THE MAN WHO GRABBED THE GUN

"I guess I'm not really a very reliable guy," Oliver Wellington Sipple remarked last week. It seemed an odd comment, for it was Sipple who grabbed the arm of Sara Jane Moore as she took a shot at President Ford, perhaps helping to save the President's life. But then Sipple hardly conforms to any stereotype of the all-American hero.

One of eight children, Sipple grew up in Detroit, where his father George, a retired pipefitter, and his mother Ethel still live. It was never a close family. After attending high school, Sipple ran off, working for a while as a television technician in California, later as a bartender in Texas. In October 1967, not quite 26, he stood among a group of 17-year-olds to sign up at the Marine Corps recruiting depot in San Diego. "I didn't really know what war was," he recalls, "but I wanted to fight for my country."

He found out soon enough.

In June 1968 he was shipped to Viet Nam, where he served with the 4th Marine Regiment of the 3rd Marine Division. He learned to watch for tiny hints of enemy troop movement while on perimeter patrol at Khe Sanh, a lesson in alertness that may have paid its dividends last week in San Francisco. In December 1968 Sipple fought in "Operation Scotland II," a campaign against the North Vietnamese, and was medically evacuated. "I took some shrapnel," he says. "I was a pretty screwed-up guy both physically and mentally. I learned war is no John Wayne movie." Sipple spent the rest of his tour of duty at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Philadelphia. He was released from active duty as a private first class in March 1970.

The hefty (5 ft. 11 in., 224 lbs.) Sipple spent another six months in the VA Hospital in San Francisco, into which he is periodically readmitted for care. He lives on disability pay--he is classified as 100% disabled on psychological grounds--and holds no job. "I don't think I could handle it every day," he says. "I'd be fine for a while, then someone might say something to me and boom." Last week's episode took its toll. After the shooting, Secret Service agents escorted him into the St. Francis Hotel for questioning, congratulating him on his action. "All I knew was that I was shaking so much I couldn't light a cigarette," he recalls. Nor could he comply with the agents' request that he write a statement; he had to dictate it. After telling his story, he fled, trembling, from the hotel. He did not sleep all night.

Sipple lives in the sleazy tenderloin district in a fourth-floor walk-up apartment incongruously decorated with a chandelier, stained-glass windows and peacock feathers. He shares it with a merchant seaman. Sipple is known in San Francisco's large homosexual community, and two of its leaders, the Rev. Raymond Broshears and Harvey Milk, tried to make capital for the cause of the gay image out of Sipple's act. But Sipple refused to accept the role. He also gave high marks to the Secret Service: "Those guys did a terrific job. What more could they do?

Search people? That's unconstitutional." As for his own role, he says: "Hero--everybody is calling me a hero. But what's a hero? It's just a word.

All I did was react. I'm glad I was there. If it's true I saved the President's life, then I'm damn happy about it. But I honestly feel that if I hadn't reached out for that arm, somebody else would have." Then he adds that the event and the attention will probably mean another stay in the VA hospital for him soon.

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