LT Michael Thornton, U.S. Navy SEAL, Medal of Honor (Full Interview)

our guest this week on Veterans Chronicles is Vietnam veteran Mike Thornton he also served as a Navy SEAL and as a recipient of the Medal of Honor and Mike thanks very much for your time with us today we appreciate it don't you give her happiness let's start at the beginning of your story where were you born and raised I was born in Greenville South Carolina as my father said that at the young age of six month I called Lord of Spartanburg and I was raised in the Spartanburg area and was there a family history of service family yes my father he served in World War two from 37 to 46 all my uncles were all in the military so I always knew I had dyslexia really bad always jaws when we go in the military I just said no win of course when Vietnam came up it if you didn't have good grades you're on your way to join the army but I always wanted to be a Navy frogman and so I joined to be a UDT and I wanted then I went on an order to Malusi go why did you always want to be a frogman so the movie the five Sutherland brothers and it's about Laborde from Portland Oregon they all died trying to save each other and I that's why my father brought us of the family was everything my dad only had a sixth grade education but you know the family always came first and how they risked each other all their lives to say their older brother who was a Dunning in the engine department when the ship blew up and then I saw it crazy move with Richard Widmark the you DTS in Korea I said that's me because I was a very good swimmer a good athlete but I had dyslexia so bad I I knew I study and harden and they my family know I studied hard but I didn't have the idea that we had things back then we just thought we were done but as we know now today there's a lot of Brie of people with dyslexia how old were you when you joined the Navy I joined on the 120-day program I was actually 17 years old and I went in right after the summer and went to join the USS bruster and they decommissioned it and that way I opened up a door to go into bud strain so it's held on the water didn't wish to recruit training back then and later on and the seventies uh became buds basically when all the demolition SEAL team training he joined in 67 yes sir seven yesterday talked about buds training seals training I mean that's the most intense it was we started off with 129 guys in my class and we actually graduated with 12 for more rolled back to the next class and which is something that you'll never forget and it's uh you know like you say it's very intense very hard and when somebody tells me though they want to buzz and I said what class you're in he said I don't remember well if you ever went was he ever went to UDT SEAL training you would remember you never forget that so I I just look at him what kind of shaved my head and laugh and walk away but it was it's a common robbery of each other that you know that you'll never forget the rest of your lives and though many of these guys are still very close friends of mine even 50 something years later so they test you in a number of different ways but talk about how they test your camaraderie in that moment hey you know my father taught me something long time.i if it's the bee is up to me you know and you used to hear these guys they quit they ring the bell three times on why'd you ring the bell well my friend rang the bell well he's not your friend if he's ringing the bell going with this type of train what happens when the bullets are flying and the grenades are being tossed and all that those are the those are the friends that you count on and that's what the whole mission is it's not about me it's about us about the team is about what we all believe in and we would all give our lives for the other guy which which we'd done many many times throughout my tours of Vietnam so you never thought about ringing the bell no never what happened after you completed SEAL training I went to seal team one I wanted to be a navy frogmen I knew we'd even though we went through train that SIL team one was and I said I want to be a navy frogmen and some of our guys went to UDT UDT 11 12 and 13 and I went with myself and how Kuykendall and might look cause and Timmy O'Farrell and a bunch other guys we all went to silting and we all did tours together in Vietnam or so it was a kind of like the training class was still together even though we were in Vietnam we were in different positions but we were all they're always there for each other now the action for which you were awarded the Medal of Honor took place on your fourth tour court in Vietnam describe your responsibilities and where you were on the first three the other time I was over there aboard the bruster and after that I went over was Charlie Company which is a SEAL team which might look oz and how the Kuykendall and a bunch of Kenny Mars and other you have white Hampton a bunch of the guys were in my training class that went with us and then the next tour I was actually in Thailand and Laos working of course we weren't there during those period of time and and then I went back to Vietnam and I didn't have to go back the CEO asked me to please would I go back over there and it took six brand-new kids had never done beaming them and back to Vietnam to bring them back alive and with the grace of God they're all about called a lot what were you doing and Thailand and Laos can't really talk about that cause actually were like sick we weren't really there okay it came out 25 years later you know so it was Declassified of course it's kind of hard to see what you know it's not like they got a big sign up there saying hey don't cross this line or something like that so of course we found out we had several metal of Honor recipients receive the medal after the declassification of the operations Air Force and stuff and Laurel are pops and stuff like that all right so it's your fourth to her it's 1972 October 31st Halloween 1972 how did the day start actually it started pretty easy only two people really knew about the operation was Tommy Norris and myself I had hadn't picked the two of the Vietnamese sails ldeas I had worked with on previous tours of Vietnam even when I was in Thailand I'd still go to Vietnam to help out and didn't go back to Thailand of course working for MACD making that a period of time and and then when it was named dang in the old was named Kwan and great guys they were very very combat ready they had been in many many firefights yet to think we were over there for six months to a year these guys have spent their whole life fighting a war you know so and then I iced to be a Commodore Shively was our in charge of all the special navy operation taking me was in charge with to tie up which was a commanding officer of all the Vietnamese sales and the the time the head of the head of military forces that want to surround this operation up and near quad yet that the NVA had already taken over Quan tree in way City and we were trying to push them back September of 1972 they pulled all the military forces out of Vietnam with the exception of Navy SEALs Army Special Forces marine recon and we run all the operations in with the support of the Royal Marines of Vietnamese Royal Marines and also the Vietnamese Army and then we had the Navy supported us with aircraft and also ships and so did the Air Force and the army so 18 was stuff like that to help their their air power support and all of that and so we went up north myself and Tommy and nobody knew where we were going they said Tommy and I and you know the Commodore and I we went 15 miles out and took a left turn and would pass north vietnam and we will be vectored in by the USS Morgan in Newport News but we didn't know about the Newport News had to leave their sight because they had been heavily hid Jaquan tree and they went down to give gunfire support to the city or country to help them hold back the NVA then North Vietnamese Army and so they vectored us in and vectors where they shoot an azimuth from the ship 15 miles off and they shoot it and so if you're one degree off 15 miles away it's quite a difference and we they put us actually into the past north of the DMZ and they thought it was the claw viet river but it was actually the viet ben hai river which was in north vietnam and so we inserted and everything else is history we did what we call a horseshoe you go five klicks and we own five plates of north and five klicks back out and hit the ocean and we could and we were trying to do a body snatch called some best way of Intel as kids capturing somebody and then you you know the most up-to-date intelligence at that period of time and we thought we was doing pretty good we had her we caught capture one guy and I had to eliminate the other guy and then we got surrounded and and we're all wounded and except Tommy was shot in the head and lost his eye and his frontal part of his brain I was hit seven times and Quan was hit once but his lost his whole right unit his buttocks and dane was hit several times in his back so but here we are today Wow so you talked about the body snatch mm-hmm and then the one I believe that tried to run if I remember correct yeah AJ and you pursued him I pursued him and I chased him down and I I shot him twice and he fell to the far as I know he was eliminated as well to say and then when I looked up all of everybody was after me and Tommy came off the top of this bunker and shot a law rocket into the trees he wasn't trying to hit anything he was just trying to a diversion so I could escape back across the creek back up to our there's no bird to be safe basically so we we engaged approximately 75 bad guys during that period of time before of you yeah well the Thai officer never shot one round the whole time he he was told he had been combat ready but it came to find out later on that he had never been in a firefight in his life and but that was a different issue he did his best I put Kwan over on my eastern flank which had the ocean if they tried to fight me that I was out on the point I had a big lagoon on the other side Tommy and dangler on top of the bunker which is approximately 25 feet tall and actually it was a tunnel down inside of it so if there was gunfire pork coming in from the Navy shooting into there because they knew was they would go down into that tunnel and white out to the they quit fire then they'd come back out Mike let's take a quick break in your story we'll be right back with much more with Mike Thornton recipient of the Medal of Honor from Vietnam veterans chronicles our guest on veteran's chronicles is Mike Thornton he's a veteran of Vietnam u.s. Navy SEAL and recipient of the Medal of Honor were in the middle of the story of the action that earned him the Medal of Honor and Mike you were talking about how this Rapid Response Unit was coming back at you out of the villa village you had protection from your two other combat ready for hen's yeah he had a lagoon on one side ocean over here yeah and but it's still essentially three on seventy-five yeah well actually it was four was Tommy dang dang had the radio then Quan and me and actually at the rear security we had we can see as far as the eye could see we actually see the bin Hong River which is in North Vietnam but five hundred yards from there was a sand dune just by itself and during the firefight I had already been wounded six times and at that period of time I was the only one that had been wounded with shrapnel wounds from a grenade Tommy told me to fall back with Quan and tie the young Vietnamese officer and we fell back and he was go he was as we retracted back Tommy was go keep the bad guys chasing us and we would support his retraction back to the sand dune because I gave us 500 meters on the five hundred yards of just open Beach there was nothing in between us of course during the firefight they had dunes all over the place so they would come over here or come over there and what I'd do I'd roll over here and eliminate several people then I'd fall back and eliminate throw a couple grenades and I'd move up so I gave him a false pretense about how many people we really had they didn't know if we had 20 or three or four you know but I by me moving around and different coming in different areas and eliminating those guys that gave him all false pretense about how many people we had because they knew they were Tommy was firing from up there on top of that thing and dang was up there shooting - even though Tommy was on the radio with getting communications with later on that actually actually picked us up off the coast of North Vietnam you also mentioned the shrapnel wounds he suffered from a grenade I saw another presentation you made where you explained how this grenade took a lot longer - yeah go often to you and the enemy were kind of throwing it back and forth we and we had captured a lot of grenades and it was very it wasn't like American grenade 1,000 2,000 3,000 boom 4,000 this one you would pull the pan which was a like a match and when you did it it'd go off in 18,000 or 28,000 so I knew I had enough time to throw it back and forth but when they came back over the for the fifth time on my side I said this thing's going to blow off because I was already at 26,000 when I rolled over the grenade went off and I was wounded I yelled out and tommy was yelling Mike buddy Mike buddy you know I never said another word and I just laid on my back and the guys came over the top of the dome and I eliminated those guys and and that's when Tommy made up the I said okay let's fall back to there and he said oh I'll stay up here and when you guys retreat then you guys can cover our retreat back that period of time they saw was running back and the charge came on again and Tommy had been shot in the left temple he was up actually shooting a long rocket as he did before and him and dang we will make their retreat down the hill to where we were during that period of time Tommy had gun gunfire support with the USS Morgan and the reason we knew how long the firefight lasted the Morgan started keeping the records of all our phone conversations and the firefight lasted for two hours and 53 minutes I think and and Tommy's dang came down off the hill and dang said that tommy was dead white Tommy's who did and I said y'all stay here then I went back and he even though they grabbed me said no he's dead Mike he shot in the head I went back I thought he was dead when I picked him up and throw him over my shoulder and I ran back with him five football fields away and and all these guys are shooting all these guys are shooting at me and I was shot through my left calf then and then fell to the ground and picked Tommy back up so I was actually wondering times that day and Tommy was shot in the head and Quan had shot his right buttocks it's off and it's femur muscle back here and he couldn't swim and then dang had two implanted grenades hits in this bag so I swam him that day with Tommy on my back and Quan in front of me so for several hours until we got picked off the coast oh by woody Woodworth custom themselves we go in we always keep a our extraction force we always take a Navy SEAL and we had another non LD and Enza more than the Vietnamese SEALs on board with woody and thank God that they didn't have to come in because at that period of time we've been already surrounded by over 600 bad guys so it was a good what do you and I knowing what he just just known his mentality he just still tried to come in to save our lives there's so much you just mentioned and I want to follow up on but what we have time for before the break is you mentioned after you were hit by the grenade you're kind of laying on your back and you weren't speaking and you mentioned you eliminated the four enemy fighters how did you do that when you had just been wounded oh adrenaline does a lot of stuff for you I promise you that in the rush of the day it's not about use about what we're trying to do I mean just I tell all these kids is there's only one obstacle in your life that can stop you and that's yourself so what do you go do set there cry or you'll get up and do something about it and just my father always said if it's to be it's up to me and I knew the odds on it what to stop those guys to get in the Tommy and today in Quan so let's take one more break here we're talking with a retired US Navy SEAL Mike Thornton recipient of the Medal of Honor veteran of Vietnam on Veterans Chronicles our guest this week on Veterans chronicles is retired US Navy SEAL Mike Thornton he's a veteran of Vietnam and a recipient of the Medal of Honor and just before the break we're kind of going back to get a little more in-depth on on part of the narrative that Mike told from October 31st 1972 talk about the run to get to Tommy what was that like how are you dodging fire then and what did you assess once you got to him I want a guy I could see Tommy on top of the dune which was actually a bunker and I was laying on this side hanging over and I ran up to doom and of course bullets are flying everywhere how they ever missed me on my return up there I don't I'll never know but had several guys coming over the top where Tommy was I eliminated those guys and I just described Tommy and at that period of time I thought Tommy was dead started running down the bunker and about that time I five-inch from the USS Morgan hit and blew me approximately 25 feet in the air I could see Tommy going off of my shoulders and it's really messes up your equilibrium and it's like only what I can say if somebody was to cut their hands and come up behind you without you knowing and slapping you in the ears as hard as you can and of course you know the bad guys are still after you but you're trying to get back up off the ground I can see Tommy and I was but I was trying to get my senses back and then I went over and grabbed Tommy and at that time he said Mike buddy and he didn't even went unconscious again and I and he's yes I'll be still alive so I picked him up and ran off with him then I got a shot to my left calf failed with the ground and then I picked him up again and ran with him to to the sand dune were tie and well actually Quan and dang were there Tai had already gotten in the water and swam off but corn and dang then we leapfrog to the ocean and then I got Tommy through the surf zone and after I could get him through the surf zone I'll put a life check in on him and tied him to my back and I looked over and I saw Kwan struggling in the water I could see daeng in ahead of me but quite have been shot to his right buttocks area and his in his there's a femur muscle the large muscle in the back of his leg he couldn't swim so I swung over got him put him put my arms underneath him and he grabbed Tommy snake and held Tommy on my back as we swam out to sea they even wounded seven times alright plus the concussion and you're swimming with a guy on your back for how many hours approximately three hours and a guy in front of me actually I had my arms like if you had raised her arms I put my arms and had you right in my body because that way it would run us down so all the worst when I'm like he could breathe but using him was kind of like knees and a washboard and push the water around then we had Tommy on top of my bag because one bad thing about Tommy yeah he was going into shock I could tell that he was going and then him being on top of my back it was about three o'clock in the afternoon the warmth was with the water between my body and his body and it had helped keep him from going in deep shock but he and did I wanted to do shock anyway and it was the grace of God he's still here with us that's amazing I would imagine every ounce of what you went through and SEAL training it was for Geiser I worked about 228 pounds or 200 not a 31 inch waist and I was an unbelievable shape but I couldn't even pull my I got Tommy out up on the boat with it was a Vietnamese jock contra made out of concrete it's 39 feet long and woody was communicating and they found us Mequon dang Tommy and I and woody had he was debrief and tie the Vietnamese officer about what happened and he doesn't I didn't remember anything he was just scared out of his wits but later only have I found out that you know he shouldn't never been with us in the first of first place I kind of felt sorry for him but he he's alive today yeah I've actually helped support him and his family and actually Quan in his family to come to the states and Quan and his family have two fishing boats now and then there are Seattle Washington and Ty the officer he taught for 22 years at Harrisburg University in Pennsylvania and now he's some very big Vietnamese community there in Washington State and he lives in Spokane Washington now but dang never got out of the country he was actually captured and assassinated how what do they do after you got to the boat did they send you to a hospital somewhere now we called the Newport News we knew the Newport News had a doctor on board and the Newport News came along so we came alongside the Newport News I pulled our boat up first and we they came over where the Jonathan ladder and we put Tommy and carrying him up there and they couldn't get him to the door so I just picked Tommy up and carried him to the Newport News down to the gurney put him on the operating table and then I went to a debrief the Admiral in charge of the Navy fleet out there and debriefed him in the commanding officer the Newport News what happened tommy was picked up by helicopter fluted and named and then from Danang he was flown by 141 because we had all the these doctors and neurosurgeons and all that stuff as I said before they had already bet he pulled out except for the basic doctors and they were actually at Clark's Air Force Base waiting on the release of our prisoner wars Admiral Stockdale Leo thorn s bud Dave which are all mental of Honor recipients too and they had them there so they flew Tommy straight to Clarks Air Force Base and his first surgery went for 19 hours and he went through 29 major surgeries after that he was been almost six and a half years in the hospital and when I got my medal of honor Tommy was still in Bethesda Maryland here in the DC area and I kind of kidnapped him and took him to the White House and Admiral Zumwalt was the chief and naval operation Mike in a very short paragraph why did you take him out the hospital I said sir I didn't leave in Vietnam and I sure wasn't going to leave him in the hospital when I wanted him next to me when I received the Medal of Honor from President Nixon but I paid for that I had to your Admiral smash so sorry doesn't sound like you regret the decision no I don't how did you find out you were put in for the Medal of Honor or that you were about to receive it actually woody Woodruff told me I yeah I said are you crazy he said no you because I'd already you know he said no you'd been finished for the nola water and that was March actually he's almost my birthday March of 1970 73 I came back on January 2 13th and 1973 was my father's birthday and and what he said have you heard and I said no I heard nothing he says you've been submitted for the Congressional Medal of Honor I saw you're crazy and then next thing I know I get a letter and actually my father knew I was gonna get it before I knew about you and daddy's never flown in his lifetime and he had he could cause he came from the White House he thought he had to fly up there he said if he didn't he would've drove her taking the training but I think he was more excited about it than I was that day like they don't meant a lot to dive taught me there next to you oh yeah I kept Tommy for four days I figured I was already in trouble so miles will enjoy it and he stayed for days with me and I put him under my Neath my brother's name and in the hotel and so they didn't know who was who but it was exciting we had a lot of fun my mom and dad my younger brother and my my family were there I wish my baby sister had been there but she was pregnant was able to fly so she wasn't able to come but we had a bunch of old friends of mine dick and Flanagan his lovely wife Becky and them and so we had a bunch of SILS and when I actually had the presentation it was only one model of Honor we should be there that was Tommy wouldn't even had received his MA because he's received his MA almost three years after I receive nan but tommy was there with me and I was there when he received his medal from President Ford what was the conversation like usually there's a private conversation with the president at least now there is I don't know if there was then did you get a chance to spend a little time with the president yeah Nixon yeah I've always respected Nixon actually sent me a copy of every book he ever wrote and it was a quite entertaining and he's always said but you know a lot of people don't know during World War one he was Secretary of the Navy and he hugged my mom and he gave her a very um blue suit the president you know hug me nobody else he never hugged the whales and he and it was and at the time Thomas Moore was the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Moore and what a great gentleman he took my mom and dad by a hand and took them all through the White House and introduced him to mrs. Nixon and the president and stuff like that so I was standing in there somewhere by myself talking my brother and Tommy and they were just treating with so much respect called my father like I said he only had a sixth grade education and but he you know you can tell him he was very very excited to having that he said you know Mike that guy's just like me just a good old boy that he's just a good old boy from Whittier yeah talk about Tommy's recovery when was he finally done he think his last surgery was about six and a half years into it they had to put different plates cuz when they the bullet entered the left temple and it blew off the bursa which the Bursar's actually the second holds her brain in place and Tommy would be they had to go in but the problem is some of is the place they were put in where they didn't accept it and they'd have to go back in and put another plate in another plate in and I finally got everything in there so yes three plates and you say he's got one at the top one on the side and one in the front and kind of and of course he lost the front lobe or part of his brain which basically just was taste and stuff like a in memory memory but the the major part of the brings in the back we were Tommy and what's a ginger there at all so he was a very lucky man he's still with us and he's 75 years old and still raising horses up in Idaho and I seen interviews with both of you perfectly loquacious and when we when we went into Vietnam I so I think we're in the wrong place so I'm always getting a hard time so feudalist of me used to have your brain in your eye and I said what do you think we should do I said we're usually officer in charge I'll just give you my stuff but we're we're mutton Jeff we see each other about ten times a year and and my lovely wife rainy and Teresa and Tommy and I would get together and it's like a big family affair we were just in Philadelphia with them giving away scholarships of my foundation just two young children of Navy SEALs have lost given the utmost they've given their lives you're already great friends before this day oh yeah but what is the relationship like now we did a book by honorbound and actually mr. Sloane is looking at doing the movie and it's about 50 something years of two guys of their love and and how the that hasn't disappeared you know we're we're together all the time you know throughout our lifetime and he is the Godfather of my children and so it says you know it's like I said if it's to be it's up to me and we keep that love and respect for each other we're like Mutt and Jeff I mean he weighs 150 pounds soaking wet and of course I'll wait 257 pounds soaking wet but we argued all the time we we have fun together but we so respect and love that we have for each other difficult homecoming for a lot of Vietnam servicemembers did you experience any of that not really Tommy still has some dreams I I had one dream and I had father my friends killed I do down identify their bodies and that was in 1969 and I've never had another bad dream about that of course on this great day freedom is not free freedom isn't written in blood and and the metal I wear I don't think I deserve never will feel I deserve there's some people says I do but I work for the to me and 854 thousand has given the utmost of course you know our National Cemetery or some of the other Texas State Cemetery zand all the other great national cemeteries we have throughout nation how many people have given the utmost to keep America free and that's what it used to be about it and I don't like dealing in politics but somebody seems like they know they won't be socialists and socialism has never worked in any country in the world and but they said it's going to be different in America and it's not we got to keep what's made us great the Miller writes the Constitution United States what is it's worth for us all these years and that's reason what were the greatest country in the world and I've been in 90 countries in my lifetime and I know how special this country is you feel a responsibility when you wear that I don't don't you oh yeah this late at night it's probably harder than wear than it is darn at 10:00 a lot always it puts a great responsibility on the people and we love this nation so much you know I I look at my lovely wife and the men and women who came back they were in their coffin they never have another chance to hug their children or their great grandchildren and their great great grandchildren you know now I have that look sweet today the calls of the people it went before me it went with me and it's going to keeping this freak after me so I just wish that for all my great grandkids and my grandkids and stuff like that that we continue serving this great nation called America it's such a distinguished career and we should point out that he served all the way as a Navy SEAL through a Desert Storm wouldn't real quick what did you do in Desert Storm I always said I was one of the original ten that started still team six in 1980 the count on terrorist group and I was working with the British SPS SAS counter terrorist group in the 70s and then we started SIL team six of 1980 and of course was Delta Force in US and general shelters or Angela's jaesuk and of course we all know what happened later on with once again taking down bin Laden and stuff but I've watched this community when I came in the silting we had 236 sales or a lot and now we're much higher than that and I'm very proud of each and each and every one of those young men who volunteered to go do God's work as I call it and and from now on it's gonna be special forces the Army Navy Marine Corps Air Force and Coast Guard is is gonna keep us working to keep us free and as that great nation called America but I served it and when he said I couldn't serve it no more I said ok it's just another chapter in the book what's my thorn go do now and you see what I do now so absolutely so many things to be proud of is there anything you're most proud of my wife Mike will call time there unfortunately we're out of it thank you sir for your service to our country thank you and thank you for being with us today Kurt thank you very much Mike Thornton recipient of the Medal of Honor retired US Navy Seal and a Vietnam War veteran I'm Greg Caramba this is Veterans Chronicles you

Channel: American Veterans Center

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Keywords: AVC, American Veterans Center, veteran, veterans, history, army, navy, air force, marines, coast guard, military, navy seal, united states navy seals, vietnam veteran, medal of honor, navy seal interview

Id: tY2zv8CqLhY

Length: 36min 23sec (2183 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 19 2020