A doctor saved a Marine’s life in Vietnam. A photo just reunited them.

[oldbrownhat]

WaPo gift article here

"...In 2018, Mayer Katz read Mark Bowden's book "Hué 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam." It was the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive...

At the end of the book, Katz, who had been a U.S. Army surgeon with a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital unit near Hué, encountered an iconic photo... The image...showed bleeding Marines on top of a tank serving as a makeshift ambulance during the fighting in Hué...

In the foreground of the photo was the body of a prostrate young private with a corpsman tending to his chest wound. The caption identified the Marine as A.B. Grantham.

The name rang a bell with Katz, now 85. The retired doctor living in Rehoboth Beach, Del., rummaged through old files and found what he was looking for: a logbook of surgeries with the 22nd Surgical Hospital in Phu Bai, a U.S. air base near Hué. There, under Feb. 17, 1968 — the same date the photo was taken — were the medical details of A.B. Grantham's operation..."

A.B. Grantham and Mayer Katz at Katz's Delaware home in September. (Dianna Grantham)

 

[moosedog]

Great reunion, great post. Thanks.

 

[shovelmike]

Did my heart good

I love to read stories like this.
I am not a veteran myself, but have many in the family...most have passed on.
My late brother in law served in a medical unit near Saigon, and worked to save as many as he could.

 

[Old cop]

I served as a Navy Corpsman in Nam & this transported me back to 1966.

 

[ACORN]

A great story! Thanks for posting!

 

[SnidelyWhiplash]

Awesome story and reunion…this time under better circumstances. God Bless them and all who served.

 

[wilkoi]

Outstanding.

 

[Retired W4]

I knew i had seen that photo before. It was taken by Sp4 John Olson, US Army. Specialist Olson won the Robert Capa award from the Overseas Press Club for that picture. Olson spent a lot of time in Hue covering that battle armed with his camera.

 

[oldbrownhat]

I knew i had seen that photo before. It was taken by Sp4 John Olson, US Army. Specialist Olson won the Robert Capa award from the Overseas Press Club for that picture. Olson spent a lot of time in Hue covering that battle armed with his camera.

From the article:

"...The bleeding Grantham was hauled to safety and laid on an M-48 tank — at least according to Bowden, Grantham and John Olson, a photographer for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. By this version of events, other injured men joined him on the makeshift ambulance. That's when Olson snapped one of the most stirring images of the Vietnam War.

Olson was also a stringer for Life magazine, which ran the photo across two pages in the March 6, 1968, issue.

"I remember the tank, I remember the lens I shot it with, but I don't remember taking the photo," Olson said. "I have very little memory of that moment. It was all a blur."​

 

[Retired W4]

Olson's photos really captured the essence of the war. I have a copy of "Larry Burrows Vietnam" and it is hard to look through, especially if you experienced the horrors of the war first hand.

We had a MASH type hospital with the inflatable quonset hut just North of our company area. Those folks saved a lot of lives in a relatively primitive setting.