Jamestown resident and Vietnam veteran Jeff Bloomquist is pictured at the Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame earlier this month. P-J photo by Scott Kindberg

Sitting on a bookshelf in the boardroom at the Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame in downtown Jamestown is an index card with a black-and-white photo of Rocky Bleier on the front that dates back decades.

Bleier is sporting a big smile.

On the card’s bottom right is a logo for WPXI 11, the Pittsburgh television station where he served as a sports anchor in the early 1980s.

Gazing at the card brought back a lot of memories for me, because I was a student at Point Park University in the Steel City during that era. Of course, fans of the National Football League also remember Bleier as a running back with the Steelers in the 1970s.

Jeff Bloomquist of Jamestown has memory of Bleier for another reason, and the autograph on the card helps explain the connection.

It reads: “From one vet to another. Good luck.”

ııı

The Steelers entertain Buffalo in prime time Sunday night at Heinz Field.

Bloomquist is hoping the game ends in a tie.

He has regional allegiance to the Bills, of course, but he also has strong ties to Pittsburgh because of an encounter with Bleier more than 50 years ago. It was on a much different field — a jungle actually — located near Heip Douc in Que San Valley of South Vietnam.

Both Bloomquist and Bleier were members of the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. Bleier, whose rookie season with the Steelers was in 1968, was drafted into the Army in December of that year and, according to Wikipedia.org, volunteered for duty in South Vietnam and was shipped out in May 1969. He was assigned to Company C, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry 196th Light Infantry Brigade.

Meanwhile, Bloomquist also received his draft notice in 1968 and arrived in Vietnam in July 1969. He was with Unit 6, 4/12 CAV, serving as Medic PFC-3, when he encountered Bleier, a squad grenadier, late on Aug. 20, 1969.

That was the night an enemy bullet lodged in Bleier’s right thigh, and grenade shrapnel tore up his right heel. One of the people who initially helped treat the wounds was Bloomquist, the medic, whose role in the rescue was first reported locally earlier this decade by Emily Wynne and Walt Pickut in the Jamestown Gazette.

“His heel was a real mess,” recalled Bloomquist last week. “I dressed it as light as I could. … I didn’t want to monkey with it. I laid (the bandage) on lightly, wrapped it, he was put on the stretcher carefully and taken back to a helicopter.”

That horrific day is the subject of a recent SC Featured documentary called “The Return” that chronicled Bleier’s emotional trip to Vietnam in 2018.

“It was sad,” Bloomquist said.

After extensive treatment and rehabilitation, Bleier returned to the Steelers in 1970 and went on to earn four Super Bowl rings, including one after beating Dallas in Super Bowl XIII. The touchdown pass that Bleier caught in that game — a leaping grab in the end zone — later adorned the cover of Sports Illustrated.

The headline read: “Bleier Puts Pittsburgh Ahead To Stay.”

Heart-warming. Inspiring. Pick an adjective. After all, the man who served his country, who was gravely wounded in war and who found his way back to the NFL ended up No. 4 on Pittsburgh’s all-time rushing list when he retired in 1980.

Noted teammate and Hall-of-Fame defensive tackle Joe Greene in the SC Featured piece: “That Rocky attitude affected our entire football team (because of) all the effort he went through to get on the playing field,” he said.

Added another teammate, Hall-of-Fame running back Franco Harris, in that same documentary: “I wish the Vietnam War would have never happened, but if we change anything, would (Steelers owner Art Rooney) have put Rocky on the team? Would Rocky have worked as hard getting ready? And would we have had four Super Bowls?”

ııı

More than a half-century has passed since a young Army medic from Jamestown helped out a future Super Bowl champion on a hot and dangerous night half a world away. Bloomquist, now 71, remains honored to have served his country and, consequently, to have helped the now 73-year-old Bleier in his greatest time of need.

Asked what he would say if the two men had a chance to talk, Bloomquist said he would first commend Bleier for returning to the Steelers after his war injuries, adding, “I hope I did as good a job as I could on him before he got to the hospital. I’d tell him I was glad he got four Super Bowl rings, and I’d probably give him a hug and shake his hand.”