M. Todd Hunter 2019-06-15 00:40:11
After 50 years, DAV past national commander meets Army medic who saved his life in Vietnam
Past National Commander Dennis Joyner doesn’t remember being lifted into the air by the explosion underneath him on June 26, 1969. He does, however, remember falling back to earth.
Joyner, then 20, had stepped on a land mine in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. The blast took both of his legs above the knees and his left arm below the elbow.
His sergeant was first to reach him, followed by platoon medic Dewey “Doc” Hayes. The sergeant kept Joyner from going into shock while Doc applied tourniquets to stop the bleeding.
“Without Doc and the sergeant, I probably wouldn’t be here today,” Joyner explained.
But while he never forgot the medic who saved his life, he also never had the chance to thank him.
Joyner would go on to have a 30-year career in local government, first in his native Pennsylvania and later in Florida. He raised a family and served as DAV national commander from 1983 to 1984. Over the years, he kept in contact with several men he served with in Vietnam, but his efforts to find Doc Hayes were unsuccessful.
“I knew he was from Tennessee, so I kept looking for a Dewey Hayes in Tennessee,” Joyner recalled. “But I could never find him.”
That changed last November when fellow veteran Bill Lina located a Dewey Hayes in Cocoa, Fla., a mere 45-minute drive from Joyner’s home in the Orlando suburb of Longwood.
With minimal information, Lina sent a letter to the address asking if it was the same Dewey Hayes who served with the Army’s 9th Infantry Division. It was.
“I thought about him a lot through the years,” said Hayes, “wondered how he was doing and what he was doing and whether he had done anything other than just sitting in a wheelchair his whole life.”
The two connected over the phone, and over the course of a few conversations, Joyner assured Hayes that he was able to live a full and successful life because of Hayes’ actions on the battlefield in Vietnam. The two also tried to find time in their schedules to meet up for lunch.
“First, I want to thank him,” Joyner said. “Secondly, there’s just a part of me that kind of wants to apologize to him for what I put him through that day. And I know it wasn’t my fault, but that’s just something inside of me that I’m sure he’s had a vivid memory of me for a lot of years for as bad as I was wounded.”
On March 15, the two men met—for the first time since Joyner was injured in Vietnam almost 50 years earlier.
After backing his motorized wheelchair down the ramp of his adapted minivan, Joyner turned to a waiting Hayes and outstretched his arms, and the two embraced.
“Hey brother,” Joyner said while fighting to control his emotions. “Fifty years. Thank you, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Hayes replied.
Over the next couple of hours, the two shared memories over local seafood—Dennis extending his apology and Hayes admitting his apprehension for meeting.
“I was afraid I’d be reliving a lot of my experiences,” Hayes said, before encouraging other Vietnam veterans to reach out to those whom they lost touch with over the years. “I’m glad I did.”
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To see the touching reunion of these Vietnam War veterans, visit dav.la/yl.
Published by Disabled American Veterans. View All Articles.
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