![]() But I also resented him, justly or not, for allowing some of those demons to get the best of him. I loved and admired my father for all that he gave me and all that he endured, for the physical and psychological battles he waged for decades. My dad and Iįather and son relationships can be among the most complicated in life. Suddenly, I get a similar feeling in my stomach, the kind of jolt that takes your breath away. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for your dad,” he tells me over the phone. ‘I want a drink of water.’ … ‘Am I going to be OK?’ … ‘Is this it?’” “You’re gasping for air and funny things go through your Head. ![]() You can’t breathe, but it’s probably 20 times that feeling,” Martinez tells me 53 years later. “The impact of getting hit is like when you get punched in the stomach. With a gaping hole in his chest, Martinez seemed destined for the same fate as the soldier he had just tried to save. The force of the bullet hurled Martinez 10 feet before his 145-pound body crashed to the Binh Duong soil, his vision blurred, his hearing temporarily lost. Two somehow missed, but a third took his breath - and nearly his life - away. His rifle out of reach, Martinez grabbed his 45-caliber pistol but barely lifted his arm before he heard three rapid-fire shots. ![]() His heart racing, he glanced to his right and saw a North Vietcong sniper about six feet away in tall weeds. A tree branch broke, the same ominous sound he heard so many times in his his first six months in Vietnam.
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