Rick Springfield has said in an emotional new interview that while he was entertaining troops during the Vietnam War, he killed a man with a mortar bomb.
The Jessie’s Girl hitmaker, 77, wowed fans during a performance at The Joe Rogan Experiencewhere he opened up about having been in Vietnam as a teenager, with the trauma of the attack staying with him almost sixty years later.
Springfield explained how he and his band, MPD Limited, traveled to South Vietnam in 1968 to tour and provide entertainment for serving soldiers, where they stayed for about four months.
He said: ‘It was crazy. I thought, “Oh, great. We’ll make money, you know.” And of course we didn’t make any money from it. We spent it all at the PX, and we didn’t make much money anyway.”
Springfield, then 19 years old, said the journey quickly took a dangerous turn when he and his bandmates were involved in an attack – with the musician making a split-second decision to throw mortar bombs.
He said, “We met these guys, and we got along great, and we stayed overnight with them, and we all went into the bunkers, into the perimeter bunkers, and I stayed in the radio hut, and we were attacked, and I threw mortars through the crazy tube of the radio hut.”
Rick Springfield has said in an emotional new interview that he killed a man with a mortar bomb during his time entertaining troops during the Vietnam War
The Jessie’s Girl hitmaker, 77, wowed fans during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, where he opened up about his time in Vietnam as a teenager – pictured
‘It was scary. This is the past. Now you can’t do any of this anymore.’
He added: ‘The hardest part for me was when I threw down a mortar and it hit someone and they came the next day and said, “Hey, you got one. You got one!”
“And that was… it still has a place… a hard place to land in me, you know.
“And that’s really the only thing I brought that I couldn’t really find a place to land. And yet… it still seems like you knew years ago: another man, another place.”
Springfield said he still has a “hard time coming to terms with” the fact that “I was responsible for the end of a life, even though it’s far away and it’s a war and I didn’t really have anything to do with it and I didn’t really know what I was doing.”
“But as a kid and playing, you know, like I said to John Wayne, but it was pretty tough when you know, when I think about the reality of it.”
The Daily Mail has reached out to Springfield representatives for further comment and has not yet heard back.
The Vietnam War began informally in the early 1950s and formally began in 1965 after the United States sent troops to the Southeast Asian country to fight in the conflict against North Vietnam and in support of South Vietnam.
The goal was to prevent the country from becoming communist.
Springfield explained how he and his band traveled to Vietnam in 1968 to tour and provide entertainment for serving soldiers, where they stayed for about four months.
Springfield said the journey quickly took a dangerous turn when he and his bandmates were involved in an attack along with soldiers – during which the musician made a split-second decision to throw mortar bombs – pictured in Vietnam
He added: ‘The hardest part for me was I threw a mortar down and it hit someone and they came in the next day and said, “Hey, you’ve got one. You’ve got one!”
Soldiers are treated during Operation Hue City in Vietnam on February 6, 1968 – the year Springfield was in country
Host Rogan appeared visibly shaken as Springfield’s devastating story unfolded
The former Zoot guitarist has been married to the mother of his two children, Barbara Porter, since 1984 – photo 2015
The US withdrew in 1973 and Vietnam became a communist nation in 1975. The conflict claimed at least three million lives, including 58,000 Americans.
Springfield was born Richard Lewis Springthorpe in Australia.
He was a member of the pop rock group Zoot from 1969 to 1971.
Springfield’s biggest hit came in 1981 with the catchy pop song Jessie’s Girl
He then began his solo career with his debut single Speak to the Sky, which reached the top ten in Australia in mid-1971.
His biggest hit came in 1981 with the catchy pop song Jessie’s Girl.
The former Zoot guitarist, who has been married to the mother of his two children, Barbara Porter, since 1984
