SGT Robert Pryor, U.S. Army (1967-1969)

Disembarking at Cam Ranh Air Force Base, Viet Nam, in 1968, we were to exchange our field jackets for steel pots (helmet with liner) and flak vests (body armor). I dutifully lined up like everybody else. After handing my jacket to a member of the Rear Echelon Military Force (REMF), I reached for a helmet. He grabbed it and said, “Not you.” When I asked why, he said, “I thought you knew. Your Green Beret is bulletproof.”

Suspecting that MF in REMF might stand for something other than Military Force, I wanted to engage him in a three-legged race to the aid station to get my boot out of his “rear echelon,” but with Officers and NCOs present, I let it go. I was to serve with the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG), a Vietnamese paramilitary unit, and would dress as they did. Those accouterments were too cumbersome for the CIDG.

Nine months later, my war was over, and I was at Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco. Dr. Rosenberg was to do the skin graft, repairing my outer right forearm. He had an aide help undress me and position me face down on an examining table, saying he preferred using backs as donor sites for skin grafts. I wouldn’t have any back wounds because I never turned my back on the enemy — other than those few times I had them surrounded from the inside.

Eventually, Dr. Rosenberg had me roll over, stating he couldn’t find a four-inch by six-inch donor site on the back half of my body. Perhaps he would have better luck with the front. Again, there was no area large enough. He persisted, examining and measuring every inch of my body. Eventually, he enthusiastically announced that he had found an area between wounds that would work.

As I was being dressed, Dr. Rosenberg casually asked why the only place I didn’t get wounded was my outer right thigh — the area of cargo pockets on jungle fatigues. I told him I had no idea. Then he asked, “What did you have in your cargo pocket that night?”

I paused, then exclaimed, “That REMF from Cam Ranh!”

Aware of my extensive loss of brain matter, he responded, “I beg your pardon. Are you saying you had a soldier in that pocket?”

I softly mumbled, “No. I had my beret in that pocket. I probably should have been wearing it.”

My beret and fighting knife were the only things not damaged on my last night in combat. Even my dog tags were shot off. I retain over 200 foreign bodies within me as souvenirs from my service. Memorabilia embedded in what’s left of my brain is visible in the accompanying frame from my CT Scan. The blackened areas represent missing brain matter. The bright spots represent shrapnel, bullet, or bone fragments.

Bloodstains are visible on the flash of my beret and the sheath of my fighting knife. Thanks to my bulletproof beret, Dr. Rosenberg managed to repair my forearm.

Read the Military Memories of our Runner-Ups.