His platoon destroyed a South Vietnamese village and killed a young Vietnamese girl.

He stepped on a landmine, which miraculously failed to explode.

But despite experiencing intense combat and becoming severely ill twice, he would survive his tour and return to his hometown.

Dorsheimer was born in February 1948 and raised in a family with a distinguished history of military service. His maternal grandfather served during World War I. His father fought in the brutal Battle of Okinawa in World War II, where he earned a Purple Heart. His brother also served in Vietnam.

“When our country called, we answered the call, and I’m very proud of that,” says Dorsheimer.

Dorsheimer graduated from high school in June 1966. Almost one year later to the day, he was drafted. He went into the Army so he would only have to serve two years.

He spent eight weeks in basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, followed by nine weeks of advanced infantry training at Fort McClellan, Alabama.

“We didn’t hear a lot of positive things in those 17 weeks of training. They really beat us up physically and emotionally. That’s just how it was,” says Dorsheimer.

At the end of his training, Dorsheimer’s worst fears became reality: He received a letter ordering him to report to Fort Lewis, Washington, in the first week of November 1967. He realized he was going to ’Nam at a time when the war was intensifying and American casualties were starting to mount.

After a brief period of rest back home, Dorsheimer’s parents drove him to Baltimore for the flight to Washington.

“My mother watched the news; she knew what was going on in Vietnam. She was a mess. She didn’t know if she was ever going to see me again alive,” recalls Dorsheimer.

After stops in Hawaii, Wake Island, and Guam, Dorsheimer landed at Cam Ranh Bay in November 1967. He wondered why men were cheering as he got off the plane but then realized they were going home. They told him “to have fun.” Dorsheimer recalls being scared to death.

The next day, Dorsheimer flew on a cargo plane to the village of Pleiku in South Vietnam’s Central Highlands. There, he was assigned as a replacement to a company in the Army’s 4th Infantry Division.

To some extent, Dorsheimer lucked out. During his 366-day tour of duty, the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong concentrated their forces to the north and south of the Central Highlands, so, as Dorsheimer says, “We didn’t see a whole lot of combat for an infantry unit.”

Still, he saw horrible things and watched some of his buddies die. He calls his first three weeks in Vietnam “a nightmare,” and that experience included watching a fellow 19-year-old kid blow himself up while mishandling a grenade.

On his first patrol, his platoon went out in the morning on a search-and-destroy mission to a nearby village that was thought to be sympathetic to the Viet Cong.

The 40 or so men crossed a river and entered the village. The inhabitants lived in primitive conditions, with thatched dwellings and dirt floors. The Americans only saw old men, women, and young children.

As a newcomer, Dorsheimer depended on the officers and hardened veterans for his survival. But right away, he worried that his comrades were having too much fun searching and destroying.

Before departing the village, the commanding officer ordered the men to burn it down. The men set fire to the grass with their lighters, which then lit the hatched dwellings. Dorsheimer admits that he helped.

“These people had nothing — they were primitive peasants,” he recalls. “And that wasn’t the worst of it. We killed their chickens, their pigs, and we shot their water buffalo. These people had nothing. We destroyed absolutely everything in that village. Everything.”

Dorsheimer was only 19, but he understood that ruining the livelihood of the locals was not exactly the best way to establish their faith in democracy.

Walking back to the base camp, the line of men suddenly stopped. The point man looked at Dorsheimer, who heard a “poof.” He realized he was in trouble. He looked down to see smoke coming out from his right boot.

He was told not to move. He had stepped on a small landmine consisting of plastic explosives.

Fortunately for the rookie soldier, the mine failed to detonate. Even if it did, Dorsheimer probably would have survived.

“It wasn’t meant to kill you. It was meant to put a hole in your foot and put you in the hospital.”

As the men neared base camp, they saw a Vietnamese person cross their path in a rice paddy. Someone behind Dorsheimer yelled, “Go ahead and fire.” After turning over the body, they realized they had killed a young girl. Making matters worse, some of the men laughed.