The two old soldiers grasped each other’s hand firmly and the energy between them felt like electricity.Ĭoffey and Woody were supposed to meet up with other guys in their unit in Myrtle Beach last year, but COVID got in the way. Woody was standing there in his driveway, waiting. Columbkille’s classmate, Jim Downey, drove him to Woody’s house in Bradenton from his place in Naples. Two years ago, 50 years after the battle that joined them forever, Woody and Coffey reunited in Florida. Woody composed himself, picked up the phone and told Coffey, “You just made my day, my week and the rest of my life.” “His wife said he turned as white as a ghost,” Coffey said. Woody dropped the phone and had to sit down. When Woody answered the phone, Coffey asked, “Is this Woody, from Vietnam?” “So they weren’t looking for me.”Ĭoffey asked Reinhardt for Woody’s phone number. “I was the guy who everybody thought was dead,” Coffey said. One of them, Bob Reinhardt, finally tracked Coffey down, amazed to learn he was alive. Until two years ago, he had no idea that guys from his old Army unit had been holding annual reunions for more than a decade. Coffey got better, got married, bought a house in Westwood, raised four kids, and retired after 38 years as an IRS agent. When he did, in January 1970, he stood 6 feet tall and weighed all of 92 pounds. They put a plate in his head and he spent nine months at various hospitals until he was well enough to leave. Woody ran back to the battle.Īgainst the odds, Coffey survived. “He carried me on his shoulder,” Coffey said.Īs Woody gingerly placed Coffey in the chopper, he thought his buddy was dead, that he’d never see him again. He couldn’t just leave him there.Įven as the firing continued, Woody picked up the unconscious Coffey, and zigzagged toward a clearing where US helicopters were landing.

They moved on to tend to another guy whose leg had been blown off.īut Woody kept looking back at his fallen friend.

“I just went down and I was out,” Coffey recalled.Ī medic wriggled over and took one look at Coffey and told Woody, “He’s dead.

In March 1969, Woody, Coffey and a few other guys from First Platoon were on patrol, looking for the enemy, when they came under heavy fire in an ambush.

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