BIKER NEWS: Sgt. Ken Bullinger

BN- Ken Bullinger was set to be promoted when he was shot in the left hand during a firefight, losing his thumb. He decided he was done with the war after serving two years, 10 months and 11 days in Vietnam.

He doesn’t talk about it much: “When you do, it just bothers you."

He remembers calling for bombs at age 18 or 19 years old: "You’re just a baby calling in massive air strikes."

“It was a hell of an experience," Bullinger said. "You'll never forget it; you know you never will. You just live with it day by day.”

But he'd do it again.

“I never regretted going; I did my time, did my duty,” he said.

Growing up on a farm in Fort Rice before moving to Mandan, Bullinger was the youngest of 14 siblings and one of six sons, five of whom served in the military. Two were drafted during the Korean War, two were in the National Guard during Vietnam.

Bullinger enlisted when he was 17. With four boys already in, his dad didn't want him to go. His mother signed the papers for him knowing he would enlist at 18 anyway.

Before leaving, he and his siblings took a family picture “in case I didn't make it back."

Bullinger was trained as a paratrooper, performing 196 jumps, sometimes three a day. When he signed up, he said the recruiter told him he would spend his full tour of duty in Germany performing maintenance on a motor pool, but, after eight or nine months he was told he was going to Vietnam.

It was 118 degrees outside when Bullinger flew into Cam Ranh Bay.

“I was not used to the heat," he said. “As soon as they opened up the fuselage, we thought, ‘What are we getting into?’"

Switching from driving trucks in the Highlands, Bullinger joined the 101st Airborne, spending 95 percent of his time in the jungle. He remembers being shot at two to three times per day.

“It was crazy,” he said. “You never knew what you were going to run into. ... You’ve got to be on alert all the time."

He said once they raided an underground hospital and could tell the Viet Cong were there a half hour before: “There were candles still burning."

While in the jungle, Bullinger said he couldn't see more than 20 feet ahead at times. As a result, there were a lot of firefights and a lot of deaths: “I seen a lot of stuff while over there — brothers shot, brothers dying."

They would go out for three weeks at a time, but, if fog or a monsoon moved in, they could be stranded — once going five days without food. He remembers eating lizards and snakes and getting fresh water out of bamboo.

“You learn to survive when you have to,” he said.

There were times they carried the bodies of their brothers three days on their backs. Bullinger remembers holding another soldier who had been shot in the stomach. He was bleeding heavily and Bullinger knew the man wouldn’t make it. “But I never told him that.”

As platoon sergeant, he often was required to go to the morgue to identify bodies.

“That’s the worst job anyone could have after a big firefight,” he said. “It's hard to describe; you almost had to be there. It still bothers.”

It was one of those firefights that earned Bullinger a seven-month stay in a military hospital at Fort Reilly, Kan. Gen. William Westmoreland pinned his Purple Heart on him.

Bullinger was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2008.

“I don’t like people coming up behind me," he said.

One time when he was home over July 4, a kid set off a firecracker behind him. “I hit the dirt."

There was a lot of bad, but there were good times, too, said Bullinger, who recalls trying to catch a 20-foot-long snake almost as big around as a basketball.

“Maybe sometime, I’ll go back,” said Bullinger, adding that other soldiers have gone to get closure. “Vietnam is a beautiful country."

Bullinger also joined the Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club in 1999 in hopes of helping other veterans like himself.

"They’ve been through what I’ve been through,” he said of the other members of his club.

Bullinger had a lot of photos but lost many when his home caught fire. He did manage to salvage some, along with more than 100 letters from friends and family. His mother and one sister wrote the most.

“My mother had great handwriting,” he said.

His niece, Rosie, was another frequent writer, keeping him up to date with family life at home.

When he got returned Bismarck, his whole family was on the tarmac, standing around the plane to make sure he was well protected. He said, like many others serving with him, he was called a "baby killer" and not respected. But he gets more respect from younger generations and younger veterans coming back from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After he was discharged, Bullinger went to school at North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton. He became a machinist in Denver, choosing a company that refused to make parts for bombs — a good thing, he said.

Bullinger later transferred to work for the U.S. Postal Service and moved back to Mandan in 1979. He retired seven years ago after 37 years with the Postal Service.

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