‘It was a blessing that God took me out so early’
“It was 1966, and I was in Vietnam with the 5th Mechanized Infantry Division. I got medically discharged after about three months as a combat medic. I guess I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A piece of shrapnel went through my right eye, and it was gone immediately. In a way, I kind of think it was a blessing that God took me out of that mess so early. If I would have stayed over there the full tour, 13 months, I probably wouldn’t have made it. I don’t know. But God knew, so he took me out of there.
“I was medically retired, but it took quite a while for my compensation to catch up with the disability. Part of it probably has to do with age and unemployability. While I’ve been without this eye for years, the other one is going out to an extent. I’ve got glaucoma working in it. I also lost the hearing in my left ear. So maybe they added all of that to the unemployability and bumped it up to 100 percent. Last November, while I was gone to visit my son in North Dakota, they finally granted it. I didn’t know until I came back home and discovered that I had a lot of money in the bank. I called the bank and said, ‘Y’all made a mistake.’ They said, ‘No, we didn’t.’ And I said, ‘Well, I guess I’ve hit the lotto.’”
— K.C. Compton, 73
(Editor’s note: K.C. passed away on Nov. 29, 2018.)
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