Rick Springfield Reveals He Killed a Man During Terrifying Vietnam War Experience

Rick Springfield opened up about a painful memory from the Vietnam War.

"It's hard for me to kind of face that I was responsible for the end of a life, even though it's distant, and it's war," he said.

The singer discussed the experience during an appearance on September 8 on the "Joe Rogan Experience".

Springfield traveled to Vietnam in 1968 with his band to perform for American troops.

He recalled spending about four months in the war zone, where the group performed for soldiers stationed there. "It was insane. I thought, 'Oh, great. We'll make money, you know.' And, of course, we didn't make any money. We spent it all at the PX, and we weren't making much money anyway," he said.

The situation changed when Springfield and the band stayed with soldiers.

"We met these guys, and we really got along well, and we stayed overnight with them, and we all got in the bunkers, in the perimeter bunkers, and I stayed in the radio shack, and we got attacked, and I'm throwing mortars down the freaking tube of the radio shack," he shared.

Springfield reflected on the intensity of the experience.

"It was freaky," he said.

"This is before – you couldn't do any of this now," he added.

The following day brought a difficult realization for the General Hospital TV star.

"The hardest thing for me was that I had thrown a mortar down, and it had hit somebody, and they came in the next day and said, 'Hey, you got one. You got one,'" Springfield said.

Springfield said the memory stayed with him.

"And that still has a hard place to land in me, you know? That's really kind of the one thing I brought back with me that I couldn't really find a place for that to land," he admitted.

He also recalled how he viewed the situation as a young man.

"They said, 'Hey, you want to throw some mortars down the tube?' And it was John Wayne time, you know. I mean, as a young kid, I didn't really understand what I was doing," he revealed.

Looking back, Springfield acknowledged that the experience still affected him.

"I think it's still there, you know?" he said.

The Ricki and the Flash star also reflected on his actions at the time.

"And I didn't really have anything to do with it and didn't really know what I was doing, but you know as a kid and playing, like I said, John Wayne," Springfield said.

"But it was... pretty heavy when I think about the reality of it," he added.