares, and you realize, you simply lived with it,” he stated. “I drank quite a bit. I attempted to cowl it up by consuming. I don’t suppose I used to be an alcoholic, however I used to be shut.”
And he didn’t speak about Vietnam. At the least not till latest years. He’s turn into extra reflective with age and is keen to open up about his experiences. Some subjects, nonetheless, are nonetheless off limits.
“Effectively, how lots of the enemy did you really kill? I by no means needed to reply that, by no means would, as a result of taking a person’s life, I don’t care, until you’re a sick particular person, is a horrible factor and it impacts you. It does have an effect on you for the remainder of your life, and I took a whole lot of lives, and I’m fortunate they did not take mine.”
In jungle warfare, the foundations weren’t too advanced.
“It’s both they take yours, otherwise you take theirs. It’s so simple as that,” Seibert stated. “That’s what it boils all the way down to, and that’s how we had been educated.”
Now 80, Seibert lives in Kirkwood, Missouri. Nightmares return sometimes when he’s pressured to battle his Vietnam demons over again, however he’s realized to deal with PTSD in more healthy methods. His two grownup sons aren’t far-off, and he leans on them for help.
Seibert stated being an athlete in highschool, and later at Central Missouri State College in Warrensburg, supplied the toughness, self-discipline and dedication to outlive Vietnam.
