Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: A recruiter was scanning a crowd of young men. They
Speaker 2: were at boot camp for the Marine Corps Reserve. You know,
Speaker 2: just a bunch of guys with buzz cuts at the
Speaker 2: start of their training. It was nineteen sixty five and
Speaker 2: the war in Vietnam was starting to heat up. Nobody
Speaker 2: knew how long it would last, but they knew they
Speaker 2: needed troops on the ground. So the recruiter looked out
Speaker 2: at these guys and he asked if anyone wanted to.
Speaker 1: Go to war.
Speaker 3: I think it was the second or third week we
Speaker 3: were there. They called us. Set us, all setting in
Speaker 3: a room, sitting down on it, and they said, everyone who
Speaker 3: would want to be a regular marine, raise your hand.
Speaker 2: Richard Pittman had been waiting for this exact moment. He
Speaker 2: had been told, all you have to do is put
Speaker 2: your pinky in the air, and they'll take you out
Speaker 2: of the reserves and end too battle.
Speaker 3: You know, so I stuck my little pinky in air.
Speaker 1: Pittman was twenty tall and strong.
Speaker 2: His friends called him Rick, and he was one of
Speaker 2: those guys who played a million sports in high school.
Speaker 2: Thick head of hair, rosy cheeks. Rick was determined to
Speaker 2: serve on the front lines.
Speaker 3: Because of my scores, I've qualified for seven different fields,
Speaker 3: engineering or communications and some other things. But I said
Speaker 3: I wanted to be in the infantry. I remember one
Speaker 3: of my child instructors said, you're a strange individual. You
Speaker 3: know where you're going. I said, yes, I do know
Speaker 3: where I'm going, and infantry is what I want to do.
Speaker 3: And so that's what I did.
Speaker 2: Rick Pittman was heading to Vietnam, but he shouldn't have
Speaker 2: even been allowed to raise his hand.
Speaker 1: He shouldn't have gone to war at all. I'm Jr.
Speaker 2: Martinez and this is the Medal of Honor Stories of Courage.
Speaker 1: The Medal of Honor.
Speaker 2: Is the highest military decoration in the United States. It's
Speaker 2: awarded for gallantree and bravery and combat at the risk
Speaker 2: of life, above and beyond the call of duty. Each
Speaker 2: candidate must be approved all the way up the chain
Speaker 2: of command, from the supervisory officer.
Speaker 1: In the field to the White House.
Speaker 2: This show is about those heroes, what they did, what
Speaker 2: it meant, and what their stories tell us about the
Speaker 2: nature of courage and sacrifice. Rick Pittman didn't just go
Speaker 2: to Vietnam. He did something so brave it sounds more
Speaker 2: like a movie like Rambo, but this.
Speaker 1: Is real life.
Speaker 2: But like I said earlier, he shouldn't have even been there.
Speaker 2: According to military rules. He should have been disqualified because
Speaker 2: Rick Pittman was blind in one eye. But this isn't
Speaker 2: a story about his eye. It's about a man who
Speaker 2: felt it was his duty, not just as a Marine,
Speaker 2: but as a person to act and nothing, I mean
Speaker 2: nothing was going to hold him back. When Rick Pittman
Speaker 2: got to Vietnam in the summer of nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 2: the war was picking up. He was part of the
Speaker 2: fifth Marines that trained in California, and when they shipped out,
Speaker 2: reporters were there to watch them go.
Speaker 4: Sixty six was a year of new beginnings. This March
Speaker 4: in the Sun had its beginning ten thousand miles away
Speaker 4: at Camp Pendleton, California, where the fifth Marine Division came
Speaker 4: back into being for the first time since.
Speaker 5: World War Two.
Speaker 4: After a few weeks of intensive training, it would soon
Speaker 4: be on its way to Vietnam to support our total
Speaker 4: military effort.
Speaker 2: Everyone was still so optimistic about this wore Rick loved
Speaker 2: the training. He was just happy to be in the service.
Speaker 2: Here he is talking about it years later, I.
Speaker 3: Mean through survival school and jungle training in the Philippines
Speaker 3: and in Okinawa and all that, it was fun.
Speaker 2: Oh and by the way, that creaky noise you hear,
Speaker 2: that's his leather jacket covered in military patches even decades later.
Speaker 2: This man is a badass. So training was fun, as
Speaker 2: he says. But when the Marines of Company I came
Speaker 2: ashore in Vietnam, Rick felt things shift.
Speaker 3: Just something hit you. This wasn't fun anymore. I mean,
Speaker 3: you were about to go up against an enemy, but
Speaker 3: you couldn't quite comprehend the seriousness of it. But when
Speaker 3: you hit that beach and it ramp drops, it's all business.
Speaker 3: That was the moment that I knew all the fun
Speaker 3: and games, so to speak, was over.
Speaker 2: The man had landed close to the DMZ, the demilitarized
Speaker 2: zone that separated North Vietnam from South Vietnam. The North
Speaker 2: Vietnamese Army or NVA were pushing south, trying to grab
Speaker 2: more territory. The Marines were going to be part of
Speaker 2: something called Operation Hastings.
Speaker 6: Back in May, it became evident that the North Vietnamese
Speaker 6: were building up in this area to the south, to
Speaker 6: the DMZ.
Speaker 2: That's a Major General Lowell, English, who was leading the fight.
Speaker 6: We had reason to believe that there was a division
Speaker 6: command post in this area, and our purpose was to
Speaker 6: find it and to destroy it.
Speaker 2: But the mission to locate the NVA command post wasn't easy.
Speaker 2: On July twenty second, just a few days after they landed,
Speaker 2: Company I faced the enemy in the creek bed.
Speaker 1: Eight marines died.
Speaker 3: We weren't prepared for the consequences of war. It shocked
Speaker 3: me the firsties that we took, and it was like
Speaker 3: the hammer dropping, you know, and people were dying. That
Speaker 3: changes your life from that time forward.
Speaker 2: But Rick still wanted to be there. He felt he
Speaker 2: had no choice morally. That's because of two things. The
Speaker 2: first was John F. Kennedy's inaugural address in nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've heard of it.
Speaker 5: The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to
Speaker 5: this endeavor, we'll light our country and all who serve it,
Speaker 5: and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
Speaker 5: And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country
Speaker 5: can do for you, Ask what you can do for
Speaker 5: your country.
Speaker 3: And I heard him say that, ask not what your
Speaker 3: country can do for you, But what you can do
Speaker 3: for your country. That was motivating to me because it
Speaker 3: made sense. That's why I try to join the service,
Speaker 3: because I was doing something for my country.
Speaker 2: Rick had grown up in a housing project in Stockton, California.
Speaker 2: He was the oldest of four kids. His dad left
Speaker 2: the family when Rick was little, and his mom worked
Speaker 2: multiple jobs, barely scraping by. There wasn't any money for
Speaker 2: Rick to go to college. Regardless, he wanted to serve,
Speaker 2: so when he graduated high school in nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 2: he decided, I'll become a Green Beret and he went
Speaker 2: straight to the Army recruiting center.
Speaker 7: Army was the first physical I had taken, and they said,
Speaker 7: you're out of here.
Speaker 3: You can't to see how you're right. I was kind
Speaker 3: of shocked.
Speaker 1: This kills me.
Speaker 2: I mean, Rick was totally blindsided, no pun intended by
Speaker 2: the news that he couldn't see out of his right eye.
Speaker 2: Why because it never stopped him from doing anything.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I ever knew that I was blind,
Speaker 3: because I did everything I wanted to do. I played baseball, basketball, football, everything,
Speaker 3: and my mother never said, you know, don't do this
Speaker 3: because you're blinding on so I was shocked.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the green Berets were out. So he went
Speaker 2: to the Navy, same deal, then the Air Force, then
Speaker 2: the Marines. Nobody would take him. So now I'm going
Speaker 2: to tell you the second reason Rick was so desperate
Speaker 2: to join the military. He had a brother, Robert, who
Speaker 2: was two years younger than him. They were tight and
Speaker 2: they were super competitive, you know, typical brothers. And in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty five, when Robert graduated, he joined the Marines.
Speaker 3: I said, well, that's it. Because the way I was raised,
Speaker 3: it was my responsibility. I was the older brother. I
Speaker 3: should have been in the service in sixty three, two
Speaker 3: years before him, or a year before him.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Rick wasn't about to let his little brother beat
Speaker 2: him to the punch. So we went back to the
Speaker 2: Marines again and again, and.
Speaker 3: I went to the Marine Corps recruiter so many times.
Speaker 3: The guy just you know, I think he tried to
Speaker 3: get rid of me. He just told me in nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty five, he said, let's try the reserve. Sometimes the
Speaker 3: reserves will lower the qualifications during the time of the
Speaker 3: war and you can get in maybe serving a reserve capacity.
Speaker 3: So I said, okay, the recruiter I had also told me.
Speaker 3: He says, well, you know, when you get the boot camp,
Speaker 3: they ask all the reserves who wants to be a
Speaker 3: regular marine, And he says, if you're really set on
Speaker 3: being a regular, you raise your little pinky and you're
Speaker 3: down the road.
Speaker 2: Now Rick had a plan, and then he upped his
Speaker 2: odds just a little bit more.
Speaker 1: He told this story once to a live audience.
Speaker 7: The final test in those days, before you went into
Speaker 7: the enlistment room was to take an eye test. So
Speaker 7: the examiner told me to cover my right eye and
Speaker 7: read the chart, and they gave you a little paper
Speaker 7: towel you had to cover your eye with. So I
Speaker 7: covered my right eye read the chart, and he said, okay,
Speaker 7: very good, I'll cover the other eye and.
Speaker 3: Read the chart.
Speaker 7: And so I changed hands with the napkin and covered
Speaker 7: my right eye with my left hand.
Speaker 2: And clever Rick made it into the reserves. And then
Speaker 2: he raised his little pinky and got into the core.
Speaker 2: Oh and one of the first things he did when
Speaker 2: he got to Vietnam he figured out where Robert was.
Speaker 2: Turns out he was stationed close by, so Rick went
Speaker 2: and paid him a brotherly visit.
Speaker 1: When I went back to my Company.
Speaker 7: I asked my first ardant about I had heard about
Speaker 7: an old law that two brothers couldn't be in the
Speaker 7: same combat area at the same time, and he checked
Speaker 7: it out and he got me the information. He wanted
Speaker 7: to know why, and I said, go to my brother's
Speaker 7: back at July and the first Arten basically said not anymore.
Speaker 2: Rick got his brother sent back to the States. He
Speaker 2: wanted to serve and he wanted to do it first.
Speaker 2: JFK had asked what Rick could do for his country. Wow,
Speaker 2: he was finally doing something. And on July twenty fourth,
Speaker 2: Rick was a part of Operation Hastings, going into the wilderness,
Speaker 2: finding the enemy and learning what it really meant to
Speaker 2: take action. On July twenty fourth, nineteen sixty six, Rick
Speaker 2: Pittman and the rest of Company I woke up in
Speaker 2: the Jungles of Vietnam with a new set of orders.
Speaker 7: We were told were moving up to set up a
Speaker 7: radio relay point for the whole operation because the area
Speaker 7: that wream was mountainous area with several valleys in between,
Speaker 7: and they need a unit to become a radio relay point.
Speaker 2: In other words, they would be setting up communications deep
Speaker 2: and territory that the NVA had been whole for weeks.
Speaker 2: It was summer and it was hot as they set
Speaker 2: out that morning. Their first challenge was climbing a steep
Speaker 2: hill that led into the wilderness. It was tough going,
Speaker 2: guys scrambling up single file, sometimes on their hands and knees.
Speaker 3: We were supposed to move up this hill to establish
Speaker 3: the radio relay point, and we were just moving up
Speaker 3: a trail. I was the last one in the column.
Speaker 3: I was what they called tailoring Charlie from my squad,
Speaker 3: and I was the last one in the company.
Speaker 1: Rick's job was to guard the rear.
Speaker 2: Yet a sense that NVA soldiers were all around watching
Speaker 2: them make their way into the jungle. Then his squad
Speaker 2: came face to face with three of them.
Speaker 3: We killed one and wounded one and captured one, and
Speaker 3: we reported that, and we just were told to keep
Speaker 3: moving to the front, so we took them with us.
Speaker 1: At the top of the hill was a clearing.
Speaker 2: Below it, on the far side was a jungle trail
Speaker 2: weaving through tall bushes. One by one, the line of
Speaker 2: marines jumped down to follow that path deeper into enemy territory. Suddenly,
Speaker 2: the sound of gunfire echoed through the trees. The front
Speaker 2: of the line had hit an ambush. Dozens of enemy
Speaker 2: soldiers had been hiding and waiting.
Speaker 1: The Marines raced forward to help their brothers.
Speaker 3: Everybody took off to the front, and so I, you know,
Speaker 3: only smoked and took off after him. They were kind
Speaker 3: of jumping off the trail that we were on to
Speaker 3: a lower level.
Speaker 2: Rick got to the jump off point ready to follow.
Speaker 2: Then someone caught his eye.
Speaker 3: There was a guy sitting there with the machine gun
Speaker 3: and some ammunition, and I could hear, you know, marines
Speaker 3: calling for more firepower and help.
Speaker 2: That marine with the machine gun wasn't moving, even though
Speaker 2: the guys down the trail needed help.
Speaker 1: Rick couldn't believe it.
Speaker 3: I guess. I asked him if he was going to
Speaker 3: use it or whatever. He didn't give me an answer,
Speaker 3: So I just took the machine gun from him and
Speaker 3: some ammunition, and then me and a corman started off
Speaker 3: after the rest of their company.
Speaker 2: The two men raced toward the gunfire. A corman is
Speaker 2: a medic, so the guy has called him Doc.
Speaker 3: I told Doc not to move unless I moved first.
Speaker 3: I'm going to go. I'm going to fire, then you
Speaker 3: come up. I don't know exactly what happened. The next
Speaker 3: thing I knew, Doc is over me. He jumped over me,
Speaker 3: and he's going down the trail and he he gets
Speaker 3: hit and he was killed. I took those positions under
Speaker 3: fire that killed him and was able to destroy them,
Speaker 3: and then continued farther on towards the front of the company.
Speaker 3: And when I got up to where the I guess
Speaker 3: the main elements werever just casualties everywhere, wounded and killed,
Speaker 3: and I was firing wherever the fire was coming from.
Speaker 3: I just continued to go forward and marines everywhere. They're
Speaker 3: in a prone position, but some of them firing with
Speaker 3: one arm, some of them laying on their sides even
Speaker 3: though they're wounded, and some seriously they're still continuing to fire.
Speaker 1: Rick couldn't stop to help any of them.
Speaker 2: He had to keep pushing to the front where the
Speaker 2: NVA soldiers were concentrated.
Speaker 3: Actually, remember somebody screaming, we need more firepower, and it
Speaker 3: turns out I had the last functioning machine gun.
Speaker 2: He kept shooting and moving forward. Gunfire was coming at
Speaker 2: him from three sides.
Speaker 3: When I got to the where I thought was the
Speaker 3: front of the unit, my gun ran on ammunition. I
Speaker 3: just opened the gun, refed a new belt in it,
Speaker 3: closed it. In my mind at that time, it was
Speaker 3: like the war had just stopped. I don't recall any
Speaker 3: conscious thing. I don't recall any noises, I don't recall
Speaker 3: anything at that time. When I was changing the belt
Speaker 3: in the gun and then I loaded it, I looked
Speaker 3: up and there were North Vietnamese coming right at me.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't even know how many, thirty to
Speaker 3: forty whatever, I know there was a lot. And it
Speaker 3: was like the best way I can explain this, it
Speaker 3: was like we surprised each other. Turns out the lull
Speaker 3: and the fighting was is that. I guess they had
Speaker 3: thought they had either killed or wounded everyone, and they
Speaker 3: were just waiting to see if there was any more
Speaker 3: fire coming, if anybody was moving, or you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know what, but they sent maybe a platoon up
Speaker 3: to find out what the hell's going on, you know,
Speaker 3: and then it just boom, I'm there and they're there,
Speaker 3: and so you know, it just started shooting.
Speaker 2: It was like the sounds of war instantly went from
Speaker 2: mute to deafening. Shouts and bullets ripped the air. As
Speaker 2: Rick tried to hold off the enemy.
Speaker 3: My machine gun took a couple of rounds and quit fire,
Speaker 3: and I thought that was it. I checked it, and
Speaker 3: I looked up and there was the Vietnamese and I
Speaker 3: didn't have a gun, and right almost at my feet
Speaker 3: was an AK forty seven. So I just assumed that
Speaker 3: it was ready to fire, and luckily for me, it was.
Speaker 3: And so I kept firing with the AK forty seven
Speaker 3: until it ran out of ammo. And then I had
Speaker 3: a forty five from somewhere, and I kept shooting the
Speaker 3: forty five and then I was out of ammo.
Speaker 2: Just in case you weren't following along, he shot a
Speaker 2: thirty pound machine gun, then an AK forty seven, then
Speaker 2: a pistol, all while standing in the jungle at the
Speaker 2: front of the line alone, until Rick ran out of ammunition.
Speaker 3: It was an old, damn, what I'm going to do
Speaker 3: now kind of thoughts, you know.
Speaker 1: But he wasn't about to stop, not Rick.
Speaker 3: I had a grenade, and after the explosion, they just left.
Speaker 3: I don't know whether they pulled back I killed them
Speaker 3: all or I don't know, you know, they just slept.
Speaker 2: The jungle got a little quieter, and in that silence,
Speaker 2: Rick looked around him.
Speaker 3: Seemed like there were casualties everywhere.
Speaker 2: It was a miracle he was still alive. During the firefight,
Speaker 2: his helmet was shot off. The survivors started the grim
Speaker 2: work of dragging the wounded up the trail they needed
Speaker 2: to get them to the top of the hill. It
Speaker 2: was the only place with enough of a clearing for
Speaker 2: a helicopter to land, their only chance to metavac out.
Speaker 3: I tried to help wound you guys and get some
Speaker 3: guys out. Our radio man was wounded severely, but he
Speaker 3: begged me not to move him, so I just pulled
Speaker 3: him off the side of the trail and covered him
Speaker 3: up with brush.
Speaker 2: When the helicopters came, they took fire from the NBA.
Speaker 2: The choppers couldn't land, so the men dug trenches and
Speaker 2: settled in for the night. It was pouring rain, and
Speaker 2: then suddenly a mortarshell hit the crest of the hill,
Speaker 2: dropping among them wounded. Some got injured, even more others died.
Speaker 2: Dawn came and the choppers tried again. They were able
Speaker 2: to lower cormen to help the wounded. They also dropped
Speaker 2: chainsaws so the survivors could clear space for them. To land,
Speaker 2: and amazingly there was a camera crew recording the rescue.
Speaker 8: Anyway, helicopters it again.
Speaker 3: This time we're on our white side.
Speaker 9: A lot of hell's up here.
Speaker 8: Drop off rout.
Speaker 7: The next day was probably the hardest day because we
Speaker 7: actually were treating our wounded and recovering our dead marines,
Speaker 7: and to see the body bags was.
Speaker 3: The hardest thing.
Speaker 2: And then the survivors settled in for another night they
Speaker 2: would hike back out.
Speaker 1: On July twenty sixth.
Speaker 3: When we walked out, there wasn't There wasn't many of us.
Speaker 2: Two hundred and thirty Marines had gone up that hill
Speaker 2: two days earlier, only seventy six return. Rick had acted
Speaker 2: with undeniable bravery, but he would never stop wondering if
Speaker 2: he had done enough. Rick finished out his tour in Vietnam.
Speaker 2: He wanted to stay in the Marines, make a career
Speaker 2: out of it, but there was his bad right eye
Speaker 2: getting in the way again.
Speaker 3: I got an eye infection from a parasite that I
Speaker 3: had brought home from Vietnam, and when the ophtalmologist saw
Speaker 3: my bright eye, he went what we called the Marine
Speaker 3: Corps high and right. Man. I want to know what
Speaker 3: I was doing how long I had been in the
Speaker 3: Marine Corps, where I had been, how long did I
Speaker 3: have left on my enlistment, and that I should have
Speaker 3: never been in the Marine Corps. Well, that was on
Speaker 3: deaf fears, because I knew that.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, Rick knew he was blind in one eye.
Speaker 2: It was even in his official paperwork. By then, he'd
Speaker 2: been promoted, done all the right things. But in the military,
Speaker 2: a rule is a rule, even for a guy who
Speaker 2: stood in the middle of a jungle trail and fought
Speaker 2: to the last bullet.
Speaker 3: They medically discharged me for.
Speaker 7: Being disqualified didn't meet the eye requirement, And so I
Speaker 7: was a tad perturbed by that, and I had some
Speaker 7: choice words with the review board.
Speaker 2: Nothing he said made any difference. By then, Rick was
Speaker 2: married to a young woman named Jerry Burke. He had
Speaker 2: met her years before, back when she was still in
Speaker 2: Pigtails hanging out with his sister. They moved his Stockton
Speaker 2: and Rick looked for a new job, but he wasn't
Speaker 2: having any luck. Then one day he noticed his car
Speaker 2: was being tailed.
Speaker 3: One afternoon, I was on my way back home and
Speaker 3: I noticed this Marine Corps sedan behind me, And when
Speaker 3: I would turn, it would turn. You know. As I
Speaker 3: was going back to my apartment, I thought, holy socks,
Speaker 3: and this is sixty eight. You know, a lot of
Speaker 3: guys going to Canada. I thought, oh my god, these
Speaker 3: people think I'm a deserter.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I went all the way home and I went in
Speaker 3: my apartment, and that probably wasn't this fast, but I remember,
Speaker 3: I think my hand was still on the doorknob and
Speaker 3: there was a knock on the door.
Speaker 2: It was three men in uniform. Rick was a polite guy,
Speaker 2: so he invited them in.
Speaker 3: I said, well, what is this about? And they said,
Speaker 3: we're going to tell you something that you can tell
Speaker 3: no one else except your wife obviously. And then they
Speaker 3: said we're going to be flying you to Washington, Deceit
Speaker 3: to receive the Metal honor. And I mean, I couldn't
Speaker 3: comprehend for what, you know, I didn't, I had no clue.
Speaker 1: They asked if he wanted them to read the citation
Speaker 1: as proof. He did.
Speaker 3: At first, I had a hard time remember what the
Speaker 3: hell a they talking about. I didn't know if they
Speaker 3: were talking about me or they were talking about somebody else.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it turns out it was me.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it was him. He didn't think he had
Speaker 1: been all that brave.
Speaker 3: Things happened so fast that your training just took over.
Speaker 3: You just, you know, you just react. I just reacted.
Speaker 2: Soon he and Jerry were heading to Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: His mom and his siblings went to even his little brother, Robert,
Speaker 2: who was still in the Marines. Would you have to
Speaker 2: imagine made Rick crazy. President Lyndon B. Johnson welcomed them
Speaker 2: to the White House. The ceremony took place on May fourteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 8: Sergeant Pittman quickly exchanged his rifle for a machine gun
Speaker 8: and several belts of ammunition, left the relative safety of
Speaker 8: his position, and unhesitatingly rushed forward to aid his comrades.
Speaker 3: The whole time, I just couldn't I couldn't believe it
Speaker 3: was me. I mean, it's you know, their poor kid
Speaker 3: from stock in California stand in front of the President
Speaker 3: of the United States. I guess I was stuttering, you know,
Speaker 3: and he just said, just relax on, this won't take long.
Speaker 9: They will place their names now in a new Hall
Speaker 9: of Heroes as a memorial to all who have earned
Speaker 9: their country's high stowed for courage in combat.
Speaker 3: And then we came back to Stockton, unemployed and back
Speaker 3: to reality.
Speaker 1: After that, he tried to become a police officer.
Speaker 2: That had been another childhood dream, just a different way
Speaker 2: to do something for his country, but he was turned down.
Speaker 2: Why the eye. He was working as a truck driver
Speaker 2: when two other Medal of Honor recipients came knocking on
Speaker 2: his door.
Speaker 7: Colonel Van Winkle and First Stardant Howard Jimmy Hard came
Speaker 7: to my home and said, we heard you'd like to
Speaker 7: go back in the Marine Corps, back.
Speaker 3: On active duty.
Speaker 7: I said, no, I can't because of the eye requirements,
Speaker 7: and they said, well that can change. A month or
Speaker 7: so later, the Commandant of the Marine Corps waved the
Speaker 7: eye requirements for me and I was able to reenlist
Speaker 7: and stay in until October nineteen eighty eight when I retired.
Speaker 1: You mean that's all it took.
Speaker 2: Back in the Marines, he worked as a recruiter and
Speaker 2: a military policeman. It's worth noting that very few Medal
Speaker 2: of Honor recipients re enlist, but the Marines felt like
Speaker 2: home to Rick.
Speaker 3: To me, there's nothing better to have done a job
Speaker 3: and to have done it well. The Marine Corps only
Speaker 3: enhanced that. The Marine Corps. They tell you to do something,
Speaker 3: even if it's wrong, but do something. Don't just sit there.
Speaker 3: You can't. To me, you might as well bellinum sighting
Speaker 3: on the house.
Speaker 1: Don't just sit there. It's kind of Rick's motto.
Speaker 2: Despite his medal, he never thought of himself any differently,
Speaker 2: certainly not as a hero.
Speaker 3: There's nothing special about a Medal of Honor recipient. We're
Speaker 3: just Joe Blow, so to speak. We just a guy
Speaker 3: at that sat on the bench during high school, you know,
Speaker 3: never got to start a game, or a guy that
Speaker 3: carried towels, the guy that just sat there in class
Speaker 3: and never voiced an opinion or raised his hand. I'm
Speaker 3: just a guy who has a medal, and that's that's
Speaker 3: all I am.
Speaker 2: In the fall of nineteen eighty two, the Vietnam War
Speaker 2: Memorial was erected in Washington, DC. Rick Pittman went to
Speaker 2: see it, and that's when he finally realized how many
Speaker 2: men had died in that ambush.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to find out until I went to
Speaker 3: the Vietnam Memorial to the wall, and when I saw
Speaker 3: a couple of names that I knew, and they were
Speaker 3: in my squad, and then the day of the action,
Speaker 3: and then all the names that were right there together
Speaker 3: differentult helped it shocked, just because we were all buddies,
Speaker 3: you know, we were all close, and there was a lot,
Speaker 3: just a lot of cash.
Speaker 2: He was haunted by the feeling that he hadn't done enough,
Speaker 2: but then something happened that helped him see the value
Speaker 2: in what he had been able to do. A friend
Speaker 2: called him and told him to look at the most
Speaker 2: recent issue of leather Neck magazine and.
Speaker 1: A marine from company.
Speaker 2: I talked about how Rick had saved his life on
Speaker 2: that jungle trail in nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 3: I always wondered, I have a metal, but did it
Speaker 3: do any good? You know, especially after I saw the
Speaker 3: number of people who had been killed the mound that
Speaker 3: I just always said, you know, what was it worth?
Speaker 3: And then you find out that you know, it was
Speaker 3: worth a lot. A lot of people wouldn't be here,
Speaker 3: a lot of families wouldn't be here if not for
Speaker 3: my contribution. So I feel good about that, but it's
Speaker 3: still painful to hear the citation.
Speaker 2: He finally started to feel not exactly worthy, but useful,
Speaker 2: and being useful had always been the point. I mean,
Speaker 2: he sure wasn't going to sit there like aluminum sighting.
Speaker 2: Rick had four daughters and a lot of grandkids, and
Speaker 2: they were all absolutely devoted to each other. His girl
Speaker 2: saw him as ten feet tall and bulletproof. He was
Speaker 2: their personal hero. He passed away in twenty sixteen at
Speaker 2: the age of seventy one. Rick Pittman believed that you
Speaker 2: couldn't just sit there and do nothing, not on the
Speaker 2: battlefield and not in life, no matter what people tell
Speaker 2: you about your abilities, no matter if they think you
Speaker 2: can or not. Rick believed in defending freedom the way
Speaker 2: JFK had envisioned it back in nineteen sixty one. How
Speaker 2: the glow from that fire could truly light the world.
Speaker 3: When you're preserving someone else's freedoms, I think you're preserving
Speaker 3: your own. You're helping to preserve your own.
Speaker 1: To him, it was the point of America.
Speaker 3: The whole thing about this country is freedom. The very
Speaker 3: basic rights that human beings have is what this country's
Speaker 3: all about. I mean, it's so basically we even wrote
Speaker 3: it down in our constitution and in our laws and everything.
Speaker 3: It's there. Freedom of the piss, freedom of speech, freedom
Speaker 3: to the symbol freedom. Break down the line, and you know,
Speaker 3: if we're not careful, we could lose that.
Speaker 2: Don't just sit there, he would tell you protect it.
Speaker 2: Thank you all for listening and supporting our show. Over
Speaker 2: the past year, we've gotten emails from some of you
Speaker 2: sharing great stories of courage. We want to shout out
Speaker 2: Lisa Cavalari's great uncle, Marine John Joseph Kelly. Kelly received
Speaker 2: the Army and Navy Medal of Honor for his actions
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighteen during World War One. He was one
Speaker 2: of seven Kelly brothers, some of whom also served in
Speaker 2: World War One. Thank you for sharing, Lisa. If you
Speaker 2: have stories or people you'd like to highlight, email us
Speaker 2: at Medal of Honor at pushkin dot fm. Your participation
Speaker 2: helps us make great episodes, so please follow the show,
Speaker 2: share it with a friend, or leave a review. These
Speaker 2: are all zero cost ways to support us. Find us
Speaker 2: on social media at pushkin pots or find me at IMJR.
Speaker 1: Martinez Medal of Honor.
Speaker 2: Stories of Courage is written by Meredith Rollins and produced
Speaker 2: by Meredith Rollins and Ryan Schwiker. Our editor is Lydia
Speaker 2: jen Kott. Sound design by Jake Gorski. Our executive producer
Speaker 2: is Constanza Gayaddo. Fact checking by Arthur Gomperts, original music
Speaker 2: by Eric Phillips. Special thanks to the Congressional Medal of
Speaker 2: Honor Society and the Pritsker Military Museum. They have a
Speaker 2: series of interviews with Medal of Honor recipients on their website.
Speaker 2: Just visit Pritzker Military Museum dot org. That link is
Speaker 2: in our show notes, where we also list other resources
Speaker 2: we use to put this episode together. I'm your host, JR. Martinez.
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