Medal of Honor awarded to Army pilot who carried out daring helicopter rescue in Vietnam

President Biden awarded the Medal of Honor on Tuesday to a Vietnam War Army helicopter pilot who scrambled to carry out a daring rescue of 4 troopers surrounded by heavy enemy hearth and dealing with virtually sure demise.

That heroism, greater than 55 years in the past by then-1st Lt. Larry Taylor landed him on the White House the place he was awarded the nation’s highest navy honor. Of the 40 million who served within the Army, solely 3,500 troopers have obtained the Medal of Honor.

In his remarks on Mr. Taylor’s exploits, the president underscored the Tennessee veteran’s humility. 

Mr. Biden stated when he known as Mr. Taylor to inform him he can be receiving the award, Mr. Taylor replied, “I thought you had to do something to receive the Medal of Honor.”

“Larry, you sure as hell did something, man,” Mr. Biden stated. “If you ask anyone here, I’m pretty sure they would say you did something extraordinary.”

A number of navy and political luminaries attended the ceremony, together with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dennis McDonough. The two Republican senators from Mr. Taylor’s house state — Sens. Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn — additionally attended.

Lt. Taylor and his copilot had been offering cowl hearth on the evening of June 18, 1968, of their two-seater Cobra helicopter for a surrounded four-man patrol trapped within the jungle beneath once they realized the rescue helicopter despatched to choose the boys up had been canceled due to the enemy hearth.

Ordered again to base and working low on ammunition and gasoline, the Army lieutenant as an alternative determined he would attempt to rescue the patrol himself.

He directed his wingman to fireplace his remaining rounds alongside the patrol workforce’s jap flank whereas he fired alongside its western flank utilizing his Cobra’s touchdown lights to attract the enemy’s consideration. 

While they had been firing, the patrol workforce headed towards an extraction level picked by Mr. Taylor, who landed in the course of the firefight and, in an unprecedented maneuver, had the 4 males clamber aboard the craft’s skids and rocket pods earlier than flying them out to security.

“He refused to give up, Refused to leave a fellow American behind, and refused to put his own life above the lives of others in need,” Mr. Biden stated. 

“When duty called, Larry did everything he did to answer it. Because of that, he rewrote the fate of four families for generations to come,” the president stated.

Mr. Taylor, born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1942, was discharged from energetic responsibility on the rank of captain in 1970.