Rick Springfield Revisits Vietnam Mortar Experience and Reveals Brain Damage From 2000 Stage Fall Rick Springfield told Joe Rogan about helping fire mortars near Da Nang in 1968 while performing for U.S. troops, saying the memory still affects him. He also discussed brain damage from a 2000 stage fall and reflected on the lasting costs of a career in entertainment. An image released on December 31, 2025, showed Australian singer and songwriter Rick Springfield arriving at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest for the 2026 broadcast. The appearance brought renewed attention to a conversation Springfield had with Joe Rogan, in which the 77-year-old musician looked back on a harrowing chapter from his youth: a trip to Vietnam at age 17 to perform for U.S. troops. Springfield said the journey came more than a decade before he became a household name. At the time, he was a young performer visiting a war zone to entertain service members.While staying at a U.S. Navy encampment near Da Nang in 1968, he said the base came under attack. During the danger, he ended up helping fire mortars from a defensive position. At the time, Springfield said he was too young to fully grasp the gravity of what was happening around him. The experience was not something he could separate neatly from fear, confusion and survival.He described being close to combat while still lacking the maturity and context to understand how serious the situation was. Springfield said that the next day, he was told that one of the mortars he had fired had killed a Viet Cong fighter. He explained that the memory has stayed with him for decades, not only because of the violence of the moment but because of what he later learned about the result of his actions.Speaking with Rogan, Springfield said the knowledge still sits heavily with him. He said it is hard to face the idea that he was responsible for the end of a life, even though the event happened during wartime and he had little understanding of what he was doing at the time. He described the memory as something that still sends a shiver down his spine. He also recalled the soldiers he encountered as deeply conflicted about the war.According to Springfield, many questioned why they were in Vietnam and what they were actually doing there. That sense of uncertainty, he said, was part of what made the experience so unsettling. The trip may have been brief in the larger arc of his career, but the memory remained powerful enough to affect him long after he left. The musician's path to fame later took him into some of the most visible moments of 1980s pop culture.In 1981, he reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with Don't Stop Believin, holding the No. 1 position for two weeks in September. That remains his only No. 1 single on the chart. Later that same year, he became widely known to television audiences for playing Dr. Noah Drake on General Hospital, a role that helped make him a recognizable figure beyond music.In a separate revelation connected to his later career, Springfield also discussed learning that he had suffered brain damage from a stage fall in 2000. He said he is working on trying to repair the effects of the injury. The comment added another layer to his public reflections on the physical and emotional costs that can follow a long life in entertainment, where years of performing, touring and stage work can leave lasting consequences.Together, the remarks present Springfield as an artist who continues to examine the defining moments of his life with unusual candor. His Vietnam story is not framed as a simple tale of service or performance but as a complex memory involving fear, confusion, responsibility and regret. His discussion of the stage fall likewise shows a willingness to speak openly about health problems that developed long after his rise to fame