The “that” Woody speaks of is Mike’s combination of physical strength, energy, and tenacity, which are also the things that saved Mike’s life – and the lives of two others (his commanding officer, SEAL Lt. Thomas R. Norris, and a South Vietnamese commando) – nearly 37-years-ago.
On Halloween 1972, Mike was with a joint American-South Vietnamese SEAL Team operating along the Qua Viet River in North Vietnam when the team was discovered and quickly surrounded by an enemy force that outnumbered them at least 10 to one.
Mike was wounded in the ensuing five-hour extremely close firefight.
The good guys tried to escape by fighting their way back to the beach. But when they regrouped near the water’s edge, Mike was informed by another team-member that Norris had been killed.
So Mike did the unthinkable: he raced back toward the enemy through a hailstorm of gunfire and grenades across several-hundred-yards to Norris’s last known position. There he found his commander’s seemingly lifeless form, shot in the head, and two enemy soldiers standing over him.
Mike killed the two soldiers, lifted Norris onto his shoulders, and doubled-back, dodging enemy bullets and grenades as well as incoming friendly Naval gunfire from the offshore USS Newport News.
When he hit the water, Mike tied Norris to his body and started swimming. Rounds were zinging past his head and zipping into the water all around him. When he saw one of the South Vietnamese commandos shot in the hip and unable to swim, Mike grabbed him too. Then – with both men strapped to his body – he swam for more than two hours before the three wounded men were rescued.
For his actions, Mike received the Medal of Honor.
Did he think he was going to die?
“I didn’t have time to think about it,” he said sipping a Starbuck’s dark-roast blend with a shot of espresso. “What I did know is that if I had left Tommy, I would have never been able to live with myself.”
And therein lies two of Mike’s other attributes – humility and a desire to sacrifice himself for his fellow man – two ingredients found in all 95 living recipients of the Medal of Honor, and their deceased 3,351 brothers and one sister (Civil War surgeon Mary Walker, whose Medal was rescinded and reinstated).
In Sept. 2010, America will pay tribute to its Medal of Honor recipients at the Medal of Honor Society’s national convention in Charleston, just down the road from where Mike and I met for coffee. What I find particularly interesting is that many of those planning and raising money for the event are the recipients themselves. And they’re doing it not for themselves, but to make sure the convention is a huge success and that it pays equal tribute to every single American soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, and Coast Guardsman serving today.
So, yes, Mike may be the biggest, baddest man in the house. But like his 94 fellow living-recipients, he’s also the most humble and self-sacrificing.