Submitted photo John Turco, a Navy corpsman, gave an immunization shot to a Vietnamese girl during the war. She let him know it hurt.

STRUTHERS — While attending North Carolina State on a football scholarship, John Turco said he knew he’d be drafted into the military right after graduation.

“I was told to join the Naval Reserves and was given the choice: They could make me an officer and that’s a four-year commitment or I could be a hospital corpsman and that was two years,” he said. “I took the corpsman position, but that sealed my fate as 95 percent of corpsmen ended up in Vietnam.”

Turco — who lives in Struthers with his wife, Georgia — was drafted two months after he graduated.

After three months at Great Lakes Naval Base in Illinois, Turco spent nine months at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla., spending his time at a nearby hospital in the maternity ward primarily changing the diapers of newborns.

He also played football — offensive and defensive lineman — for the Pensacola Goshawks, a military football team consisting of former college athletes that played other military teams and small colleges.

Then Turco was sent to Vietnam in February 1968, shortly after the start of the Tet Offensive. For six months, he was a corpsman on a ship for Army personnel, assigned to the operating room to assist doctors.

“After six months, they wanted a corpsman to go out into the field because the previous corpsman was killed,” Turco said. “I didn’t have to go. They needed a corpsman, and they made more money in the field. It was $300 more a month. That was two times my salary even though you really couldn’t spend it.”

He joined a flotilla “and that’s where everyday we took on fire. I would help with injuries on the boats.”

It was a tough situation, Turco said.

“I put a lot of young boys in body bags,” he said. “Every time there was a fight, the last thing I did was put kids in body bags. I’m thinking, ‘What the heck did I get into?'”

During one particularly bad firefight, Army personnel who were supposed to get the injured refused to go, so Turco said he volunteered.

“I had to make it across the river up to my neck and pick up guys one by one,” he said. “I should have gotten a medal for that.”

Instead, he got a Purple Heart a short time later when a rocket hit a boat he was on and the bar armor broke, causing him to get shrapnel in his arms and legs.

Turco describes his time in Vietnam as “a $1 million experience which I wouldn’t give a nickel to go through again. We did a lot of good, working with people, taking care of people who wouldn’t have received medical care.”

After being discharged after a year in Vietnam, Turco got his first teaching job at Mohawk High School in New Castle, Pa., and married Georgia in 1970.

He went on to be a teacher and head football coach at The Rayen School in Youngstown, Kennedy Christian High School in Sharon, Pa., and Lowellville High School.

“My naval experience helped me as a teacher and a coach,” he said. “It taught me about discipline and teamwork and that if you do good things, good things will happen to you. Also, as a corpsman, I was able to treat sprains, cuts and other injuries.”

John Turco

AGE: 78

RESIDENCE: Struthers

SERVICE BRANCH: Naval Reserves

MILITARY HONORS: Purple Heart, Vietnam Service Medal, Navy Commendation Medal

OCCUPATION: Retired school teacher and football coach

FAMILY: Wife, Georgia; son, Michael; daughter, Sharon; grandson, Jack