The Bullet Magnet

U.S. Marine Corps and Vietnam War veteran Dave Hinds was awarded three Purple Hearts from the wounds he suffered during combat in Vietnam. He jokes that he knows how Forest Gump felt, comparing the shrapnel removed from his own buttocks to the bullet removed from the movie characters.

One of his colleagues at America’s Military and First Responders Museum in Naples, of which Hinds is president, calls Hinds a “bullet magnet,” referring to the amount of metal removed from his body during the war.

Hinds has service in his blood, becoming a professional fireman for 23 years after his time in Vietnam. He was also a deputy sheriff in Muskingum County, Ohio for 11 years shortly before retiring, quitting that job after breaking up a bar fight between two women. 

We’ll get to that. 

Hinds, a Naples resident who turns 77 this month, was born and raised in Zanesville, Ohio, his father and grandfather coal miners. His great, great grandfather was a Union soldier in the Civil War.

In 1966, at age 18, Hinds received his draft notice and chose to enlist with the Marines, due to that service branch’s shorter time commitment. “Air Force was four years, Navy was three, Army and Marines were two,” he says. After making his choice, the recruiter said he could do basic training in Parris Island, South Carolina, or San Diego, California. Knowing where San Diego was, they told him it was near Disneyland in Anaheim, California. “I’d never been to Disneyland before,” he says jokingly. “Like I was really going to see Disneyland after boot camp.”

After 12 weeks of basic training in San Diego, he was assigned to Camp Pendleton for another four weeks, where he learned the skills of combat. “They put you in infantry training, then weapons training. How to fire a machine gun, how to use a rocket launcher and flamethrower, even mine detection,” he says.

In late August of 1966, he and his fellow Marines boarded a commercial plane for Okinawa, Japan, as a transitional stop for vaccinations en route to Danang, Vietnam.

“We landed in Danang, got right on a helicopter and went north to the Demilitarized Zone,” he says, referring to the one-mile wide strip between North and South Vietnam.

His battalion’s first assignment was to protect the Seabees who were clearing the DMZ. “And after that, we started jungle fighting and conducted search and destroy operations finding villages stockpiling food and hiding weapons,” he says.

Hinds would deploy to the front lines by helicopter for two to three weeks at a time, with food and water delivered every three to four days.

“We’d go into the villages looking for hidden weapons and large caches of rice,” he says, indications that the village was supporting enemy forces. “One of the sergeants knew how much rice was needed to sustain a village, and if we saw a whole bunch more, we’d get everybody out of the village, pour gasoline all over and burn the village down. We never killed anybody. We’d go back to base camp for three or four days to get cleaned up and have hot meals, then we’d go back out again.”

In mid-March 1967, his base camp at Con Thien was overrun by the North Vietnamese Army, where Hinds and his colleagues engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Superior fire from Marine air support was called in. “They wiped out the enemy and I survived,” he says.

It was on one “search and destroy” patrol in later March 1967 that Hinds sustained his first injury. His squad had been dispatched to the DMZ to protect a U.S. helicopter that had crash-landed. While waiting for another helicopter to haul the downed chopper away, mortar explosions erupted.

“We could hear popping,” he says. He and his men had taken cover behind a burial mound when a mortar landed behind them. “Two guys beside me, a piece of shrapnel cut one guy’s jugular vein, the other got shrapnel in his leg. I got shrapnel in my hip and in my back and in the back of my arms.”

After recovering on a hospital ship for 10 days, Hinds was sent back into combat, sustaining his second injury in early June 1967.

“We were walking through this rice paddy and a guy stepped on a booby trap,” he says. “It was actually one of our bombs that didn’t go off, maybe 30 yards to the right of him. I got shrapnel in my shoulder and arm and got treated in the field that time.”

He was put on light duty for several days, then returned to combat. Three weeks later, he was wounded again while serving as the point man for his squad.

“We got to this open field and I said, ‘Man, I don’t like this,’” referring to the jungles on each side of the field, a perfect spot for the enemy to ambush from. “So, I raised my arm to stop everybody and I heard a crack. I got shot in the arm.”

At the time, U.S. military protocol called for immediate removal from combat after three injuries and removal from the country within 24 hours. A week later, Hinds was still in Vietnam. After futile pleas to his sergeant to intervene, Hinds phoned a neighbor who worked for a congressman in Zanesville through a two-way radio system called Mars. He asked the neighbor to notify the congressman. The call was being monitored and he was immediately disconnected. 

“I got chewed up one side and down the other,” he says, but he was off to Okinawa immediately.

After three months in Okinawa and a stint at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, Hinds was stationed at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba as security for the Naval base there.

Hinds was discharged in April 1968 and returned home to Zanesville, where, after working in a factory and as a mechanic, became a professional fireman.

On literally his first day on the job in 1974, his brigade responded to an oil tank explosion that left one victim dead and badly burned. When they returned to the firehouse, it was lunchtime and hamburgers and French fries were being served. But none of his colleagues could eat, sickened by the horrific scene at the fire.

“I had seen helicopter crashes, bodies burned and missing parts,” he said. “So, I told them I’d eat their stuff. They thought I was some sort of sicko, which I probably was at the time.”

Hinds retired from the fire department after 23 years in 1997. He also served as a deputy sheriff in Muskingum County for more than ten years. One night, he and his partner responded to a fight in a local bar. “We went in this bar, and these two women were fighting,” he says. “Each of them probably weighed 90 pounds. They were scratching and kicking and biting. Anything they could think of. I got home with scratches on my face and arms. My ex-wife asked what happened, and I said you don’t want to know. She said, ‘What are you doing this for,’ and I said, ‘I don’t know. I give up. So, I quit after 11 years.”

Not one to slow down, Hinds became a driving instructor, teaching teenagers and adults how to drive for the next five years.

“I tell people that was by far the most dangerous job I ever had,” he says with a smile.

Eventually, he became a supervisor of 120 drivers transporting special needs children and adults until 2012.

In 2013, Hinds and his wife Grace moved to Naples, where they live now.

Looking back on his time in Vietnam, Hinds says, “People ask me if I’d do it again. I tell them I’d have to think about it, but one minute later I’d tell them I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

“No regrets,” he says he tells his daughters Amy and Karen.

Hinds is a lifetime member in all the major veteran groups and has volunteered with various veteran support organizations for 40 years. He was recognized by President Carter for “Outstanding Community Service” and was inducted into the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame in 2013.

Hines is the current president of the America’s Military and First Responders Museum. Over the past 10 years, he has also volunteered with various Naples charitable organizations including Helps Outreach Pantry, St. Mathews House, Baker Senior Center and Avow Hospice, in addition to numerous veterans’ programs and support groups in Collier County.