Rick Springfield’s ‘Jessie’s Girl’: 15 Facts You May Not Know<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cSo they said, \u2018Hey, you wanna throw some mortars down the tube?\u2019\u201d he remembered. \u201cAnd it was John Wayne time. I was a young kid. I didn\u2019t really understand what I was doing. I said, \u2018Oh, yeah! Let\u2019s fire a gun!\u2019 So I threw the mortars down, around five or six mortars. I could have easily lost a hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rick Springfield Still Haunted by Vietnam War Incident: ‘It’s Pretty Heavy’<\/h3>\n
The next day, Springfield was given some unexpected news.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d thrown a mortar down, and it had hit somebody,\u201d he explained. \u201cAnd they came in the next day and said, \u2018Hey, you got one! You got one!\u2019 And that still has a hard place to land in me, you know? That\u2019s really the one thing I brought back with me that I couldn\u2019t really find a place for that to land. It still seems like years ago, another guy, another place.\u201d<\/p>\n
READ MORE: How Rick Springfield Broke Through With ‘Working Class Dog’<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nSpringfield admitted the weight of that incident remains with him now, decades later.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s still there,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to face that I was responsible for the end of a life, even though it\u2019s distant and it\u2019s war and I didn\u2019t really have anything to do with it, and didn\u2019t really know what I was doing. But I was a kid, and playing, like I said, John Wayne. But it\u2019s pretty heavy when I think about the reality of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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16 Rock Stars Who Served in the U.S. Military<\/h2>\n\n
A salute to veterans who served their country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Gallery Credit: Allison Rapp<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n