Michael Thornton Interview (page: 4 / 9) Medal of Honor	Print Interview

Tell us about the point where your lives really interconnected. What happened that day when you saved Tom's life?

Michael Thornton: Well, Tom was the senior SEAL. He had two other SEAL officers, and I think we had 12 or 16 enlisted guys. Tommy broke us up in different areas, and we were working in Hoi An or Tui Nam which is way northeast, and with NVA already taking over the Cua Viet river basin, they called Tommy down and when he came back, he chose who he wanted to go back with him. We had a rotation. The ops had been taken down so low because everybody was scared to let us actually go in the areas where they saw the NVA moving. In a lot of ways they didn't want to do anything to upset them near the end

Thomas Norris: This was during the Easter offensive when the North Vietnamese invaded South Vietnam. My boss was Commander Shively -- a wonderful fellow. He came up through enlisted ranks, became an officer, was CEO of SEAL Team ONE, which was Mike's team. The kind of guy you'd give your life for; he was just top notch. He was military advisor to the commander of our Vietnamese Navy counterpart, the LDNN, which was the Vietnamese SEAL teams. The Vietnamese commander requested that we send a unit up to the Qua Viet Naval Base, which was in North Vietnamese hands, to determine whether or not that base could be taken back by a mission run by the LDNN, Vietnamese Navy.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. The Americans wanted to know if there was any antiaircraft or missile positions being put in up there. Then Dave Shively called me down to ask me if I would take a group up there, you know, and I looked at him and he looked at me, and I said, "Dave, I can tell you what's up there without going." He looked at me and he says, "I know, Tom, but they're asking if we will do it. Will you take a team?" And I said, "Okay."

I said, "Do I get to pick the team?" He said, "You can pick the team, but not the Vietnamese officer." And I said, "Okay, fine."

What do you look for when you pick a team?

Thomas Norris: I look for the best people I can possibly have to go into an area like that because I knew what I was getting into. I knew what was up there. I was up there running missions when this offensive started.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. There was over 30,000 North Vietnamese troops up there. This is not something where you're going to just meet a few guys. You're going to run into bunches. So I went back to where our base camp was and I said, "Mike, put on your best gear, buddy. We're going to war." I said, "Pick the best two Vietnamese you can."

Michael Thornton: I picked two Vietnamese that worked with me on previous tours down in the south. These guys were enlisted guys and they were go-getters. I had been in a lot of tough fire fights with these guys down in the jungle, so I knew we could count on these two guys. We had our Vietnamese officer, Kwan and we knew he was going to be a great guy, but he had gotten in a boating accident the day before.

Thomas Norris: Yeah, he did. So the officer that was chosen was a fellow that I had worked with on some prior training operations, and he just wasn't as confident of his people as he should have been. We had a hard time initiating an ambush when we had the opportunity. Maybe he could have grown into it, but he just wasn't as confident as he should have been. If I had to pick a strong leader to go on the mission I was running it would not have been him, but I didn't have that choice.

Mike didn't know anything about this. He knew about the two enlisted guys because he had worked with them before. He knew they were very competent. I knew Mike was the most solid guy I could have with me, and I put another very solid guy on the boat that went up with us, a guy by the name of Woody Woodruff. So we were, in essence, a five man team.

Michael Thornton: These guys were on rotation. All these guys were go-getters. They wanted to do whatever they could do -- the 16 enlisted guys. We had a lot of other guys that had been on previous tours, too. I knew what Tommy was in for; Tommy and I discussed it, but I would never say no anyway. I knew what I had been through before. If you have a chance to be there to help save somebody else's life or vice versa, I knew the decision I had made. Tommy said, "You and I are going to go," and I said, "Yes, sir."

Thomas Norris: I had preplanned this operation. I preplanned fire positions for the naval gunfire if we needed assistance. This assumed that we were going into the Qua Viet Naval Base. My positions were around that base, so if I called in a fire point they would know automatically what coordinates to shoot at, and I designated the type of artillery rounds I wanted. They were going to vector us into the naval base so I wasn't having to rely on the Vietnamese boats, junks, to get us in there. We would be radar vectored in. And we set out on our mission.

We were taken up in a Vietnamese cement junk. We were going to insert off of rubber boats once we got vectored into where we were supposed to be. Well, the problems started developing early on. We were a little late in getting started. The water slowed us up. We couldn't make the headway we thought we could. The American vessels that were supposed to vector us were not in a position to do so when we got to the area, so we couldn't get the radar vectors.

The boat captain assured me he could get us into where we were supposed to be so we ran on his reckoning. Unfortunately we were north of the Qua Viet river, but he did vector us in. We got in our little rubber boats and went in as if we were going to where we should go. We didn't know we were not where we were supposed to be until we got on the beach. But we took the rubber boats in and we got off, and swam into shore.

We went across the beach and started our patrol in the direction that we would have normally gone had we been where we were supposed to be. At night in a heavily controlled area you move very slowly. It's not like you're just walking into wherever you want to go. It's very slow moving. You stop, you listen to what's around you. You take a lot of time to become accustomed to the area and the sounds of the area and what the area is like. Mike was back at the back of the line and I was up towards the front. Mike had a starlight scope, which is a night vision ocular device. Mike would come up to me and he'd say, "Nasty..."

Michael Thornton: I called him "Nasty Norris."

Thomas Norris: He used to try to call me "Nasty."

Get the Flash Player to see this video. "Nasty," he says, "I don't see the Qua Viet river, which means we're not where we're supposed to be." So he should have been able to pick it up on the starlight scope. And I said, "Okay, Mike." And he'd kind of look at me, you know, like -- "You nut, we're not where we're supposed to be." And he'd go back to the back of the line and off we'd go and patrol some more. And you know, every time we'd stop he'd let me know that, you know, "Hey, dumb-dumb, we're not where we're supposed to be!"

[ Key to Success ] Courage

Michael Thornton: We were seeing bunkers and bon fires going and all these guys bouncing around.

Thomas Norris: We were patrolling through heavy, heavy North Vietnamese units. There were bunker complexes like I had never seen before.

Michael Thornton: We figured we were in North Vietnam.

Thomas Norris: Yeah. It was incredible. So we're just moving on through.

Michael Thornton: Just grabbing all the intelligence we can.

Thomas Norris: And Mike, I think he's thinking what kind of a nut am I with here? Now I can pass for a Vietnamese because I'm small. If they don't see my nose and my facial side views, I can pretty much get away with it. Mike being as big as he is, there is no way Mike can pass for a Vietnamese. Mike is trying to make himself as small as possible, you know, in the middle of this.

Michael Thornton: And I'm trying to keep these two young Vietnamese SEALS calmed down.

Thomas Norris: I don't think the officer ever saw or knew exactly what it was we were going through. Either that or he was so scared he was never opening his mouth.

Michael Thornton: We had Tommy in the front and me at the rear and we had them in between us. I'd go by and one of the Vietnamese would say, "Mike, is Tommy okay?" I said, "Oh, he's okay." "Okay." Because he wants to know why in the hell are we out here. We know we're in such an area, because Tommy is talking about bunker complexes. This is something that took years to build: gun emplacements, big bonfires. All these guys walking around these bonfires.

Thomas Norris: We patrolled right through them.

Michael Thornton: Right through the middle of them.

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