There are few clubs more esteemed or exclusive than the living Medal of Honor recipients.
Every recipient has a different story.
In this series we examine what came after that moment of extraordinary courage.
On December 18, the enemy well camouflaged and well dug-in picked out our company commander.
He had a map in his hand, and his radio operator was behind him.
The enemy aimed, and all hell broke loose.
I hit the deck.
This was the first time Id ever been shot at.
I looked up and all these young Marines were looking at me.
Id only been with this company for about four days, and they didnt even know my name.
More than an ambush
These young Marines were scared.
Anyone who says theyre not scared when theyre getting shot at is lying.
We realized that not only were we ambushed, we were nearly surrounded.
I ran out and picked up our captain and brought him back to a more secure area.
He died in my arms.
I realized the radio was out there, and I was going to need it.
So I ran out and took the radio off the dead radio operator.
I strapped it on and contacted our battalion commander.
Ultimately, the battalion commander told me, You have to come out of there.
We cant come get you.
The battalion was fully engaged in the village of Ky Phu.
Were in one hell of a fight, I was told.
So if you cant come out yourself, youre in there by yourself tonight.
There was no future in that.
If we stayed into the darkness, the enemy was going to finish us off.
It was starting to get dark, and we had to move fast.
I had engineers blow down some trees to clear a zone for helicopters to land.
We put the dead and wounded on the helicopters.
We had a medic named Doc Wes, and he was wounded.
But he refused a shot of morphine, and he guided us on how to treat the wounded.
He was the last one on the helicopter.
As we put him on there, he was shot for the seventh time.
Years later, I found out that he lived.
