Bouchard, James

Navy

"So we got into a helicopter. And I tried to help one of the Marines there. And I tried doing mouth-to-mouth and stuff. … whoever was in back with us … said, ‘Doc, they're all dead. There's no sense in doing anything.’ I just burst in tears."

Description of Interview:

James Bouchard grew up in northern Maine, and spent summers at the family marina in Eagle Lake, Maine. He was “used to boats and loved the water,” so he joined the Navy in February 1967. After boot camp and Navy Corpsman school at Great Lakes, Illinois, Frenchie (as he was called at boot camp), was assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Randolph (CV-15), and did a Mediterranean cruise. He was then assigned to Fleet Marine Force, Camp Lejeune, and sent to Vietnam as a corpsman with Fox Company, 2d Battalion, 7th Marines. Bouchard recalls the bars of Rome and Rota, a gentleman getting blown into the prop of a plane on the deck of an aircraft carrier, the “horrendous bleeding.” He describes getting shot, being medevacked to Japan, and returning to Vietnam, to the 1st Medical Battalion in Da Nang. He remembers a triage assignment where a nine-year-old Vietnamese boy died, and being called a baby-killer when he came home. He fondly remembers fishing with grenades, and wanting walking catfish for the poor in Dogpatch.

Key Words: Fort Kent, Maine, Granby, Massachusetts, marina, Eagle Lake, corpsman, Great Lakes, Illinois, color company, Frenchie, corps school, pharmacology, USS Randolph (CV-15), aircraft carrier, flight deck corpsman, Unit 1, first aid kit, airdale, Stokes stretcher, Mediterranean cruise, Naples, Italy, liberty launch, Rome, Italy, Rota, Spain, Fleet Marine Force, Camp Lejeune, Operation HEAT STRESS, Guantanamo Bay, biological masks, biological impermeable clothing, electronic thermometer, non-mercury thermometers, Operation RIVERINE, intercoastal waterways, South Carolina, Da Nang, Dai Loc Pass, 2d Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, rock apes, LZ Baldy, LZ Ross, China Beach, CCR (Creedence Clearwater Revival), morphine syrette, 95th Evac, Yokosuka Naval Hospital, Japan, battalion aid station, Tokyo Tower, Stars and Stripes, triage, 1st Medical Battalion, Dogpatch, USS Forrestal (CVA-59), Apollo landing, Woodstock, American Red Cross, Presque Isle, Maine, PTSD, Military Order of the Purple Heart, VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars), DAV (Disabled American Veterans), Togus, Maine, North Hampton, Death Valley, Hiep Duc Valley
 
Key Names: Dr. Wilkes, Dean Johnson, Sergeant Newman, Paul Baytop, (Charles Herbert) Heintz, Phil Brown, Keith Nolan, Keith Hart, John Dingess, Tony Sosi, Dr. Don D'Amato
 
Interview Date:
June 16, 2022
 
Service Date:
1967-1970
 
Unit: 
Fox Company, 2d Battalion, 7th Marines
 
Specialty:
Corpsman
 
Service Location:

Da Nang, Dai Loc Pass, LZ Baldy, LZ Ross, Death Valley (Neip Duc), I Corps

 
 

Read the Complete Transcript of this Interview.