Vietnam Machine Gunner Details Executing Wounded Female NVA Nurse in Mercy Killing

What was said

"I remember somebody hit me and saying, shoot her with a .45, you know, shoot her with a .45, uh, you know, Matty Mattel's, shoot her with a .45, and, uh, and of course machine gunner, I, I carried a .45, and, uh, um, yeah, so you live with that, uh, you know, you don't, I don't forget that one."

Johnny Clark describes being ordered to mercy kill a wounded female NVA nurse whose skull had been cracked open during a bunker assault, with her brain visible from grenade concussion. After M16 rounds failed to kill her, Clark says he was told to finish her with his .45 pistol. Thirty years later at a reunion, a sergeant presented him with the woman's full Vietnamese ID card, which he had kept. Clark says the incident contributed to his PTSD diagnosis and remains one of his most haunting memories from Vietnam.