This presentation of In Their Own Words is brought to you by the Honor Project

and is dedicated to the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces.

Operating under the most brutal conditions imaginable,

combat medics fought to save lives as the war raged around them.

In Vietnam, helicopters became virtual hospitals in the air,

buying the combat medic valuable time to heal the wounded. Today, Max Clayland is a U.S. senator from the state of Georgia.

But in 1968, he was fighting in Vietnam.

His tour was cut short by an accident that left him a multiple amputee.

Perhaps more than anyone, he knows the valor of the men who try to save lives in the heat of combat.

Senator Cleland recounts the accident that changed his life forever.

I felt that Vietnam was the war of my generation that I could not avoid and I didn't want to avoid it.

I was in uniform, I was a young lieutenant, I was on active duty as a young ROTC graduate.

And it was the mid-60s. And by 1967 I volunteered for Vietnam and went with the First Air Calvary Division.

The First Air Calvary Division was The first Air Calvary Division was

later committed after the Tet Offensive in early 1968 to relieve the siege of Kaysan.

So I went with that relief unit with the first cab surrounding the hills near Kaysan.

On one mission, I was a communications officer for an Infantibatalion at the time,

and I went to unload my radio team on a hill

so we could set up a radio relay into Kaysan from the battalion moving into Kaysan,

breaking the siege there that week.

I got off a helicopter, ducked under the helicopter blades, had my flank vest on my steel pot,

some grenades on my web gear, had my M16 in my left hand, turned around, looked at the helicopter,

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