Three-time Purple Heart recipient to share his Vietnam story

By Denise Crosby, Beacon-News

There are many reasons Jim Davidson was so involved in bringing the Vietnam Moving Wall to the community last November.

Three-time Purple Heart recipient Jim Davidson stands next to a picture of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that hangs in his office at Aurora Bearing. | Denise Crosby~Sun-Times Media

There are also a lot of reasons the lifelong Auroran was a huge part of the wall’s visit here more than two decades ago. And why he is speaking on Sunday at the Aurora Historical Society about his war experience.

The first three have to do with his life … literally.

That’s how many times Davidson, the 66-year-old director of packaging for Aurora Bearing, was wounded in his year-long stint in Vietnam

Davidson, in fact, ended up spending about a quarter of his tour recuperating in hospitals. So, to say, he saw “a lot of bad things” would be an understatement.

Davidson, age 20 at the time and with the Army’s 101st Airborne, was initially wounded just weeks after landing in ’Nam in March of 1968, the year that would bring more casualties than any other period in this unpopular war.

He flew in to Bien Hoa, and eventually was shipped 30 miles south of the demilitarized zone to LZ Sally base camp. There, as an infantryman, he was assigned to night missions that “scared the hell” out of him.

“I could not wait for the sun to rise each morning,” he admitted, “because it meant I had lived through the night.”

But one night, “the enemy was literally on top of us” and a bag of explosives went off next to where he had been taking his turn sleeping after manning a machine gun earlier.

Of the 25 soldiers in his platoon, Davidson said, only five were not killed or injured in that attack.

He ended up with a backside filled with shrapnel and a perforated ear drum. But after five weeks in the hospital, he was back out in the field.

Then in June, while his platoon was engaged in an active firefight with the enemy, he was wounded again in the neck, though he was back out in the field within days.

Davidson, who eventually was promoted to sergeant, was wounded a third time in July when a booby trap was tripped by a scout dog walking ahead of him. Had the explosive not contained a five-second delay, Davidson says he probably would not have survived. His backside was hit hard, but he remained conscious and was immediately airlifted to a nearby hospital for even more weeks of recuperation.

“I did not want to go back into battle,” he said. And the Army granted his wish, sort of.

This time Davidson was reassigned as a door gunner for the helicopter of a colonel who was passionate about being in the thick of battle.

Read the full article by Denise Crosby from Beacon-News.