Salute

Almost unremarked in the wake of another funeral this week, but far from unremarkable, the final days came this week for a courageous man who lost a battle with liver disease.

Mike Clausen, of course. As reported in the Washington Post.

Mike Clausen Jr., 56, who died in a Dallas hospital May 30 of liver failure, received the Medal of Honor, the highest military award for valor, for rescuing a platoon of Marines trapped in a minefield during the Vietnam War.

In the Marine Corps, Pfc. Clausen liked to disobey authority; he had repeatedly been demoted after every promotion.

"I will come home a live private before coming home as a dead sergeant," he had said.

On Jan. 31, 1970, he seemed to have forgotten his credo.

That day, he was serving with Medium Helicopter Squadron 263. He was part of a mission to extract members of a Marine platoon near Da Nang that had wandered into a minefield while attacking the enemy. They were under heavy fire and frozen in their places, fearing that they would trip a mine.

Mr. Clausen was crew chief of his CH-46 helicopter and guided the pilot to a safe landing in a spot that had been cleared by a mine explosion.

The pilot told him not to leave, but Pfc. Clausen ignored him -- six times, as he repeatedly left the safety of the helicopter to help carry back one dead and 11 wounded Marines to the aircraft.

He then tried to lead the eight remaining Marines to the copter.

On one trip, while he carried a wounded man, a mine went off, killing a corpsman and wounding three other Marines.

"Only when he was certain that all Marines were safely aboard did he signal the pilot to lift the helicopter," read his Medal of Honor citation.

His other decorations included the Purple Heart and the Air Medal.

He once told an interviewer that the Americans pinned down in the minefield mistakenly thought he knew where he was going.

"I ran over there [and] picked up the guys that couldn't walk," Mr. Clausen said. "The ones that could walk were under the assumption I knew where the mines were, obviously, and they followed every footstep I made back to the helicopter."

Raymond Michael Clausen Jr. was born in New Orleans and raised in Hammond, La. After six months of college, he joined the Marine Corps in 1966 and became a jet helicopter mechanic.

He left the service in April 1970 and became an inspector for the Boeing Co. Soon after, he was in a car accident that left him comatose for months, nearly blinded in one eye and without the strength to walk. Back at home, he had all his furniture placed in the center of a room so he could walk the perimeter using the wall for occasional support.

He spent his time speaking to veterans groups and continued to suffer from poor health.

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Survivors include his wife, Lois Clausen of Ponchatoula, La.; two brothers; and a sister.

And don't miss this:

The reason that Mike was in Dallas, instead of a VA hospital in Louisiana was due to the fact that when Ross Perot got word of Mike's difficulties, he sent his own personal jet to bring Mike back to Dallas. He then ensured that Mike received the best medical care available.

Kudos to Mr Perot, but this unfortunately points out that the "best care available" is not being routinely provided to veterans now. Something to think about.

Or act upon.

Rest in peace.