For years, when people asked Medal of Honor recipient Allen Lynch “what were you thinking?” his answer was “nothing.” But during a visit to Hutchinson Wednesday, he told Hutchinson Middle School students there was much more to the truth.
The 73-year-old Illinois native was serving in the Army as a specialist in Company D, 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division near My An in the Binh Dinh Province of Vietnam during the Vietnam war in 1967. He and his platoon were on their way to relieve Company A, which was under attack.
“We were going to go in on the flank of the enemy,” Lynch said. “They ended up being the bait. When we went in on the flank we walked into an ambush.”
During the firefight, Lynch left cover to rescue fellow soldiers who had been wounded. He recalled rescuing two men.
“They have it there were three wounded and myself,” Lynch said. “I don’t remember it that way. That’s not to say it wasn’t that way.”
So what was he thinking at the time?
“I just acted,” Lynch said. “But what came to me several years ago is, ‘We are the sum total of people that raised us, people that influenced us.’ When I did what I did, it was my mom and dad, and my grandmother and grandfather. I came from a tight family. If one person was sick, someone pitched in. If someone needed help, we helped. ... All of that on that day, that’s what pulled me forward. My father taught me morality, and my drill sergeant taught me you don’t leave your wounded, and my teachers who mentored me, they were all there that day. All I had to do was act. They gave me the core to do it.”
Attempts were made to rescue Lynch and the soldiers he had helped to cover.
“My lieutenant was killed trying to get to us,” he said. “Another guy was shot trying to get to us. Then they stopped. They yelled at me, ‘Are you wounded? Come back, leave them.’ I told them what they could do with that idea.”
After an air strike was called in, “it got real quiet. So I went out and reconned the area, made sure there was no enemy around. Then I moved (the wounded soldiers). The idea was to go out a little, move them, go out again, move them 200 meters at a time. Friendly forces arrived, and the next thing I knew I was in a helicopter going to the rear.”
VISIT TO HUTCHINSON
Lynch’s Hutchinson visit Wednesday was part of the second annual Saluting Community Heroes, a fundraiser founded in 2017 by Shad and Melissa Ketcher. The event raised more than $25,000 in its first year, with money going to American Legion Post 96, Disabled American Veterans Chapter 37, McLeod County Veterans Association Assistance Fund and VFW Post 906, and other allied organizations, such as Eagle’s Healing Nest in Sauk Centre and Anoka. Lynch was asked to be a keynote speaker at this year’s event at Crow River Winery.
“I went up to The Eagle’s Nest in late August. I was very impressed by what I saw,” Lynch said. “There is this idea that we get you away from everything outside, and work on the (post-traumatic stress disorder) as we are teaching different things, different coping skills.”
Lynch has made a career out of helping veterans. After his enlistment from 1964 to 1969, he went on to work as a veterans benefits counselor, as chief of ambulatory care at the VA hospital in North Chicago, as the executive officer of the Vietnam Veterans Leadership program in Illinois, and as chief of the Veterans Rights Bureau of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office.
“Initially, it was the idea that I could help my brother and sister veterans,” Lynch said. “Then I got real good at it. When I worked at the attorney general’s office, I did nothing but appeals.
“When you can win $150,000 and change a veteran’s life that fast,” he said with a snap of his fingers, “it’s amazing. ... I hate to lose. I like winning. I didn’t just write this and that. It was case law.”
He worked with the attorney general of Illinois to institute judicial review of veterans claims in the 1980s, and testified to it.
“I made a lot of enemies with veteran organizations,” Lynch said. “They said they don’t need judicial review. They were pathetic, especially in Illinois.”
ENLISTMENT
Years before Lynch worked to benefit his fellow veterans, he was a poor student who got picked on in school.
“I was not a good student,” he said. “I avoided everything in high school. I went to high school, came home and participated in nothing, no dances, no football games, nothing. I had limited grades, Cs and Ds. I had As only in stuff I liked.”
When the draft came about during the Vietnam War, Lynch felt it was certain he would be drafted, so he enlisted.
“It gave me the chance to go where I wanted to go,” he said.
Plan A was to go to personnel school and become a typist.
“That would have been a different life,” Lynch said. “But it turned out I was not as dumb as I thought. I tested very well. They offered me officer candidate school.”
Lynch thought he could make his parents proud, so he went but lasted only four weeks. He ended up in Germany, and then volunteered to go to Vietnam in April, 1967. He arrived May 31, 1967.
“I was a grunt,” he said.
THE MEDAL
Fast forward to 1970, Lynch was back in the U.S. and soon to be married to his wife, Susan. On the day before his wedding, he was driving home to get ready for his rehearsal when he noticed a police car following him.
“He stayed right behind me,” Lynch said. “I’m thinking ‘Aw, crap. I’m going to get a ticket.’ He followed me all the way to my driveway, and we got out.”
The officer asked if he was Allen Lynch, and then read off a Social Security number and asked if it was his. Lynch confirmed it was his.
“He said, ‘Call this number,” Lynch said. “I’m like, ‘OK.’”
He called the number, and a lieutenant colonel told him he was to receive the Medal of Honor.
“I kinda had a bad attitude about it,” Lynch said. “I had put it all behind me. The army was no longer part of my life. I wanted to live the American dream. ... They flew me out to Washington and put the ribbon on my neck.”
At the time there were about 600 recipients of the Medal of Honor.
“Vietnam was controversial,” Lynch said. “We young guys weren’t thought of as highly as the World War I, World War II vets. And being young guys, we were kinda jerks.”
As the years went on, and many older Medal of Honor recipients died, those who served in the Vietnam War were called on to do more.
“They have a thing called the Character Development Program,” Lynch said. “You teach teachers how to teach students about the medal, how to bring it up and talk about it.”
When Lynch spoke to Hutchinson Middle School students, he answered their questions directly, and when he told his story, he held their attention with an air of unfiltered honesty. He told them about the death of his best friend, Jerry, who was killed by friendly fire. He told them about his anger at the soldier who had done it, and his desire to kill the man, and how his fellow soldiers told him that if he went through with it, three families would have lost a son.
“Kids know when you aren’t being honest,” Lynch said.
He told the students about his experiences being bullied as a kid, and how no one would have suspected the amount of success he had, and that everyone had ability through which they could achieve something.
Sometimes, Lynch said, life as a Medal of Honor recipient wears him out.
“I’ve been going for four weeks now,” he said. “Right now, I’m tired.”
In the past few weeks, he has spoken to students, at an insurance company, a drug company and on television. In the meantime, he’s been working with a publicist as a book about his life nears completion. The stress of the book, he said, has been a weight on his chest that reminds him of his post-traumatic stress.
“It’s not a ‘ra-ra’ book. It’s me with all my warts and blemishes,” Lynch said.
But speaking to students, he said, especially middle school students such as those he spoke to in Hutchinson, is a favorite activity.
“I just love, love, love middle school students. They’re so innocent,” Lynch said. “I love questions with kids. The high school kid will ask if you killed anyone, but in a snarky way. The middle school kid will ask the same question, but totally innocent.”
When he speaks with young soldiers and their leaders, Lynch said he talks about how he handles PTSD.
“What I found that helps me more than anything else is I don’t consider myself,” Lynch said. “I was having problems, and my dad was having lung cancer, and all my symptoms went away when I was out there with them in the house.”
His mother had a stroke a year and a half after his father died. He found that when he focused on helping her, it was the same.
“I was in therapy one day, and it was like a man drowning in knee-deep water,” he said. “All you have to do is put your foot down. As long as I was considering other people, my symptoms didn’t seem so bad. That’s how you beat PTSD. You don’t talk about ‘me,’ you talk about your kid if you are a father or mother. ... You set an example. You take care of your wife or husband.
“You have to help others,” he continued. “You can do that with anything else. If you’re not married and single, and no family, you ask how you can help another veteran, someone else. ... When you help someone else, you help yourself as well.”