SHELBURNE, Vt. (WCAX) – The year 1968 is considered one of the most turbulent in 20th-century America. That’s also the case for Bob Durkin.

Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in Memphis. A month later, presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy was assassinated in California, and then there was the Tet Offensive in Vietnam.

It was also the year Bob Durkin would marry his longtime sweetheart, Alice. “He was real cute,” Alice recalled, “especially in a uniform.”

Their wedding was pushed up because Durkin was being shipped off to Vietnam. “We had only been married for about three weeks when he left,” Alice said.

Durkin was an elite Army Ranger in the 101st Airborne Division. A slight, but strong man. “The bloodiest month of the war — May ’68. And that’s when I was wounded, May of ’68,” Durkin said.

He had been in country for just a few weeks when his company was attacked by the North Vietnamese. “They raided the camp. My two buddies and I were right next to each other, and the first large rocket threw us up in the air,” Durkin said. After regaining consciousness, Durkin realized he was severely wounded. “I saw my friend — I can say his name, John Brown — crawling away, and they came over and dropped him… My other buddy took off running. They gunned him down — John Dean.”

The young lieutenant played dead. “They kept stepping over me, and I kept wondering why they just didn’t finish me off. And I’m lying there, I’m not going to play hero, I’m scared,” he recalled. “I then realized why they were stepping over me. Because if I stand up — I’m 5′3” — that’s the size of the Vietnamese. And all the Americans are larger. And I’m wearing green shorts, and their uniform is green shorts. So, they thought I was one of them.”

Eventually, the Americans came to the rescue. “I don’t know how I made it out alive, Joe,” Durkin said.

While he recuperated, Alice got the troubling news. “I was ridiculously naive. It really didn’t strike me until I got news that he had been badly wounded. Then, all of a sudden, it became real,” she said.

Within weeks, Durking rejoined his company. They presented him with a memento — a picture of Alice that was almost destroyed in the battle. “The men saved the picture,” Durkin said. “Of course I broke down…”

Reporter Joe Carroll: How does that change a person?

Bob Durkin: It changes a person right to the core… I want to point out the stress on my face. As you can see, we just had this battle. I’m the only lieutenant alive in the company.

That’s a sergeant, it’s just after the battle… I’m out of the jungle, and I’m getting ready to rebuild the city of Hue.

The year of 1968 is also when CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite declared to the nation, “To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.”

Durkin agreed. “The generals should have said, ‘Sir, this is not where to fight the communists, it’s never going to end,” he said.

“Bob resigned his commission at the end of 1970, but he really never left the Army,” Alice said. She says what also remained were his haunting memories. “Immediately, I knew you didn’t tiptoe into the bedroom.”

“Without Alice, I wouldn’t be here. I came home tremendously messed up with PTSD. No idea what was bothering me,” Durkin said.

“I guess I’m pretty patient,” Alice said.

Each year, Durkin remembers May 19th — the day he was wounded — as a sort of rebirth. “I don’t know if He’s aware of it, but I pray a lot,” Durkin said. “I fit in everything in life, you appreciate everything, you never take anything for granted.”

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