The Marine Corps introduced Thursday the demise of “Gunny” John L. Canley, a legendary warrior in Vietnam and Medal of Honor recipient who was held in awe by different Marine legends.
The 84-year-old Canley, who retired as a sergeant main in 1981, handed away Wednesday together with his household at his bedside in Bend, Oregon, after a decade-long battle with most cancers, the Marine Corps stated in a press launch.
He’s survived by a number of siblings, three youngsters, a stepson and two grandchildren. Together with his demise, there are actually 64 dwelling recipients of the nation’s highest award for valor, in line with the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.
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“Probably the most spectacular fight Marine I ever knew,” retired Maj. Gen. Ray Smith, a Marine legend himself who earned the Navy Cross, two Silver Stars, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts, stated of Canley in a 2018 interview with Navy.com.
As a lieutenant, Smith fought alongside Canley within the brutal 1968 Battle of Hue. Those that served with Canley “worshiped the bottom the man walked on,” Smith stated. “All by means of my profession, every time I needed to decide that might have an effect on Marines, I might at all times assume, ‘What would Canley inform me to do?'”
Smith spoke after the announcement got here down that then-President Donald Trump had signed a invoice handed by Congress to waive the five-year restrict on suggestions for the Medal of Honor and improve Canley’s Navy Cross to the Medal of Honor 50 years after the Battle of Hue.
“This honor is for all the Marines with whom I served,” Canley stated on the time in an interview with Navy.com. “The one factor I used to be doing was caring for troops greatest I may. Try this, and every thing else takes care of itself. They’re an inspiration to me to today.”
Trump awarded the Medal of Honor to Canley at a White Home ceremony on Oct. 17, 2018, citing Canley’s undaunted braveness and calm below fireplace throughout one among Vietnam’s bloodiest battles.
“John and his firm of lower than 150 Marines had pushed into town held by a minimum of 6,000 communist fighters,” Trump stated. “Within the days that adopted, John led his firm by means of the fog and rain and in house-to-house, very vicious, very arduous fight.”
Canley was born on Dec. 20, 1937, in Caledonia, Arkansas, and enlisted within the Marines in 1953, regardless of being underage. “John used his brother’s paperwork to enlist,” Trump stated on the White Home ceremony.
On his second of three excursions in Vietnam, Canley, then a gunnery sergeant, took over as firm commander of Alpha Firm, 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, when Capt. Gordon Batcheller was wounded and evacuated throughout the struggle to retake Hue from the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong throughout the Tet Offensive in late January and February 1968.
Within the fight that adopted, Canley repeatedly uncovered himself to the enemy to attract their fireplace and reveal their positions to his troops. Twice, he leaped over a wall to choose up wounded Marines and carry them to security below fireplace, in line with his medal quotation.
On taking command of the corporate, Canley “instantly reorganized his scattered Marines, shifting from one group to a different to advise and encourage his males. Though sustaining shrapnel wounds throughout this era, he nonetheless established a base of fireside which subsequently allowed the corporate to interrupt by means of the enemy strongpoint,” the quotation stated.
Then on Feb. 4, 1968, “regardless of fierce enemy resistance,” Canley managed to get into the highest ground of a constructing held by the enemy. He “dropped a big satchel cost into the place, personally accounting for quite a few enemy killed, and forcing the others to vacate the constructing,” in line with the quotation.
The improve of Canley’s Navy Cross to the Medal of Honor was the results of an extended lobbying marketing campaign by those that served with him, together with former Marine Pfc. John Ligato, a retired FBI agent, together with the advocacy of Rep. Julia Brownley, D-Calif.
In an interview with Navy.com and in an article for Leatherneck Journal, Ligato stated the lobbying effort grew out of a 2005 reunion of Alpha Firm’s members.
On the reunion, “there have been six or seven eyewitnesses to the Gunny carrying wounded Marines to security, the Gunny confronting enemy automated weapon positions, and plenty of testimonials of, ‘You saved my ass, Gunny.'”
Sergeant Main of the Marine Corps Troy Black emphasised Canley’s devotion to his troops within the service’s press launch. “[Canley’s] first precedence was and has at all times been his Marines — a real instance of Semper Fidelis. I am saddened by the lack of such an important Marine, but I am grateful for the legacy he established for generations of warriors,” he stated.
That legacy will reside on with the scheduled christening June 25 in San Diego of the 784-foot, 90,000-ton USS John L. Canley, a brand new expeditionary sea-based ship that can be deployed to the Western Pacific.
— Richard Sisk could be reached at Richard.Sisk@Navy.com.
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