From the battlefields of the Vietnam War to wrangling horses at a rodeo, Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient Dick Hermann was a man who lived outside the box.
His death last week at the age of 78 is a loss among Vietnam veterans who are dwindling in numbers, and leaves a void among his friends and comrades on the South Dakota rodeo circuit.
“I wasn’t quite ready to lose him. He was a little younger than I am, and I’m not ready to go yet. I didn’t figure he would be either,” 84-year-old Jim Korkow, owner of Korkow Rodeos of South Dakota, said in an interview with Military.com. “Dick and I were pretty damn close. He worked with me for years. He was always happy. Everything was fun. We had a lot of laughs.”
Their fun was a decades-long footnote to what had been a harrowing yet honorable time for Hermann as a teenager whose father signed him up at 16 to enlist in the Navy. By happenstance, Hermann became a highly decorated petty officer first class.
He made Navy history as the sole survivor of an attack on a river patrol boat in Mekong, Vietnam, earning a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, among other commendations.
“He didn’t talk about that. He talked about walking a quarter of a mile on the bottom of that river, trying to get out of where they were shooting at him,” Korkow said. “That was the kind of memory Dick carried with him. His medals or anything else he received were not what he talked about. He moved on and chose to live life by having fun.”
Hermann passed away on July 9 in Cave Creek, Ariz., where he lived full-time after spending 34 years working with Korkow in the rodeo business. A native of St. Onge, S.D., Hermann never married and had no children.
He wrote a book about his time in Vietnam, titled “Dirty River War: Through the Eyes of a Gator Sailor, 1967-70.” It was published in October 2024, and details his military service at such a young age, including the river boat attack that nearly killed him, and his life after the Navy.
“He liked big trucks and loved the rodeo. For him, it was the people,” Korhow said. “The kind of people you meet and are around that you work with. That was fun for Dick.”
Hermann’s career shift came after some of his Navy buddies told him about a rodeo business back home in South Dakota where he could get a job.
“He was talking about wanting to be a cowboy, so they brought him up here and introduced him to us and to the rodeo business,” Hermann said. “We both thought he would just be around for a short time, maybe for the winter. Well, that winter job lasted for years and years. He loved it, and we loved him.”
Hermann became a skilled rodeo hand who worked side by side with Korkow as the business grew.
“He worked on the ranch, put up hay in the summer, and about every weekend, we went to a rodeo somewhere,” Korkow said. “We gathered the bucking horses and the bulls, loaded them in the trucks, drove to the rodeo, then unloaded them into different pens. When it was over, we loaded the trucks back to the ranch. It was hard work, but Dick made it fun.”
It may have been Hermann’s way of escaping his Vietnam memories.
“Dick was the sole survivor in three boats that were attacked on that river in Vietnam. He told me the boats were made out of fiberglass and just full of styrofoam. There really was no protection,” Korkow said, as he recalled the stories Hermann would tell about the attack. “Back here, it was all fun and games. Nobody was shooting at him. He was the life of the party.”
Hermann left the Korkow rodeo business years ago, but was never forgotten by Korkow or other long-time ranch hands.
“He was a funny guy. He had business cards he would give out that said he did horse pickups, but didn’t own any horses. He drove trucks but didn’t own one. And he loved planes but never flew in one. He sort of made fun of himself,” Leon Kristianson, a rodeo superintendent at Korkow. “He was a riot. He was quite a guy.”
Hermann was also a walking piece of history, not just for his work in the rodeo business, but as a decorated Vietnam War veteran, whose early military service gave him a positive outlook on life.
“It’s one of those deals that hits you in the heart,” Korkow said. “Dick hadn’t worked for me for several years, but we still stayed in contact, and his death is heavy on my mind and my heart.”
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