Anderson’s work as combat medic saved many soldier lives in Vietnam
By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – A 30-year career in banking at several St. Tammany Parish financial institutions is why a lot of people know who Dave Anderson is.
But it’s likely that few of those people know the same Dave Anderson—not the biggest guy at five feet, five inches tall—is the same man who helped save many American soldiers lives during the Vietnam War when he served as a combat medic.
Anderson is not a doctor, but he received enough training at boot camp and beyond to quickly qualify as a medic during the war, after being shipped off to Vietnam in December of 1968.
“My job was two things—keep them from bleeding and keep them breathing,” he said. “I was trained how to do those things to stabilize injured soldiers so we could get them to a hospital or to the doctor with our platoon.”
Anderson did that for nine months of service time, most of it in the Vietnamese rice patties where “you were up to your waist in water most of the time, and we were always wet, which led to other problems.”
He downplays the work he did and simply said “I’m proud that I answered the call since I respected our country. There was never a thought about not going after I got the draft notice, even though there were plenty of guys who went to Canada or filed as conscientious objectors.”
And Anderson did do a lot, and much more than he wants to get credit for. His work in saving the lives of fellow soldiers who were shot or hit with mortar fire or grenades was evidenced by the fact he received six Bronze Star medals, a Purple Heart, and 15 Air Medals which were given for taking mission flights into the Vietnamese countryside.
One of his most memorable days was the time he was hit with shrapnel after stepping on a booby-trapped grenade that was under water in the rice fields.
“We were doing a sweep around our base to find the grenades, but the Vietnamese even had them under water, so while I was walking with the other guys through the water I stepped on one, and remember it flipping me in the air.
“I felt my ear was bleeding and the side of my helmet was blown off, but I remember thinking I was happy my ear was still there,” he said.
However, a fellow soldier right behind him wasn’t so lucky. Anderson turned around and saw the shrapnel from the grenade hit the man in the face.
“I know it was pure adrenaline since I’m not a big guy, but I grabbed the man who probably weighed about 175 pounds, threw him over my shoulder, and took him through the mud and water to a helicopter that was just coming down. I threw him in, but never did hear what happened to him,” Anderson recalled.
Those incidents were commonplace for the American soldiers fighting what was considered one of the most difficult wars in history, mainly due to the terrain they were at.
Anderson was one of the combat medics in his platoon who worked under Dr. Byron Holley, an American surgeon who also answered the call to serve.
“The first day I got there Doc Holley told the other guys, ‘take care of Andy, he’s not a big guy.” And it didn’t take long for that to prove true.
“We had to carry a lot of equipment and it was pretty heavy, especially for someone like me. They had me loaded up pretty good and on the first day I was there we headed out for a mission, meaning the helicopter would hover about 10 feet above the ground and we had to jump down, right into the rice patty area and water. I remember looking down and said, ‘oh no, I can’t jump down there.’ But a guy behind me just gave me a shove out of the copter.”
Anderson hit the water and then went down in the mud, with the water “up to my nose. I might have drowned right there, but a big guy suddenly pulled me up.”
Anderson didn’t need much help after that as he was in the midst of one mission after another, relating some stories about soldiers being shot or hit by explosives that are best left untold.
“I saw things that most people might not have been able to deal with. You never forget, that’s for sure,” he said. “But my job was to help my fellow soldiers and I was more than ready to do that.”
His job was to listen on every mission for the other guys, hopefully not hearing this line too often: “Doc, I’m hit!” But Anderson said he heard it more than he would have liked and would spring towards the injured soldier.
“I remember another time walking through the rice patty when a guy yelled that he was hit, so I started running towards him and heard a bullet go right by my ear. It’s something you never forget the sound of. When I got to him, he only had a little piece of shrapnel in his leg and I told him, ‘Hey! You could have gotten me killed!’ He said he wanted to get sent back to the base camp,” Anderson added.
For all the action he was in the middle of almost every day, Anderson said he never felt scared other than for one thing.
“They had these huge water buffaloes in the rice patties around us. They were scary,” he said. “One time we were on a night mission, and I was trying to get across a real skinny little bridge. As I got on the other side there was a water buffalo that saw me and started charging—they told us the water buffaloes could smell Americans. Since I had a problem with losing my M-16s, somehow, I had lost three of them, they asked if I wanted to carry a smaller gun, so all I had was a revolver. With the buffalo coming at me I pulled my revolver and shot right at him, hitting his forehead and watched a small bone chip fly off. But he kept on coming.
Suddenly, Anderson heard another solider yell “move!” and as quickly as he stepped to the side the soldier used a machine gun to save Anderson’s life.
“Those water buffaloes were the only thing that really scared me out there,” he said with a laugh. “They were really big and all around those rice patties.”
Like so many soldiers in the U.S. military, Anderson did his job without fear, and said he had a single prayer every night when he was ready to sleep.
“I didn’t ask God to let me leave, I always asked him to let me see the light of the next day,” he said. “And that’s what he did. The day I got hit from the shrapnel I would have been killed if I was hit another half inch over. I look back on things like that and figure God had other plans for me.”
Anderson grew up in Shreveport, one of eight children in the family. He was drafted in 1967 during the early years of the Vietnam War before the military decided he had what it took to become a combat medic.
Once landing in Vietnam and serving with Doc Holley, he said there were two other medics like him that served together. Two of them were conscientious objectors and he remembers Holley talking to them.
“He told those two, ‘I’m not your mom, dad or preacher. You need to know they are going to shoot real bullets out there and it’s not a crime to pick up a weapon and use it,” Anderson said. “One of them did carry a gun and use it, but the other guy never did.”
In the summer of 1969, he got to come home, thankfully in one piece, before he started working as a car salesman, advanced to handle car financing, then used that experience to get a job at a bank. Over the years he moved up in what turned out to be a 31-year career in banking, eventually leading to become the Senior Vice-President at Hancock Bank in St. Tammany Parish. He also worked at First Bank and First NBC during his banking career.
He met his wife Ruth when he sold her a car. That led to a 46-year marriage. Ruth died of cancer in 2019. The couple had two children, David Jr. and Allison, and five grandchildren.
His advice to younger couples is simple.
“Put God in the middle of everything,” he said. “God sent me the perfect spouse. She made me who I am and kept me on track.”
Anderson resides in Slidell today at Summerfield Senior Living, now at the age of 74.