Finding the Light
Medal of Honor recipient details
journey to healing in new book
G
B eikirch is best known to those attending
Medal of Honor Week in Gainesville as a beloved
friend and hero to model. The former Green Be-
ret A-Team medic went on from the military to
spend many years as a counselor in schools, hospitals, prisons
and with the Veterans Outreach Center, sharing healing and
hope with hundreds. But it took years for him to find that
healing himself.
Beikirch and biographer Marcus Brotherton are bringing
the Medal of Honor recipient’s backstory to life in the new
book “Blaze of Light,” just released this spring. The 272-page
inspirational autobiography recounts how Beikirch found
courage to face both the physical battles in the field and the
emotional battles that nearly tore him apart.
In Vietnam, Sgt. Beikirch thought he had discovered his
true calling as an A-Team medic with the U.S. Army Green
Berets in the remote village of Dak Seang, where he taught
medical skills to the Montagnard people, a highly principled
indigenous group who loved him for his dedication and loyalty.
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But the idyllic calm was shattered on April 1,
1970, when some 10,000 enemy soldiers sur-
rounded the village and launched a devastating
surprise attack on all inside —12 Special Forces
soldiers, 400 Montagnard fighters, and 2,300
women and children.
Severely wounded three times, shot in the stomach and
near the spine, paralyzed from the waist down and under
heavy fire, Beikirch refused medical treatment. Instead, he
asked two medical helpers to carry him around the battlefield
so he could continue to treat the wounded and help bring
them to safety.
Finally, after collapsing and being evacuated by helicopter,
Beikirch wavered in and out of a coma in an intensive care
unit for seven days, facing death. A chance encounter with a
chaplain began the process of change in Beikirch’s life, and
he eventually healed enough to be released from the hospital.
But he still had a long way to go.
Physically damaged and confused, Beikirch’s return to an
embittered U.S. was the beginning of a new battle. He would
fight the pain of a wounded heart, soul, and spirit. He didn’t
know it yet, but the emotional pain would prove more de-
structive than any of his physical wounds.
Returning to enroll in university studies, Beikirch was