In the line of duty: Local Vietnam veteran lived 5 1/2 years after being shot

May 27—HIGH POINT — More than half a century after her big brother came home from Vietnam, Bonnie Greene Wilson still can't get over the irony of how he died.

Drafted at 20, Dale Greene had scarcely left High Point Central High School when the Army summoned him for active duty. Bonnie, only 10 at the time, had seen enough images of the war on the evening news to know that many American soldiers — young men her brother's age — were coming home in body bags.

She'd also heard stories about her uncle, Wayne Calvin Greene, who'd fought in World War II and was killed during the Battle of the Bulge.

She feared Dale might suffer the same fate.

He didn't. During his 18 months in Vietnam — an initial 12-month tour, plus a voluntary six-month extension — the worst thing that happened to Dale was a sprained ankle when he dived into a foxhole as his outpost was being shelled by North Vietnamese rocket fire.

No, it was what happened after Vietnam that haunts Bonnie and other family members.

"Little did we know that after surviving Vietnam, his life would be taken by somebody here in the United States," Bonnie, now 65 and living in Robeson County, says softly. "Unbelievable."

It happened in the early-morning hours of March 2, 1970, at Fort Story in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where Dale was stationed with the Army's 222nd Military Police Corps after coming home from Vietnam. As he and a fellow MP patrolled, they observed suspicious activity at the post service station and managed to foil an ill-planned burglary attempt. As Dale pursued the two suspects, though, one of them turned and shot him in the head, causing severe brain damage.

Emergency medical personnel rushed Dale to nearby Virginia Beach Hospital, where doctors initially declared him dead. A faint pulse was detected, though, and he was quickly transferred to Portsmouth Naval Hospital, where he was placed on life support. If nothing else, perhaps that would at least keep Dale alive until his next of kin could get there to say goodbye.

What happened next defies medical logic. Not only did Dale hang on until family members arrived, he hung on another 5 1/2 years in that same vegetative state, a powerful testament to his unyielding will to live, and to his family's equally unyielding love for him. Dale finally died on Dec. 6, 1975, at age 27.

To this day, surviving family members continue to pay tribute to their fallen hero — not just on Memorial Day, but every day — refusing to lay his sacred memory to rest.

Refusing to let their goodbyes be final.

"We've never let Dale die, and we never will," says sister-in-law Brenda Greene, of High Point. "You just don't do that."

Drafted Into the Army

By all accounts, Dale was an easygoing, but conscientious sort who loved his God, his family and his country. He was one of 11 children, three of whom died as infants, including his twin sister, Dawn. As he grew up, Dale evolved into the self-appointed guardian of his hard-working mother, Alice, doing whatever he could to make her life a little easier.

Years later, after he was shot, those roles would be dramatically reversed.

After his high-school graduation in 1967, Dale worked at the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. until Uncle Sam called his number in April of '68.

Brenda remembers that her brother-in-law was anxious — but not scared — about going to Vietnam, because he didn't know what to expect, and because it was his first time being away from home, much less in a foreign land. He was assigned to the MP platoon of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade.

As it turned out, Dale got so caught up in the cause he and his fellow soldiers were fighting for that he extended his tour of duty by six months, telling his parents in letters that there was still work to be done and he wanted to help finish the job.

Dale finally came home to High Point in late December 1969, a wonderful Christmas present for his family. He mostly seemed to be the same old Dale, except — like many who have experienced combat — he startled easily. Bonnie remembers nearly getting punched one morning when she went to his bedside to wake him.

After a couple of weeks, Dale was bound for his new assignment — Fort Story, Virginia — about a 4 1/2 -hour drive from High Point. Neither he nor his family knew much about Fort Story, but they all agreed on one thing — it had to be safer than Vietnam, right?

The fateful shooting

Ironically, Dale wasn't even supposed to be on patrol the night he got shot.

After his first two months at Fort Story, he had planned to come home that weekend to celebrate his 22nd birthday with family, but when another MP asked off to attend a family wedding, Dale volunteered to fill in for him.

Around 3:45 a.m. on March 2, Dale and another MP came upon the burglary at the service station. The exact details of what happened are unclear, but family members believe Dale exited his patrol vehicle and gave chase when he saw the two male suspects fleeing the scene. His partner also got out and apparently fired a warning shot to make the suspects stop running. Instead, one of them turned and fired at Dale. The bullet entered the back of his head and exited through the left temple. A second bullet injured his partner's shoulder.

The suspects kept running — without the cash they had tried to take — and the shooting remains unsolved to this day.

Meanwhile, Dale clung to life on a respirator at Portsmouth Naval Hospital — about 20 miles from Fort Story — where he had been transported after the shooting, unconscious and frail.

Bonnie, a seventh-grader at the time, was already at school by the time the news of the shooting reached the Greene family. She remembers being called to the principal's office and driven home by her brother Randy, who told her only that Dale had been in an accident.

"We got to the house, and everybody was crying," Bonnie says. "My mom literally was beating her head against the wall, and they were trying to console her."

Family members piled into cars and headed for Portsmouth. It wasn't until they were almost at the hospital that someone slipped up and mentioned Dale had been shot — that's how Bonnie learned what had happened.

She still remembers walking into her brother's room in the critical-care unit.

"I'll never forget it," she says. "Dale's head looked three times its normal size. His head was all wrapped, and he was on a ventilator. He didn't look like my brother — matter of fact, he barely looked human to me."

Dale's older brother Jerry, now 76 and living in Florida, has similar memories of Dale's face, his eyes scarcely visible because of the swelling.

"To see anyone, much less your little brother, in such a horrendous condition, it was horrifying to look at," Jerry says. "Just horrifying."

Family members agreed it was a miracle that Dale was even alive.

A mother's

love

Over the next 5 1/2 years, a remarkable story unfolded. Dale didn't recover from his injuries, but his family — and particularly his mother — never gave up hope that it could happen.

"My mom never left his side," Bonnie says.

Dale spent three months at the hospital in Portsmouth, before being transferred to the Veterans Administration Hospital in Durham and then a VA nursing facility in Salisbury. Alice drove back and forth to Durham — a round-trip total of 140 miles — practically every day. The drive was only half that when the family got Dale moved to Salisbury, and Alice still visited her son daily, unless the roads were icy. Sometimes she spent the night in a small camper that Brenda and her late husband, Richard, had parked outside the facility.

"It was almost like I lost my mom when I was 13 years old," Bonnie says. "She dedicated her life basically to caring for this child that needed her."

Bonnie's father, Herbert, continued working and tending to family needs as much as possible. The older Greene children — and a few hospitable neighbors — helped care for the younger kids. And while Alice didn't abandon her family, she focused her attention on Dale, whom she felt needed her the most.

Alice spoke to her son constantly, as if in a normal conversation, believing he could hear her. She held his hand. She frequently repositioned his body so he wouldn't get bedsores.

"The staff is overworked and doesn't have time to do this," she would explain. "He's my son, and I can help."

Alice also bought Dale a television and a radio for his room, one or the other of which played constantly.

"She always wanted something in that room so Dale wouldn't feel like he was alone," Bonnie says.

Family members believed Dale knew of their presence when they visited, though he could not communicate with them. Even the staff acknowledged Dale was much calmer, more at peace, when family members visited and spoke to him as they held his hand or touched him.

Also, Dale's eyes followed family members around the room, but when strangers entered the room, he either closed his eyes or did not look at them.

Dale curled his lip if he didn't like something, and sometimes he cried. If someone changed the channel on the TV, for example, he would cry until it was turned back to the original channel.

The end finally came on Dec. 6, 1975, six years after Dale left Vietnam. The staff called the family and said they needed to come, that Dale was in his final hours.

It's a phone call the family had received several times, and Dale had rallied every time. They figured this occasion would be no different, but three family members — Alice, Bonnie and the oldest brother, Jimmy — drove to Salisbury.

At the nursing unit, Bonnie remembers that Jimmy had gone to a day room to rest, and her mother had dozed off on the couch in Dale's room. She stayed by Dale's side, though, talking softly to her big brother. She told him she loved him dearly, and promised that when she had her first child, she would name the baby after him.

Dale's breathing became shallow, and Bonnie noticed blood dripping from his IV site. Something was wrong, so she called for a nurse.

The nurse knew immediately.

"You need to wake your mama," she said.

Bonnie woke her mother, then Jimmy, then returned to Dale's bedside. Not knowing what else to do, she began singing gospel music, her brother's favorite genre. When Dale drew his final breath, Bonnie was gently stroking his arm and softly singing "When We All Get To Heaven."

Honoring

Nearly half a century has elapsed since the passing of Sgt. Frederick Dale Greene, but his story is no less poignant today than it was the day he died.

Only two of his siblings remain — Bonnie and Jerry — but they and other relatives continue to honor his sacrifice. Dale's photo, looking dapper in his formal MP uniform, graces their mantels and bookcases. They still go through the old family scrapbooks and newspaper clippings, sharing his story with younger generations.

Bonnie kept the promise she made at Dale's bedside. When she gave birth to twin girls, their middle names were Dale and Dawn, the name of his twin sister.

She also honors Dale's memory with a military tradition known as "the empty chair." In the corner of her dining room sits an empty chair, flanked by an American flag, an ever-present reminder of the young man who gave his all for the red, white and blue.

"The chair remains empty because Dale was taken from us — he's missing from our table," Bonnie explains. "But it's also a reminder that he's still a part of our lives, still a part of our family, and still a part of our hearts. And always will be."

jtomlin@hpenews.com — 336-888-3579