"If that bullet would have been three feet, five feet closer! Wouldn't be here." (video interview, 31:31)
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John Vincent Pletz
John Pletz [2007]
War: Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Branch: Coast Guard Service Location: San Francisco and Eureka, California; Cape May, New Jersey; Groton, Connecticut; Da Nang, Vietnam Rank: Petty Officer Second Class Place of Birth: MN
Attracted by admittedly a romantic view of the Coast Guard, John Pletz chose to
enlist in that service in 1965 when he was drafted by the Army. He discovered his personal
limits during a survival training course but still decided he would volunteer for an
assignment to Vietnam. There, he helped man a patrol boat which was on the lookout for civilian
boats carrying contraband. His closest brush with armed fire came in the form of an
artillery shell which shook him up and disabled the boat, while his boat was being repaired,
Pletz took some R and R in Japan, where he adopted a "short-timer" mentality toward the war,
questioning the eventual outcome of the U.S.military's actions.