John Coey was born on 12 November 1950 in Colombus, Ohio, USA. He attended the Ohio State University where he studied forestry, at the same time enlisting in the US Marine Corps' officer training programme. A devout Christian, the ongoing inconclusive war in Vietnam was the catalyst that saw John leaving the USA to join the Rhodesian C Squadron, Special Air Service. The following year he was selected for officer training, but his outspokenly zealous anti-communist and conspiracy views made him transfer to the Rhodesian Army Medical Corps in late 1974. After training at Llewellin Barracks in Bulawayo, he was seconded to the Rhodesian Light Infantry as a medic, with the rank of corporal. Here he found comfort in the brotherhood of several other Americans serving in the battalion, dubbed the 'Crippled Eagles'. He went on more than 60 Fire Force missions as a combat medic and was affectionately known as 'The Fighting Doc' by the RLI troops. John was killed in action near Mt Darwin on 19 July 1975, the first American to die in the Rhodesian Bush War. He was buried with full military honours in Que Que on 28 July. In 1979 his remains were exhumed and reinterred in the Lutheran Church Cemetery, Hide Away Hills, West Liberty, Ohio, USA.