The Patriot Post® · Profiles of Valor: PFC James 'Doc' McCloughan (USA)
One of the most humbling experiences as co-chairman of the National Medal of Honor Sustaining Fund with my friend, GEN B.B. Bell, is fellowship with some of our nation’s most distinguished American Patriots, our nation’s military heroes. Too often, the word “heroes” is misapplied by mainstream media platforms to anyone in any uniform. It is a word that should only be applied to those who have earned it.
This week, we hosted Medal of Honor recipient James “Doc” McCloughan at the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center.
Jim was raised on a family farm in rural Bangor, Michigan. In high school he excelled at sports and was a musician. He graduated as a four-sport varsity athlete and went on to Olivet College, where he wrestled and played football and baseball. Intending to teach, he graduated in 1968 with a BA in Sociology and accepted a teaching and coaching position with South Haven Public Schools. But that plan was interrupted three months later when he was drafted into the Army.
“In the middle of June, I got a letter from an uncle of mine, Uncle Sam, who wanted to see if I was physically fit. I really didn’t think it was anything more than that. But in July, I took that physical and I said to the lady, ‘Well, what’s next?’ She says, ‘You don’t know? You’re getting drafted.’”
In September 1968, at age 22, Jim reported to basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Given his sports background and knowledge of treating injuries, he was then assigned to Fort Sam Houston in Texas for advanced training as a medical specialist. He recounts: “Out of my about 250-man basic training, I was the only one to go to Fort Sam Houston to study to be a medic. I think someone looked at the college classes that I’d taken studying to be a coach — kinesiology, physiology, anatomy, first aid, advanced first aid, strapping and taping — and they thought they gave me a step up.”
On his final day of training in March 1969, he received deployment orders to Vietnam for a 12-month tour as a combat medic. He was assigned to Company C, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 196th Light Infantry Brigade “Chargers,” Americal Division (yes, “Ameri-Cal” being a contraction of “American New Caledonian Division”). But in Jim’s case, it may be shorthand for “American Miracle.”
He learned a hard lesson the day he arrived in Southeast Asia: “The first day I was in Vietnam we hit an ambush; I had two wounded in action, two killed. And I killed my first enemy soldier. The Vietnam War was the first time that medics actually carried a rifle, even if I gave it up most of the time because I needed both hands. But that day I used it, and I was frozen in place when I shot this human being and watched him flip in the air and die. My sergeant saw how that had stunned me, and he slapped me and said: ‘Doc, that’s the way it’s going to be. Do you understand? It’s either going to be you or him.’”
Jim explains his mission: “When I heard ‘MEDIC!” that was my cue. Maybe they were dead by the time I got there, maybe they were wounded badly; maybe I can’t move them. What do I do? To make those kinds of judgments in a split second, when life and death is inevitable, is not easy. But I knew my job: I was a combat medic, and when I was called, that meant someone needed me.“
It was May 13-15, 1969, two months after arriving in Vietnam, that Jim McCloughan would distinguished himself during 48 hours of close combat.
"On May 12, battalion headquarters decided to send Charlie Company into the Tam Kỳ area near the foot of Nui Yon Hill. It was a flawed mission where 89 men went up against 2,700 enemy soldiers. Upon approach, two helicopters were shot down. Because it was a hot LZ (landing zone), we were forced to jump from the helicopters with our packs, weapons and ammunition. Quite a few were injured in that process; one I rescued in a fireman carry, swerving so I’d be a moving target. I could hear and see the bullets skipping off the ground next to us, but we didn’t get hit at all.”
They were outnumbered 30 to 1. During the attack, two Army helicopters were shot down, one crashing near Charlie Company’s position. Being too high risk for another helicopter rescue of the pilot and crew, a squad was ordered to retrieve the men and bring them back to Charlie Company’s defense perimeter.
One of the injured soldiers was 100 meters from the helicopter, and McCloughan ran through a field of open fire to get to him. As he recounts, “I weaved and sprinted through the fire and slid in next to him like I was sliding into second base.” Once reaching his position, McCloughan carried him over his shoulder back to the relative safety of the defense perimeter.
Later that day, as 2nd Platoon was scouting the area for remaining enemy pockets, they were ambushed by a much larger NVA force and suffered heavy casualties. McCloughan worked his way through enemy entrenchments to reach the injured as air strikes were called in against the NVA positions. Seeing two unarmed Army soldiers huddle under enemy fire, McCloughan handed his weapon to a fellow soldier so as not to impede his ability to get over the trench berm and ran low to the exposed soldiers’ position. As he did so, he was hit with shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade, recalling: “There was an explosion behind me, a rocket propelled grenade. The shrapnel stung as it pelted my body from top to bottom, but I concentrated on what I had to do.”
Despite his own wounds, he pulled the soldiers back to the trench, where he treated their wounds.
Ignoring orders to remain in the trench, on four more occasions, McCloughan braved walls of enemy fire to retrieve wounded soldiers and drag them to the trench line. Though losing a lot of blood from his own wounds, he refused to evacuate and remained on the frontline.
The next day, as 1st Platoon was advancing toward the enemy line in order to forge a path out of the area, they were ambushed again. While rendering aid to two soldiers in an open rice paddy, Jim was wounded again by AK-47 fire and shrapnel from a second RPG.
1st Platoon’s medic was killed, leaving McCloughan as the Company’s only medic. For that reason he refused orders to evacuate on the next helicopter in: “When the enemy backed off, we were able to get a medevac in to get out all the wounded and dead within our perimeter. Lt. Carrier said, ‘Get on, Doc,’ and that’s when I remember I had gotten hit. I had my own blood all over me, but I remembered what I’d seen on that hill and said, ‘I’m not going. You’re going to need me.’ I thought, by refusing to get on that helicopter that I’d just spent my last day on Earth. But I’d rather be dead in a rice paddy than alive in a hospital to find out that the next day my men got killed because Jim McCloughan wasn’t there to do his job.”
As darkness fell and his Company’s supplies were running low, McCloughan volunteered to hold a marker light in an area where he could be seen by friend and foe alike in order to guide in a night resupply drop. He did so under constant incoming AK-47 fire and RPG rounds.
Before dawn on the morning of May 15, Jim worked his way to the enemy line and, using grenades, neutralized an RPG position that had inflicted wounds on the Americans. He continued treating injured soldiers, including two who were critically wounded, and he organized the evacuation of the remaining wounded and dead.
Over the course of the two-day attack, Jim “Doc” McCloughan was credited with moving into the “kill zone” 10 times to rescue the injured and save at least 10 Americans and one Vietnamese interpreter. Twelve Americans were killed. By all accounts, no Americans should have survived, but Jim says, “The love we had for each other, the brotherhood,” pushed the enemy back.
For his actions between May 13 and 15, 1969, McCloughan was recommended for the Army’s second-highest award, the Distinguished Service Cross. The recommendation was downgraded to a Bronze Star (Valor), most likely because some REMF officer heard McCloughan disobeyed orders several times when rescuing his fellow soldiers. Notably, such disregard for orders is common among truly heroic men when the lives of others are at stake.
At the end of his tour, he received the Combat Medic Badge, two Purple Hearts, and two Bronze Stars (Valor), among other awards.
Returning home in 1970, Jim resumed his contract with South Haven Public Schools and, in 1972, earned an MA in counseling from Western Michigan University. He remained with South Haven High School for 38 years, teaching psychology and sociology while coaching football, wrestling, and baseball. Additionally, he refereed 18 Michigan Wrestling State Finals as an MHSAA wrestling official and was inducted into Michigan’s High School Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame, the Football Coaches Hall of Fame, and the Wrestling Hall of Fame. He is also the recipient of the Wolverine Conference Distinguished Service Award, the Olivet College Distinguished Alumni Award, the Olivet College Leadership Award, and the National DAR Distinguished Citizen Medal.
But his distinguished recognition does not end there. In 2009, McCloughan’s former platoon leader, Lt. Randy Clark, revived his Distinguished Service Cross nomination, but it was only after the revocation of a five-year time limit on Medal of Honor award revisions in 2016 that Jim’s heroic service could be reconsidered for a Medal of Honor.
As I have noted before regarding long delays between service rendered and recognized, Medal of Honor nominees are, first and foremost, humble warriors. Inherent in their willingness to “lay down one’s life for his friends” is the ultimate expression of humility, valuing the lives of others above one’s own. Thus, it is not in their nature to advocate for their personal recognition. The advocacy to upgrade a warrior’s prior decoration to a Medal of Honor falls to others — mostly those with whom the recipient served.
Over the last century, many Medals of Honor have been approved and awarded for actions that occurred decades earlier, most often posthumously. The verification process for valorous actions that may merit a Medal of Honor is very strenuous, making that process more difficult with the passage of time.
But on review of Jim “Doc” McCloughan’s service and sacrifice, he was awarded a Medal of Honor on July 31, 2017.
At his White House Medal of Honor Ceremony, President Donald Trump declared: “For over two centuries, our brave men and women in uniform have overcome tyranny, fascism, communism, and every threat to our freedom — every single threat they’ve overcome. And we’ve overcome these threats because of titans like Jim, whose spirit could never be conquered.”
His Medal of Honor citation concludes: “Private First Class McCloughan’s personal heroism, professional competence, and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, the Americal Division, and the United States Army.”
Following his ceremony, Jim was recognized with the 2017 State of Michigan Veteran of the Year Award, the 2018 Department of Michigan Legionnaire of the Year Award, and the Peaceful Warrior’s Foundation Military and Career Service Award, as well as inducted into the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes.
Through his years as a teacher, Jim did not talk about his experiences in Vietnam. After his colleagues found out about his Medal of Honor, they asked him why he never spoke of his heroic actions. Jim said, “Because I did now want to recount some of the most dreadful days of my life.” For many Medal of Honor recipients, that award is a constant reminder of some very bad experiences.
Jim says: “Of the 32 who marched away from Nui Yon Hill, I’ve reconnected 23 of us. When I find them, I’ll say, ‘This is J. McCloughan’ but that doesn’t always mean much. When I tell them, ‘This is Doc,’ they know in an instant.”
Jim had a revelation after receiving a letter from one of the men he saved: “I got a letter in June 2019 that said, ‘You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but you saved my grandpa in 1969. My mom was born in 1970, and I was born in 1991. Last week my wife and I had a baby boy, and this Sunday, I get to celebrate Father’s Day because of you.’ I read that to my wife, Cherie, with tears in my eyes and she said, ‘Jim, you didn’t save 11 people, you saved 11 family trees.’ That’s what all of those who have fought for and will fight for our freedom do, they save family trees so that generation after generation will have the luxury of being born as an American.”
Indeed, in remarks at Arlington on Veterans Day, 1985, President Ronald Reagan said of those who died defending their brothers in arms and our nation: “They gave up two lives – the one they were living and the one they would have lived. When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men. They gave up everything for our country, for us. And all we can do is remember.”
In retirement, Jim and his lovely wife, Chérie, have both continued to serve their community through nonprofit organizations and charitable projects. He has also served as Vice President of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society and chairs the Society’s Character Development Program for schools nationwide.
Most recently, he coordinated with the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center to promote an educational curriculum focused on the six character-trait pillars of the Medal of Honor common to all recipients: Courage, Sacrifice, Patriotism, Citizenship, Integrity, and Commitment.
The McCloughans have four adult children and seven grandchildren, and he would not want me to leave out two standard poodles.
(Watch Jim tell his story about becoming a medic and his account of his first day in Vietnam. You can also watch Jim recount his story as he walks the Civil War battlefield of Stones River, where chaplain John Whitehead also risked his life to save wounded men.)
SPC/5 James “Doc"McCloughan: Your example of valor — a humble American Patriot defending Liberty for all above and beyond the call of duty and in disregard for the peril to your own life — is eternal.
Footnote: In October 2024, in an unusual collaboration, Jim McCloughan joined other Medal of Honor recipients in a public endorsement of Trump for president.
"Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
Live your life worthy of his sacrifice.
(Read more Profiles of Valor here.)
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776
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