Silver lining: Tommy Giorgi wins battle star after 46 years, but mourns G.I.s he couldn’t save

Vietnam hero was fearless helping platoon mates in deadly 1966 firefight and later saved lives as a paramedic in Harlem

DAVID HANDSCHUH/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Tommy Giorgi of Westchester County will receive the Silver Star on Monday, 46 years after being wounded in Vietnam and trying to save the life of his squad leader.

By Corky Siemasko / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Forty-six years after Tommy Giorgi was shot and badly wounded trying to save his squad leader from the Viet Cong, he’s being awarded the Silver Star.

During that time, Giorgi saved countless lives while working as a city paramedic in Harlem.

But it’s the memory of the sergeant he couldn’t save — and the dozen other soldiers who died in a Vietnamese jungle that day — that haunts him still.

He said he’s proud to be receiving the military’s third highest medal of valor, but added that his heart will be heavy when it’s pinned on his chest Monday.

“So many guys died and I think of them every day,” said Giorgi, 67, of Rye Brook. “I listened to most of them die. I heard their screams. That stays with you forever.”

Giorgi, who already has a pair of Purple Hearts, said there is simple but sad reason that he never put in for the Silver Star that he earned with his blood.

“For any medal of valor, you have to back that up with witnesses,” he said. “Most of my witnesses were dead.”

Giorgi, who grew up in Port Chester, was working as an X-ray technician at New York Hospital and playing drums in a rock band when he was drafted in 1965.

On July 3, 1966, Pfc. Giorgi and the rest of his 18-man squad was on patrol near the Cambodian border. They walked into an ambush, and only five survived.

Giorgi said he and Spec. James “Smitty” Smith were manning a machine gun when they saw Staff Sgt. Garcia cut down by gunfire near a shallow foxhole.

“He was laying face down,” Giorgi recalled. “I said to Smitty, ‘Garcia’s been hit. I gotta do something.’”

Giorgi grabbed his shotgun and ran into a shooting gallery.

“I’m running and dodging and ducking,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

Giorgi said he grabbed Garcia and dragged him to the waist-deep hole and immediately started tending to his wound.

“I had a buck knife and I cut his shirt open,” he said. “The entire time I was working on him, I was taking fire and screaming for the medic and firing back with my shotgun. When he finally got to us, I took the medic’s M-16 and said, ‘I’ll give cover fire.’”

But while Giorgi was changing magazines, they were hit by another burst of automatic gunfire.

“When I looked up, both the medic and Garcia were dead,” he said.

Realizing he was sitting duck, Giorgi quickly scooted back to where Smith was still firing the machine gun.

“While we were talking, I saw this NVA [North Vietnamese soldier] crawling up,” he said. “Just as I was pulling the trigger, I felt this searing burning pain. It was like a train went through me.”