It’s been 50 years since the War, and with the help of PTSD therapy I’m finally home Bob Parsons is best known for founding GoDaddy.com and changing the game for the golf industry with his golf club manufacturing company, PXG, but in his heart, he is most proud of being a U.S Marine. Parsons was awarded four medals, including the Purple Heart and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, and the Combat Action Ribbon for his service during the Vietnam War. Homeland Magazine sat down with Bob Parsons, who is dedicated to helping lead the charge when it comes to advocating for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy treatment for his fellow veterans suffering from PTSD. Homeland: Tell us about what made you join the Marines? Parsons: I was a terrible student. I failed the 5th grade, and at the end of every school year thereafter, whether or not I passed was a photo finish. I was a senior in high school in March 1968 when two buddies told me they were going to go talk to the Marine Corps recruiter. I went along with them to hear what the Marines had to say, and they (the Marines) had me at hello. The three of us enlisted on the spot. Because I was only 17 at the time, my mom had to sign off on my paperwork. We all went to boot camp that August, and six months later we were carrying rifles in Vietnam. Homeland: Tell me about your time in Vietnam. Parsons: I served as a rifleman with Delta Company of the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines in Quang Nam province on Hill 190. On one side of Hill 190 there were rice paddies as far as you could see. On the other side were mountains and jungle. When I met the Marines in my squad for the first time, I learned that they had been ambushed a few days earlier and suffered five casualties, four of which were KIA. Those Marines who were killed or wounded were the senior guys.
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The new squad leader and senior man was a Marine named Barry George, who had been in country at that time just six weeks. Upon learning this, and spending about an hour of thinking and soul searching, I accepted the fact that I was probably going to die there. I made myself two promises right then and there: 1) I’d do my job as a Marine to the best of my ability for the rest of the guys there and for my folks back home; and 2) I would do whatever it took to be alive for Mail Call in the morning. Taking things one day at a time, and focusing no further into the future than the next day’s mail call, was how I got through it. The rifle squads of Delta Company ran ambushes every night. Our job was to keep the North Vietnamese Army from terrorizing the small rice farming villages and taking their rice to feed their troops. I did every job I was asked to do. I walked “tail end Charlie” – the last Marine in line. Walking tail end was probably the safest position to be in the squad, but it was also pretty creepy – always looking over your shoulder for an enemy soldier sneaking up in back of you. I also carried the radio. Back then there were no cell phones. The radio was big and bulky, had an 8-foot antenna, and since it was our only form of communication, carrying the radio was like wearing a sign that said, “Please shoot me first.” Eventually I volunteered for the point team, and while walking second through a village in the pitch dark night, the point man somehow stepped over and missed the tripwire. I had no such luck and hit it. The shrapnel from the resulting explosion wounded both my legs and my left elbow. I was medevac’d to Yokusko Naval Hospital
