One tough Marine, declared dead three times survived Vietnam

This sounded like a good story as it was but when I read this Marine was declared dead three times, it turned into an amazing story.

Charles “Graves” Roth made sure this Marine stayed alive after he was told three times Gil Hernandez was dead at Graves Registration. He not only lived long enough to make it back home, after 43 years, he met the man who saved his life.

A Maine meets the man who saved his life 43 years ago.

Published: Wednesday, March 16, 2011
By Anne Neborak

For many the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall is a place to commemorate the dead for Charles “Graves” Roth, age 62 of Collingdale each year he would visit the Wall remembering those who died during the Tet Offensive and his best friend Robert L. Stanek who died on Feb. 4, 1968.


But on this breezy day on March 7, it was a day to celebrate life. Today he would meet the Marine whose life he had miraculously saved forty-three years ago.


Roth was in Graves Registration where he tended to over 2,700 bodies of the fallen soldiers, children and even military dogs in Vietnam. He would retrieve bodies during the day repelling out of helicopters and spend his nights preparing the dead for their trip home. He and another Marine would fingerprint the soldiers and then put them in body bags.

Roth began hollering “this Marine is alive” They continued working on Hernandez and found a faint pulse. Amazingly, Hernandez was pronounced dead three times before being sent to Japan for treatment. His injuries were so massive he never would have survived the plane ride home to the states.
read more here
Maine meets the man who saved his life 43 years ago