When Roger H.C. Donlon joined the Army in 1958, he was already conversant in army life. He had enlisted within the Air Power in 1953, however left to attend the U.S. Army Academy at West Level, New York. In 1957, he resigned from the academy to simply get into the Army — and possibly meet his future, if you happen to imagine in that kind of factor.
After Officer Candidate Faculty, he certified for Special Forces. He was despatched to Vietnam in 1964, the place he would obtain the Medal of Honor for his brave and almost deadly protection of an American coaching camp in July of that yr.
Donlon died on Jan. 25, 2024, simply 5 days earlier than his ninetieth birthday.
Within the early morning hours of July 6, 1964, then-Capt. Roger Donlon was about to get up the subsequent guard for obligation when a white phosphorus spherical got here hurtling by means of the hut’s thatched roof, lighting it on hearth. The coaching camp at Nam Dong was already surrounded by the point the Individuals scrambled to their defensive positions. Because the commander of the detachment, it was as much as Donlon to mount the protection, and he had his work reduce out for him.
“It was the primary time the North Vietnamese Army got here down and linked up with the Viet Cong guerrillas within the south to overrun an American Special Forces coaching middle,” Donlon instructed the American Legion in 2016.
In 1964, america had a presence in South Vietnam, however hadn’t but dedicated the tens of hundreds of fight troops it might within the years to return. Individuals had been centered on equipping, advising and coaching the South Vietnamese, whereas U.S. Special Forces troopers skilled indigenous teams on conducting irregular warfare, a program known as Civilian Irregular Protection Group, or CIDG.
It was at one in every of these CIDG indigenous coaching bases in Vietnam that Donlon would lead his Vietnamese trainees and their Australian and Special Forces advisers in a five-hour firefight so intense that American helicopters couldn’t land to extract the wounded.
Donlon was on guard obligation when 800 North Vietnamese troops blew the roof off their makeshift chow corridor at 2:30 within the morning. Contained in the camp had been simply 360 CIDG trainees, 12 Inexperienced Berets and one Australian adviser. As mortars rained down, he marshaled his males to maneuver ammunition from the burning buildings and arrange defensive strains. He then began shifting ammo the place it wanted to go.
As he started operating ammo to his gun crews, he noticed the camp’s most important gate was underneath assault by a staff of Viet Cong sappers. To forestall them from breaching the outer perimeter, he stopped his ammo run to get rid of all three of the sappers. Then, by means of a hail of enemy grenades, he dashed for a mortar pit, taking a extreme abdomen wound as he moved. When he received to the pit, he discovered the gun crew there had additionally been wounded. He shoved a handkerchief into his abdomen wound and coated its withdrawal.
As he dragged the staff’s wounded sergeant out of the pit and to the subsequent defensive place, Donlon was wounded once more, this time by a mortar in his left shoulder. Regardless of these accidents, he needed to hold shifting. By way of enemy hearth, he carried a 60-millimeter mortar to a brand new location, the place he discovered extra wounded males, administered their first assist and armed them with the mortar and a 57-millimeter recoilless rifle he’d picked up from one other gun pit. As he left to return with extra ammunition for the weapons, he was wounded a 3rd time, as a grenade despatched shrapnel into his leg.
Now crawling, he directed mortar hearth to the jap sector of the camp. He must transfer from place to place for the remainder of the battle, directing his males whereas lobbing grenades of his personal. He was wounded a fourth time as a mortar peppered his face and physique. When daylight got here and helicopters had been lastly in a position to take away the wounded, about 60 enemy troops had been lifeless, together with 57 South Vietnamese, two Individuals and their one Australian adviser. He waited till each final one in every of his wounded troopers had been evacuated earlier than he allowed himself to be taken.
Donlon was offered with the Medal of Honor by President Lyndon B. Johnson in a White Home ceremony on Dec. 5, 1964. He was the primary of 268 Medal of Honor recipients of the Vietnam Struggle. He spent the remainder of his 30-plus-year profession within the Army, retiring as a colonel in 1988.
“I put on this award on behalf of those that did not come residence,” he later mentioned. “I’ve had many nice alternatives to share their sacrifices.”
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