All 5th Marines gunners KIA/WIA
When Clark arrived in Vietnam, every machine gunner in the 5th Marine Regiment had already been killed or wounded, forcing mortarmen and others to pick up the M60.
Snapshot · The Shawn Ryan Show
#317 Johnnie Clark - Surviving One of the Deadliest Jobs During the Vietnam War
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Jun 29, 2026
Where this was said
Enlisting at 17 and the Chaos Before Vietnam
At 42:43 · chapter starts 24:15
Clark's enlistment journey is a chain of improbable events. He shows up alone to the recruiter after all three football teammates back out. Navy doctors try to reject him for a hernia he doesn't have; he responds with one-arm push-ups and backflips until they relent. His first night in a Jacksonville hotel, a man opens fire in the lobby and bullets chase Clark up the stairs. At Parris Island, he witnesses a Marine driven to the water tower threatening to jump — and DIs who told him to do it, then beat him when he came down. The obstacle course that defined Marine training is now reportedly for display only [1] — Johnnie Clark "Clark's A-gunner Chan later returned to Parris Island and reported that the obstacle course the Marines once had to complete is now for dis…" 36:36 . A Tijuana bar fight lands Clark and Chan in the Tijuana brig, then a Navy brig, then Camp Pendleton's feared Red Line Brig — where prisoners' faces are held against a wall stained red with blood — before they're released the next morning to board a Braniff Airlines flight to Vietnam.
The Parris Island Obstacle Course Is Now for Display Only
Clark's A-gunner Chan later returned to Parris Island and reported that the obstacle course the Marines once had to complete is now for display only — allegedly because female Marines couldn't complete it. Clark shares this with some skepticism but notes it lines up with a broader cultural shift in military standards he's observed since his era.
Chan: The Genius Who Paid America Back
Chan was smuggled out of Communist China as an infant by his doctor father. He had a college degree and a minor in ministry and could have been commissioned as an officer. Instead, he chose to enlist as a machine gunner to pay America back for giving his family refuge. Seventeen arm surgeries ended his surgical career — but he became the world's leading cardiovascular perfusion expert.
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