Rick Springfield Opens Up About the Vietnam War Moment That's Haunted Him for Nearly 60 Years

Rick Springfield, the Australian rock star behind "Jessie's Girl," is opening up about a decades-old memory from the Vietnam War that he says he's never fully been able to set down.

Springfield, 77, shared the story during a September 8 appearance on "The Joe Rogan Experience," recalling a 1968 trip when he and his band traveled to Vietnam to entertain American troops. What began as a paid gig turned dangerous when the group stayed overnight at a U.S. military outpost near Da Nang and the position came under attack.

Invited by soldiers to help hold the perimeter, Springfield said he fired mortar rounds from inside a radio shack during the assault. The next morning, troops told him one of his rounds had struck someone - delivered, he said, as if it were good news he wasn't prepared to hear.

Springfield said the moment remains difficult to accept, describing himself as "responsible for the end of a life." He was 19 at the time and said he didn't grasp the weight of what he'd done until it was already over.

The rocker has spent much of his career writing candidly about inner struggle - his 2018 album "The Snake King" wrestled openly with God, doubt and personal demons - and this latest disclosure fits that same pattern of unusually honest self-reflection.

Springfield's band spent roughly four months touring Vietnam before he returned home and, several years later, broke out with 1981's "Jessie's Girl."