Frank Trout: The Walking Dead

By Joe Kolina, Honor Flight Chicago Veteran Interview Volunteer

For a long time, Frank Trout didn’t know the whole story of how he was shot in the head and left for dead on a riverbed in a thick, black, steaming Vietnamese jungle. Or how he was later sealed and zipped into a body bag—yet managed to make it out alive.

Forty years later, Frank learned the final details at an Army reunion after he walked up to a veteran he recognized and introduced himself.

“I know who you are,” the man replied. “The walking dead.”

A Soldier’s Calling

It’s a story that begins in Westmont, Ill. Frank dropped out of high school after his sophomore year to help support his family. It was the early 1960s, and Vietnam was becoming a big story. A sense of duty and a taste for adventure drew him to the Army.

Family members had served in World War II and Korea. And when he was a teen volunteer at the Westmont Fire Department, he idolized a firefighter—a real tough guy—who had served as a paratrooper in the famous 101st Airborne Division.

“President Kennedy said, ‘Ask what you can do for your country,’” Frank says. “It was our duty. Not up to us to question. It was up to us to perform. To stop communism.”

Dropping In

The adventure started right after Frank enlisted in August,1965, when he was 21. After basic and advanced infantry training, Frank pursued his dream of becoming a paratrooper at Ft. Benning, Ga. His third jump did not go as planned.

“Everyone’s bailing out the door, one right after another, but my chute doesn’t open,” Frank says. “I pulled the cord, but there was no downward drag. Eventually, on the way down, I just grabbed a pair of legs. That guy was not expecting it. I’m hanging on to that guy. We came down together. There was just a lot of screaming and hollering. We hit the ground together.”

Frank blew out his left knee and was hospitalized for weeks. But he finished jump school, joined the 101st Airborne Division, and headed for Vietnam.

Hot Welcome to Vietnam

At first, it wasn’t what he expected. He flew in on a commercial jet complete with female stewardesses.

“When we got on the plane, it was cold in Alaska,” Frank remembers. “When we got out, we got hit with that heat. That was the big thing. Trying to adapt to 100-degree heat.”

Among his first jobs was a puzzling order to ride shotgun on a garbage truck.

“It turns out there were thousands of people down in this garbage pit a couple of hundred feet deep, looking for food, looking for something we threw out,” he says. “My job was to keep people back so they wouldn’t get buried when we dumped out garbage.”

But that wasn’t all.

“The flies were as big as birds,” he adds. “The smell, the rats, the birds, along with the people, all fighting over the same garbage. We just landed. We weren’t even in the war yet. It was nasty. Welcome to Vietnam.”

Into the Rice Paddy

Frank’s first taste of combat was humbling. His platoon had rescued a helicopter crew in a rice patty in the Central Highlands. They set up a perimeter for the night to wait for the helicopter crane that would come the next day to take the chopper away.

“The sergeant said, Tomorrow morning the Viet Cong are going to hit us,” he says. “As soon as we bring in the crane, they’re going to try to shoot it down and kill everybody.”

That’s what happened. All hell broke loose as the helicopter crane came in over a railroad embankment. Enemy soldiers opened fire with rifles and mortars. They trapped Frank’s platoon in a rice patty. Air strikes of napalm saved them but the fighting dragged on.

“They’re shooting down on us,” Frank says. “You see them kicking up the water in front of you. I went underwater in the patty. But then I realized I couldn’t stay down there forever and I came out of the water with my head up. The sergeant is standing alongside me shooting toward the railroad tracks. And he says, Trout, you gonna get up and get in the war, boy? So that’s when I got in the war.”

Radio Target

Frank quickly become a grizzled combat veteran. He even volunteered for the job of platoon RTO—Radio Telephone Operator. There was more gear to carry. But it came with a promotion to specialist four and higher pay. Frank only learned later why no one else wanted the job.

“The RTO walked with the lieutenant or sergeant and the Viet Cong always wanted to shoot you first,” Frank says. “They wanted to kill the radio to stop communication because you could call in air strikes and send information back.”

Ambushed

That’s what caused Frank’s brush with death. It happened during a search for POWs in mountains near Tuy Hoa.

“We had a brand new first lieutenant, a young guy from West Point,” he says. “He thought he was John Wayne. Running back and forth. I said, Sir, take it easy. I have to go everywhere you go. Talk to the sergeant.”

The lieutenant didn’t listen. He ordered the unit to follow him.

“We were supposed to go into one area but he took us into another area. We got in over our heads,” Frank says. “We walked into an ambush.”

Frank was hit. One bullet shattered his radio. Another one pierced his helmet and blew a hole in the side of his head. 

“It knocked me down,” he says. “I reached up. Blood was coming down on my face. I remember laying there and yelling I’m hit, I’m hit. They’re saying what, what? H-E-A-D. H-E-A-D I spelled out.”

Left for Dead

Frank fell in and out of consciousness. The firefight crackled around him.

“I was laying there and everything got quiet and slow motion,” Frank says. “Other guys were getting hit. They had to get people out of there. They left me for dead.”

He doesn’t know how long he was alone. He remembers crawling as far as he could before he lost his strength and blacked out.

“Some guys from another unit finally found me, alive,” he says. “They put me on top of another guy and tied me on his back. And he crawled out of there.”

Frank was evacuated by chopper. He was severely wounded and partially paralyzed. It was 40 years before he learned all the details of what happened next. 

It’s a remarkable story. Frank met a veteran at a reunion who was in that helicopter.

“I met this guy who told me I fell into his lap,” he says. “He said my bandage came off and he saw this big hole in my head oozing blood. Then he says I died.”

Frank doesn’t know if he died briefly or lost consciousness. But he learned how he survived death for real.

“They unloaded me and put me in a body bag,” he says. “Some time later, other guys came by checking things out. When they picked up the bag with my body in it I started kicking around.”

A Second Chance

Frank was saved again. His recovery was long and difficult. There were surgeries in Vietnam and at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland. He was determined to finish his enlistment. That caused more problems. Units rejected him because of his health. Frank remembers one sergeant at Fort Campbell, Ky.

“He said Trout, you have a hole in your head. You can’t do anything. Get the hell out of here,” Frank says. “I don’t want see you again. Go find something to do. Find a job. Stay out of trouble.”

Frank scrambled out of the office, walked down the street, and fell into another unlikely story. He passed a chapel and saw that the minister was his chaplain in Vietnam. 

“He said I heard you were dead,” Frank laughs. “I said, here I am, Sir.”

Frank became his assistant and also worked on other religious programs until his enlistment ended. He was good at it. He showed me awards he received for it.

Still Serving, Still Laughing

Frank left the Army in August, 1968, and returned to Westmont. He served 20 years as a police sergeant and 22 years as fire chief. He’s coped with seizures, eyesight issues and a bum knee as a legacy of his service. Frank also survived cancer after exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam.

Those challenges haven’t affected Frank’s sense of humor. He jokes and laughs constantly, even as he takes my hand to touch the metal plate tucked in his brain. It’s not always easy as he talks about lying wounded, left for dead, and waking up in a panic sealed in a body bag.

Frank’s story is all about courage and service. Congratulations, Frank, on your selection for an Honor Flight Chicago trip to Washington, D.C.

And thank you.