Rick Springfield revealed on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast that he fired a mortar during a 1968 visit to Vietnam to entertain troops, an action he believes resulted in the death of another person. The incident has reportedly haunted him for decades.
Springfield, who was part of a band that toured Vietnam for approximately four months, described the experience as "insane." The band was hired to perform for American soldiers, with the presence of female performers being a key factor in securing such engagements. Springfield initially saw the tour as a way to earn money but found they spent most of their earnings and were not making much.
Combat Experience
The situation took a serious turn when Springfield's group was attacked. He recounted being in a radio shack with soldiers when they came under fire. Springfield stated he was instructed to fire mortars down a tube, with confirmation that no friendly forces were in the vicinity.
"It was freaky," Springfield said. "This is before – you couldn't do any of this now."
He later learned that one of the mortars he had fired had hit someone. "The hardest thing for me was that I had thrown a mortar down, and it had hit somebody, and they came in the next day and said, 'Hey, you got one. You got one,'" he recalled.
Springfield explained that as a young man, he didn't fully grasp the implications of his actions, likening his mindset at the time to "John Wayne time." However, he acknowledged the lasting weight of the event.
"And that still has a hard place to land in me, you know? That's really kind of the one thing I brought back with me that I couldn't really find a place for that to land," Springfield told Rogan. "It's hard for me to kind of face that I was responsible for the end of a life, even though it's distant, and it's war."