BlackFive

Meet Ray Calhoun.  Ray has been a hero of the Vietnam war since April 30th 1967.  The military finally got around to acknowledging that today.  It goes to show you the military family may be a little slow at times, but it never forgets its heroes.

From a fine story (read the whole article, it's worth it) in the San Diego Union Tribune by Steve Liewer, a little of what LCpl Ray Calhoun did that day in Vietnam:

Nighttime cloaked Hill 881 South in a blackness that filled the Marines of Mike Company with a well-founded dread.

Lance Cpl. Ray Calhoun's platoon had drawn the job of leading an assault in this northwest corner of South Vietnam on the morning of April 30, 1967. They knew the enemy was waiting for them.

Some of the North Vietnamese soldiers shouted taunts in accented English.

“All night long, they're telling us: 'Put on your helmets, Marines. You're gonna die in the morning,' ” recalled Calhoun, who now lives in Scripps Ranch.

The enemy didn't lie. Three-fourths of the men in Calhoun's platoon were killed or wounded.

Throughout the battle, the 19-year-old Calhoun alternately aimed grenades at enemy bunkers and bandaged his dying buddies. Twice he passed out from his own wounds, only to wake up and resume the fight.

[...]

Assigned that fall to the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment at Camp Pendleton, he was sent to Vietnam almost immediately. Mike Company saw action from the start.

But nothing matched the battle that came the next spring. The North Vietnamese hoped to lay siege to the U.S. military outpost near Khe Sanh, which was on a vital supply route.

The Marines countered with a series of assaults on the uplands surrounding Khe Sanh that came to be called the “Hill Battles.” They succeeded, but at a frightful cost.

On April 30, 1967, the men of Mike Company set out through the tall grass about 8 a.m. They reached a saddle between two hilltops, and two platoons fanned out across a clearing.

The North Vietnamese opened fire from bunkers that honeycombed the hillside. Calhoun and his platoon mates took shelter behind some fallen trees, which they quickly realized was a trap when mortar shells started falling directly on top of them.

“They set us up. We were in a killing field,” said Joe Cordileone, a San Diego assistant city attorney who was with Calhoun that day. “It was a massacre.”

One mortar round killed the platoon's leader, 2nd Lt. Joseph Mitchell; wounded Hossack; and knocked out Calhoun. But he woke up and got to work, dragging survivors into a bomb crater and patching up wounds with battle dressings salvaged from the bodies of the dead.

Calhoun's eagle eye had earned him the job of platoon grenadier. He watched for muzzle flashes, aimed his M79 grenade launcher at them and took out four sniper's nests.

One bullet pierced his helmet, knocking him out a second time and wounding his scalp. But he woke up again and returned to the fight.

“You get so scared, you just start living off of adrenaline,” Calhoun said. “You think, 'I'm gonna die, and I'm going to kill as many of these guys as I can first.' ”

U.S. bomb strikes pushed the North Vietnamese off the hill, and reinforcements reached the clearing after a few hours. The few wounded survivors left Hill 881 and the war behind.

One commenter on the Union Trib's site said it best:

Dear Ray,

As a Vietnamese-American, I would like to thank you for fighting for our fatherland freedom. You and other Vietnam veterans are always hero to us and earn our respect as well as appreciation. 

Congratulation for the Silver Star even though it should happen 42 years ago. May God bless you and America.

Jerry

Amen.

Semper Fi, congratulations and welcome home, LCpl Calhoun.