Vietnam War Medals of Honor: Above and Beyond the Call

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In his cell, Sijan grew progressively weaker. He died on January 22, 1968, but his story was spread by word of mouth among other POWs. Author Malcolm McDonnell, a high-school friend, wrote about Captain Lance Sijan’s harrowing ordeal in a book titled Into the Mouth of the Cat. In 1976, President Gerald Ford presented Sijan’s posthumous Medal of Honor to the captain’s parents.

CHARLES C. ROGERS

The Medal of Honor was bestowed on Lt. Col. Charles C. Rogers for action near the Cambodian border. Rogers was serving as commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 5th Artillery, 1st Infantry Division, during the defense of a fire support base. In the early morning hours of November 1, 1968, the base was pounded with mortar, rocket and rocket-propelled grenade fire. Simultaneously, it was attacked by a human-wave ground assault.

With complete disregard for his own safety, Colonel Rogers moved through a hail of fragments from bursting enemy rounds toward the embattled area. Once there, he encouraged the stunned artillery crew members to man their howitzers and directed their fire onto enemy positions. Rogers was wounded by an exploding round and fell to the ground, but he quickly picked himself up and led a counterattack against an enemy unit that had penetrated the howitzer positions.

Wounded a second time, Colonel Rogers nonetheless continued pressing the attack. Refusing medical treatment, he drove the enemy from their positions and worked to re-establish American defensive positions. When a second human-wave attack was launched against another sector of the perimeter, Rogers directed artillery fire onto enemy units and spearheaded a second counterattack against the enemy.

At dawn, the North Vietnamese launched a third attack on the fire support base. Rogers moved to the besieged area and again directed artillery fire onto the enemy. While leading his men against determined enemy attackers, he was seriously wounded by mortar fragments. But his heroism under fire inspired defenders of the fire support base to defeat a numerically superior foe. His resolute spirit reflected greatly upon himself and the U.S. Army.

LESTER W. WEBER

Lester W. Weber was a lance corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps attached to Company M, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division. The Medal of Honor was awarded to Weber posthumously for action in Quang Nam province on February 23, 1969.

At the time, Weber was serving as a machine-gun squad leader. The 2nd Platoon of Company M had been dispatched to assist a squad from another platoon that was fighting a well-entrenched enemy battalion. Weber’s platoon came under heavy attack while the men were moving through a rice paddy. Although the enemy soldiers were hidden, Weber managed to find and attack one of them. He then overwhelmed another NVA in hand-to-hand combat.

Seeing two additional enemy soldiers firing on his comrades, Weber then raced across an open area and wrestled their weapons from their hands. Although by now the target of concentrated fire, Weber remained in an exposed position in order to shout words of encouragement to his comrades. As he prepared to attack a fifth enemy soldier, Weber was mortally wounded. His courage and absolute devotion to duty made him an exemplary U.S. Marine.

GARY BEIKIRCH

While in college, Gary Beikirch read The Green Berets, by Robin Moore, and was so impressed with the book that he enlisted in the Army’s elite Special Forces. Sergeant Beikirch eventually became a Green Beret medic, assigned to Dak Seang, a remote Vietnamese village.

Early on April 1, 1970, enemy troops launched a devastating attack on the village. Sergeant Beikirch grabbed his medic’s kit and raced across an exposed slope to treat an injured Vietnamese. Amid flying bullets and shrapnel, he carried another wounded villager to a bunker. He then heard of an injured American lieutenant and quickly went to move him from a dangerous position, exposing himself to enemy fire in the process. Hit by a mortar round and seriously wounded, he managed to drag himself forward, tend to the officer’s wounds and crawl back to the bunker, pulling the lieutenant behind him. Refusing medical treatment, Sergeant Beikirch made seven more trips through enemy fire to retrieve the wounded.

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, People, Vietnam War

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