Courage is Contagious: Mike & Tommy

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Now, on to the episode.

It was the fall of 1972, the waning days of the Vietnam War.

American troops had been sent home, leaving the South Vietnamese to keep fighting on their own.

President Richard Nixon called this policy Vietnamization.

We can continue our program of withdrawing American forces without detriment to our overall goal of ensuring South Vietnam's survival as an independent country.

There were fewer than 20 Navy SEALs left in the country by that point.

They were there to, quote-unquote, advise the South Vietnamese military.

In reality, the SEALs were running missions at the front lines and sometimes dangerously behind them.

On October 30th, Petty Officer Michael Thornton was about to set out on one of those missions.

Thornton's hometown was Spartanburg, South Carolina.

He was six foot two, thickly muscled, with a reputation for carrying twice the loads of ammunition as other guys.

Long sideburns, a cleft chin, and an Elvis pout.

His fellow SEALs called him the Mighty Thor.

At 17, he had been given the choice between reform school and the military.

He chose the military.

With him that night in October was Lieutenant Thomas Norris.

Tommy Norris was 28, a seasoned officer.

He cast a completely different shadow than Mike Thornton.

He was fine-boned and wiry, 5'6, 120 pounds soaking wet, a high school wrestling champion back home in Maryland.

His nickname was Nasty Norris.

There was nobody tougher.

The two SEALs knew each other even though they'd never been on a mission together before.

There were so few SEALs left that they all knew each other.

When Tommy was asked to choose one other SEAL to accompany him on a scouting mission, he chose Mike, the mighty Thor, and Nasty Norris.

They were meant to investigate a naval base that had been taken just a few months earlier by the North Vietnamese Army during its relentless southward march.

The SEALs knew they were entering dangerous territory, so they planned to do their reconnaissance under cover of darkness.

A Navy ship got them close, then a dinghy closer.

And finally, Tommy, Mike, and three South Vietnamese Navy men dropped over the sides into the South China Sea and swam silently to shore.

Everything that could go wrong was about to go wrong.

I'm Malcolm Glabwell and this is Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage.

The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States, awarded for gallantry and bravery in combat at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty.

The Medal of Honor was established in 1861 at the outset of the Civil War.

There have been 3,517 people awarded the medal since.

Each candidate must be approved all the way up the chain of command, from the supervisory officer in the field to the highest office in our nation.

it's not just approved by the Secretary of Defense.

It has to be agreed to by the President.

This show is about those heroes, what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage.

And this episode is about what happened on Halloween 1972.

It was 1 a.m.

The five soldiers reached the shore.

They were looking for an enemy-occupied naval base on the southernmost outskirts of North Vietnamese territory.

A place the North Vietnamese Army, they referred to them as the NVA, would have just started to settle down in.

But something seemed off.

From what they could tell in the moonlight, this was not some newly settled encampment.

Later, Mike Thornton would remember how he felt in that moment when he realized they'd been dropped off miles north of their intended target.

We're walking through areas that had been no way in hell they could have built all this stuff up in two months.

So right then we knew we were way north.

Listen to his tone, by the way.

He sounds like he's describing how he went to the grocery store and realized he forgot his shopping list at home.

Mike saw bunkers the size of hotel buildings, weapons, soldiers sleeping on mats on the ground.

They'd been dropped on top of a major North Vietnamese Army installation.

The SEALs crept along in a line, hunched over so as not to be spotted.

Tommy was at the front.

Mike was at the rear.

Between them were the three South Vietnamese Navy men.

Mike had gone on previous missions with two of them, Deng and Kwan, and hand-picked them for that night.

Both of them were confident, seasoned in combat, and unflappable in the face of danger.

Mike liked and trusted them both.

The third was a young and inexperienced officer, Lieutenant Ty.

Mike kept creeping up to Tommy to check if Tommy was seeing what he was seeing.

They had tanks and gun emplacements.

They had guys with big bonfires, so we knew they weren't afraid of, you know, letting them know who they were.

And I'm bent down as far as I can.

I say, Tommy, you see this?

Yeah.

By the time they confirmed their suspicions, they were five miles from where they dropped in.

It would be light soon.

There was no chance they could get back to sea before daylight came.

So Tommy decided that their best hope for survival would be to return to the beach, hide out between the dunes, radio for help, and wait for night to fall again.

Once it was dark, they'd swim back out to sea and be extracted.

Silently, stealthily, they worked their way back to the beach.

They waded through a stream in waist-high water all the way.

We could move much faster in the water and we wouldn't have to worry about stumbling over somebody asleep because we could hear a guy snoring.

It was unbelievable.

Once they made it to the beach, the five men split up and hid behind two large dunes.

There was a lagoon to one side, a wide swath of open sand to the other.

The sun was rising and they settled into the long wait for darkness.

But then they saw two North Vietnamese on patrol.

Kwan come flying around and he tapped me and tapped me on the shoulder and gave me the sign for two enemy back there.

So I went back around and saw these guys coming.

I could just see their silhouettes.

They knew they needed to capture or kill them.

Discovery would be catastrophic.

Mike crept up behind one and cold cocked him.

Kwan tied him up, gagged him, and dragged him out of sight.

Mike silently signaled to Lieutenant Ty to eliminate the other one, but instead, Ty called out to the soldier and ordered him to stop.

He didn't stop.

And that guy had an AK-47.

He was about 300 yards away and he opened fired up on Ty.

Ty jumped down and started running back towards me.

So he's running back towards me and I'm running past him because I'm trying to get this guy because we could see that he was heading for the village.

The North Vietnamese soldier was running back to where he came from, firing off shots to alert everyone to the situation at the dunes.

Mike was in pursuit.

So I'm hauling can and I stopped on one knee, took two breaths and cranked off two rounds.

I hit him in the back and the guy fell.

But when I looked up, there was a quick reaction force coming with the village with about 50 guys.

You can picture it right.

A huge group of men descending on Mike.

Mike knew he had only one option.

Run.

So I turned around, started running back, and Tommy sees me running back and hears all these bullets going off.

And he doesn't see me shooting.

So he knew like hell that we were in a world of trouble.

A world of trouble.

That's where Medal of Honor stories are made.

In the places where the odds are so long and the risk is so great that it will take an act of extreme bravery for anyone to survive.

But where does that bravery come from?

That's one of the questions that got me so obsessed with Medal of Honor stories.

Because I think sometimes we just assume that courage is a trait, something you're born with.

And that what happens in moments, like on that Vietnam beach, is that we suddenly learn who has it and who doesn't.

One of the things that happens when you listen to enough Medal of Honor stories is that you begin to realize that courage is not a birthright.

It's a choice.

Mike was being chased by a mass of North Vietnamese soldiers.

Tommy saw him hauling Can back towards the group and fired a rocket at a tree, exploding it and creating enough of a diversion so Mike could dive back into the dunes.

It was total chaos.

Because now they were being strafed with bullets.

Tommy was desperately radioing for help.

He needed a ship to send cover fire and drive the NVA back.

Two Navy warships wanted to come to their aid, but they didn't know who the SEALs were.

Any help was hours away.

It was a series of problems that would seem overwhelming to anyone.

But Mike broke down the big problems into components.

They were five against an entire encampment of NVA.

But the NVA didn't know how many of them there were, right?

So, solution number one, make it look like there were 10 or 20 of them.

So, Mike started impersonating an entire SEAL platoon.

As soon as I saw the top of their head coming up, I'd take about an inch shot and saying I'd get a headshot every time.

If I'd take a couple of shots like that, I'd roll over and come up in another position.

They didn't know if we had 15 people in there or five.

Mike keeps shooting, ducking, and rolling for hours.

And then someone threw a grenade over the top of the dune.

And I just screamed out, and I got hit six times in my back back with shrapnel.

And you could hear Tommy yelling, Mike, buddy, Mike, buddy.

He just saw me laying on my back and I said, didn't say a word.

And about four guys came over and I was laying on my back and I eliminated all four of those guys.

Two fell on my side.

The two fell back and Tommy was watching what was going on.

Mike was on his back, expecting a surge of more North Vietnamese any moment now.

They knew he was hit, but instead

The action just stopped.

Tommy yelled down at me and said they're falling back.

We couldn't understand where they were falling back.

And they had lost a great number of

their unit to do this.

And I still don't think they ever knew exactly how many people we had.

A silence descended on the beach.

Everything went eerily still.

The five men began to regroup, got cautiously hopeful.

Had their strategy actually worked?

No, it hadn't.

Tommy said, why are they falling back?

And I said, pointed across the lagoon, and we started, we counted a great number of NVA

troops coming from both sides around the lagoon.

There were close to 100 North Vietnamese troops.

They were now outnumbered 20 to 1.

Tommy realized they needed a better position.

He spied a dune in the distance that would give them a potential defense.

The NVA would have to cross nearly a quarter of a mile of open sand to reach them there.

In theory, they could pick them off one by one, if they could hold on to to the high ground for that long.

Tommy decided that Mike, Kwan, and Lieutenant Tai would run for the dune first.

He and Dang would come after.

The three started sprinting, crossing the 500 yards of sand to the new dune.

So we fell back, and I was yelling, Tommy, fall back, fall back, and I could see Dang, and this was like one o'clock, 1.30 in the afternoon, because the firefight had gone on for over five hours, was running down the dune by himself.

And he was running by himself.

And I said, my grandmother said, where's Tommy?

Tommy he said Mike Dawey's dead and I said are you sure he said he said he was shot in the head he's dead

Tommy the leader of the team was shot in the head and dead Mike trusted Deng they'd been on missions together before he'd hand-picked him for this one Deng knew what he'd seen and Mike had no reason not to believe him The situation for the rest of them was getting more dangerous by the minute.

The team was about to be surrounded by North Vietnamese soldiers, but SEALs have a core value.

Leave no man behind.

So Mike decided he would go and get Tommy, putting principle above self-preservation.

I said, stay here, I'll go back and get Tom.

And Kwan and Dane both grabbed me and held me.

He said, no, Mike, you stay.

And I said, no, I'm going back.

Y'all stay here.

You cover me.

Mike ran back across the beach, back almost a quarter of a mile, directly into the gunfire.

He reached Tommy just as five North Vietnamese soldiers did, and he shot them all.

I picked Tommy up.

He was shot through the left temple, and the bullet had exited through his forehead, and the whole front lobal part of his front brain was gone.

His cheekbone was gone, his eye socket was completely gone.

And I thought he was dead.

On some level, it didn't matter if Tommy was alive or dead.

Mike knew he wasn't leaving that beach without him.

We'll be right back.

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Here's why the story of that night on the beach is so interesting to me.

At this critical point, Mike Thornton, a supremely rational guy who talks about the most dramatic night of his life as if it's a trip to the grocery store, is making what seems like an unbelievably irrational decision.

As he runs across the sand to Tommy Norris, he's being driven by something.

What is it?

You've probably heard the saying, courage is contagious.

It's one of those bits of folk wisdom that turns out to be true.

Research has shown that seeing, or even just hearing about an act of courage makes it more likely that you will be courageous yourself.

The scientific term for that idea is pro-social contagion.

When you witness kindness or heroism, two separate areas in your nervous system are activated.

Your awareness is heightened, your desire to protect others grows.

You catch your heroism from others.

We see this all the time.

One person holds a door open for the person behind them, and then suddenly a whole string of people are holding open the door as well.

That's a small example.

But think about the passengers on Flight 93 on 9-11.

A group of terrified average people who made a collective decision to fight back against terrible odds.

They inspired heroism in one another.

So what's driving Mike Thornton to make his totally bonkers decision to race across the beach?

Something he knew about.

that happened in Vietnam six months before.

That spring, an Air Force flight was shot down over North Vietnam, with one survivor left behind the front lines.

He had top secret intel, so the Air Force sent mission after mission to rescue him, each one a catastrophic failure, men dying, aircraft destroyed.

Then a second pilot, one of the rescuers, got stranded behind enemy lines.

Finally, the Air Force called in the Navy SEALs.

The SEALs sent in one of their best.

He snuck into heavily patrolled enemy territory and found one of the pilots.

They got out alive, but barely.

Then he went back for the second one.

This time, it was even more of a suicide mission.

But the SEAL did it anyway, disguised as a fisherman paddling a canoe.

And he succeeded.

Everyone in the SEALs knew that story, especially Mike Thornton, because the SEAL who rescued those two pilots was Tommy Norris.

So when Mike raced across the beach to get his friend, his commanding officer, he was doing what he already knew Tommy had done himself and would do for anyone.

Tommy's courage was contagious.

Back to the firefight.

A naval destroyer has finally arrived to give them cover.

Mike was running as fast as he could with Tommy on his shoulders as the ship started shelling the beach.

I heard the first eight-inch round coming in, and the concussion blew me almost 20 feet in the air and I looked at Tommy and he's flying off my shoulders.

Mike got blown sideways.

He was dazed, stumbling.

Tommy, of course, had already been shot in the head.

Now he'd been tossed through the air by a shell from a Navy destroyer.

If he wasn't dead before, he was certainly dead now.

Once again, Mike chose to go back for him.

I looked down.

I saw my weapon.

I saw Tommy's weapon.

I saw Tommy over here and I ran over and he's laying on his back.

And I looked down at him to grab grab him to pick him up, start running with him again.

And he had that right eye open like that.

He says, Mike, buddy, I said, the son of a bitch is still alive.

Tommy was alive.

And Mike had to keep him alive.

Mike looked to the faraway dune where Deng and Kwan were still waiting, then back to Tommy.

Half his head's hanging out, you know, and I'm about to pick him up and I put him back on my shoulders and I started running.

Dang and Kwan started shooting, giving them cover.

Ty was gone.

As he had watched Mike run to Tommy, the young lieutenant had given up hope, jumped in the water, and swam away, deserting the firefight as a lost cause.

Their radio was shot to bits, useless, no more calling for help.

The only option was to get off the beach and swim to safety.

The Navy warships were far offshore, but maybe they could reach them.

Anything was better than remaining on the beach.

Mike, Kwan, and Deng leapfrogged towards the surf, each one taking turns sprinting to the water as the other two covered him.

They had almost no ammo left.

The North Vietnamese surrounded them on three sides.

The team had nowhere to go but the ocean.

By now, Mike had a bullet through his calf, and he was still carrying Tommy.

We got to the beach and I stumbled and fell, and Tommy rolled over like that.

And I said, gosh, if they didn't kill it, I'm going to kill him dropping him all this time.

There were swells four feet high.

Mike tucked Tommy under his arm and dove in, pushing him underneath the waves to get him through the surf zone.

And without me knowing about it, I was basically drowning Tommy.

I felt him, because he had been pretty quiet there period of time, and he actually started hitting his hands that hit me in the back, and I looked down and I had his head stuffed in the water.

The shots kept coming from shore.

The soldiers on the beach never stopped firing.

As we swam through the surf zone, you could see the bullets

just going through the water just like you do in a movie.

You know, and I was saying, good Lord, don't let them hit me now, God.

Out past the breaking waves, the water was calm except for the sound of bullets splashing around them.

Now Mike had to figure out just how he was going to stabilize Tommy.

He took his life jacket and put it over Tommy's head as carefully as he possibly could, so he wouldn't make the wound any worse.

He tied a line around him, securing Tommy to his back.

He saw Dang out front of him swimming.

Another of his men accounted for.

He was hopeful that Ty, the young lieutenant, was out there swimming too.

He was worried about him, even though Ty had left them for dead.

Then, he spotted Kwan floundering in the water.

He was wounded and drowning.

He was shot through his right hip and blew off his whole cheek of his butt, and he couldn't swim, so I grabbed him, put him in front of me, and

I

had him wrap his arms around me like this.

I had my arms underneath his arms, and he held on to Tommy, and I swam for approximately three, three and a half hours.

So now Mike was holding two men after a five-hour firefight, shrapnel in his back, bullet in his leg.

He can't even see the boat he's meant to swim to, but he starts to swim.

You stay focused on the motion, you keep swimming, you never stop, you keep swimming.

You can just keep focused on what this will keep us alive.

Tommy, tied to Mike's back, drifted in and out of consciousness, waking up only to ask if all the men were safe.

Mike lied and said he hit all of them, didn't mention the missing tie.

Tommy got quieter and quieter, and Mike kept swimming.

He'd been keeping his eyes on the horizon, where he'd seen glimpses of the USS Newport News, the largest cruiser in that part of the South China Sea.

He knew it had a medical team on board, which was a rarity since most of the American military had gone home.

At the top of a swell, he saw the ship again, but it seemed to be sailing away.

I was the worst sight I saw in my life.

I saw a big boat turn around and start going seaward.

It was enough to make the mighty Thor give up hope.

Almost.

Later on, we found out a Ford Observer plane had said there was nothing but a bunch of bodies on the beach and they thought we were dead.

Mike watched the big ship retreat into the distance.

Tommy was slipping away.

But Mike just kept swimming.

He's going in really deep shock.

You could feel him just shaking on your back and there's not a damn thing you can do.

Another hour passed.

Mike and Tommy, Kwan and Deng, had been in the water for more than three hours.

Then, they saw a boat.

A traditional sailing vessel called a junk, a type of boat that had been used by both sides in the war, friends and foe.

I saw the junk out there, and I wasn't sure I was so tired.

That was a Vietnamese junk or what.

Mike used the last of his strength to signal the boat, and as it got closer, he discovered that not only was it safe, it had been looking for him.

It was one of two junks led by another Navy SEAL, Woody Woodruff, who, because he was a SEAL of course, had steadfastly refused to leave without finding the missing team, even as the bigger ships departed for safety.

The crew pulled Kwan and Deng aboard, and then Mike carefully passed Tommy up.

Mike was the last one out of the water.

Lieutenant Ty had been found by the junks an hour before.

I called the Newport News, the Newport News turned around.

We started steaming towards the Newport News and the junk.

Woody met us, met us there, and we rafted up to the Newport News, got Tommy up on the fantail.

I picked Tommy up and took him down and put him on the gurney.

Mike stayed with Tommy as long as he could until the doctors took over.

The prognosis looked grim.

In fact, it looked impossible.

But the doctors were another kind of hero.

And there's a lieutenant commander, Doctor, and later on, we met the doctor again several years later.

That was on the Newport News.

And he said, I swear to God, that he would have never lived.

Anyone would have given up Tommy Norris for dead when he'd been shot through the head, or if somehow you missed that after he'd been blown sideways by a shell from a naval destroyer, or when he'd soaked in the sea for hours after both those wounds.

But somehow, he made it through.

He survived.

With

the grace of our God, my God, he's still with us.

It wasn't just the heroics of Mike Thornton that saved Tommy Norris.

It was Kwan and Deng staying on the beach to give them cover.

It was the persistence of Woody Woodruff refusing to call off his search.

It was the surgeons on the Newport News and then the doctors who took over when Tommy was shipped home.

And what started this chain reaction?

Tommy's own courage the previous April.

That social contagion of a willingness to try improbable things.

You can still hear that courage in Tommy's voice as he remembers the early days of surgery that turned into years in the hospital.

The doctors even came in and said, we didn't think we were ever going to save you.

He said, I don't know how

you

stayed alive and made it through.

But he said, you just wouldn't give up.

And

I think that's part of what it was.

You just have a determination not to give up.

And my injury

When you see the death and destruction to other people that you see in war, I mean, what I have is nothing.

So I lost an eye and part of my head and brain and had some other bodily injuries, but what is that?

I mean,

I have another eye.

He has another eye.

When you hear stories of courage or valor, it forces you to ask the question of yourself: What do I have within me?

That's what Tommy's story did for Mike.

It lifted him up, and then, in turn, Mike carried him home.

This episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union.

Navy Federal can help you find and finance the right vehicle with ease.

And this summer, you're in the driver's seat with savings.

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With this tool, you can find the vehicle that's right for you as you search through inventory and compare models.

And you could get an amazing rate when you finance with Navy Federal.

Navy Federal strives to support all active duty veterans and their families to achieve their personal and financial goals.

And this partnership with TrueCar is one of the many tools Navy Federal uses to help its members.

Make your plan with Navy Federal and TrueCar today.

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To qualify for the $250 bonus, car purchase and financing must be completed by September 2nd, 2025.

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In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal.

T-Mobile knows all about that.

They're now the best network, according to the experts at OOCLA Speed Test, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage.

With Supermobile, your performance, security, and coverage are supercharged.

With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity even in times of high demand.

With built-in security on the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data private for you, your team, your clients.

And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite-to-mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid.

That's your business, Supercharged.

Learn more at supermobile.com.

Seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky.

Best network based on analysis by UCLA of Speed Test Intelligence Data 1H 2025.

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One day, a year later, in October of 1973, Mike Thornton decided to bust Tommy Norris out of the hospital against doctors' orders.

It was an absurd thing to do.

He had surgery the next day, but they were going to the White House because Mike had been awarded the Medal of Honor.

I'll never forget that day.

My mom and dad was there.

My brother was there.

Tommy was there.

And the president asked me and said, Mike, you know, what does this mean to you?

And I was President Nixon, and we're in the East Room.

and I said, sir, if you could take something and cut this in half, I'd like to give the other half of this medal to the gentleman standing behind me, and that was Tommy.

Mike kept his medal intact, which was fine, because three years later, he was back at the White House, watching Tommy get his own Medal of Honor for his rescue of the two pilots.

It goes on from there.

They are more than former comrades in arms.

They're best friends.

They finish each other's sentences.

They laugh about everything, even the worst night of their lives, when they were wandering through that North Vietnamese encampment.

He'd kind of look at me, you know, like, yeah, you

nut.

We're not where we're supposed to be.

And he'd go back to the back of the line and off we go.

We'd patrol some more.

And, you know, every time we'd stop, he'd let me know that, you know, hey, dumb-dumb, we're not where we're supposed to be.

Mike and Tommy helped to bring Lieutenant Tai and Kwan to the U.S.

Deng didn't make it out before the fall of South Vietnam.

He was captured and executed.

Despite the loss of his eye, Tommy became an FBI agent, acing the entrance exam and the training, unsurprisingly.

Eventually, he was one of the founders of the hostage rescue team, which feels fitting for someone who is so doggedly obsessed with getting people to safety.

Mike went on to be a founding member of SEAL Team 6, working in counterterrorism.

He's considered to be the ultimate SEAL, a giant of a man, acres of ribbons across his dress whites.

I love my brother to death, but I'm closer to Tommy and I am my own brother.

I mean, to live through what we've lived through together and continue our friendship for all those years, it's just

a magnificent thing.

And it's not just about our friendship.

You know, I've known people that's been wounded together, and I've been wounded with other guys in SIL team, but never the camaraderie and the friendship that Tommy and I hold even together today.

Tommy, for his part, believes his courage isn't extraordinary.

He thinks it's waiting to be sparked to life within all of us.

I don't feel that I was anybody special.

It was a time and a place and a mission that needed to be accomplished, and I was fortunate to be the one that was successful in that.

But I don't feel that I was, this was something that,

at least I would like to think that...

Somebody else in my position would have attempted to do the same thing if they could have.

They're both retired now.

Mike lives in Houston, Texas.

Tommy lives on a little ranch in northern Idaho.

But they still see each other at least 10 times a year.

After all, it's only a four-hour flight.

Even if they had to swim it, they'd still find a way back to each other.

Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage, is written by Meredith Rollins and produced by Meredith Rollins, Constanza Galardo, Ben Nadaf Hafrey, and Izzy Carter.

This episode was edited by Peter Clowney.

Sound design and additional music by Jake Korski.

Recording engineering by Nina Lawrence.

Fact-checking by Arthur Gompertz.

Original music by Eric Phillips.

The rest of our team includes Carl Cadel, Ashley Weaver, Greta Cohn, Christina Sullivan, Sarah Nix, Nicole Optenbosch, Eric Sandler, Kerry Brody, Tally Emlin, and Jake Flanagan.

Special thanks to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, the Pritzker Military Museum and Library, and Adam Plumpton.

And extra special thanks to Dan McGinn.

If you want to learn more about our Medal of Honor recipients, follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

We'll be sharing photos and videos of the heroes featured on this show.

We'd also love love to hear from you.

DM us with a story about a courageous veteran in your life.

If you don't know a veteran, we would love to hear a story of how courage was contagious in your own life.

I'm your host, Malcolm Glauber.

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