Remove any clothing by the cut, apply pressure on the wound with your hands, cover the wound with a bandage as it applies pressure.
Verbal and nonverbal cues can give us as human beings many different subtle cues as to what's going on in social situations. For example, certain nonverbal cues such as yawning, stretching, dreary eyes, and a hunched over body position can cue a person in rather quickly that this person is probably overtired. Furrowed eyebrows or extended staring at a specific object, or situation can help us infer that someone is perplexed. A hurried gesture, with sweeping movements of the hand towards the body implies that they want you to come towards them quickly.
Verbal cues are more obvious as thy state points more clearly, but both are efctive tools in language that we often overlook.
The supposed reason for telling a story about a sort of indignity or humiliation may be to embrace the experience and to realize that you are not alone.
Because I don't know the article, my guess it that he promised to find a way to “peace with honor” in Vietnam.