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.
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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