Fighting Back the NVA After 4 Days Left this Medal of Honor Recipient with Only a Few Choices

our guest this week on veterans chronicles is retired u.s army command sergeant major gary littrell he is also a veteran of the vietnam war and a recipient of the congressional medal of honor gary thank you very much for your time today oh it's great to be here let's start with the very first part of your story where were you born and raised i was born in henderson kentucky i um at the age of nine i went down to fort campbell kentucky and i i seen uh paratroopers jumping out of airplanes which i had no idea such thing existed and at the age of nine i remember looking up and saying you know that's got to be me and so i joined the army on my 17th birthday with a contract to go to airborne school and i fell in love with the army i fell in love with the culture the the camaraderie and i spent 22 years and finally decided that it's time for me to turn it over to the young kids so when you joined at 17 uh what did you what did you do first i i first went to uh basically training four-door california and then fulfilled my contract went to fort benning to airborne school and then my first assignment was in okinawa with what is now the 173rd airborne brigade back then it was the 503rd battle group and i served served three and a half years met my wife now of 53 years there in okinawa and had a wonderful career so once you came home from that assignment i come home went to the 82nd airborne division at fort bragg north carolina was fortunate enough to get an allocation to go to army ranger school and as a young sergeant that's very very difficult but it was the class started in november and graduated in february and not too many people want to go to ranger school in the winter time so fortunately as a young sergeant e5 i got an allocation to go to ranger school and and done very well in ranger school and was asked to come back as an instructor so i instructed in the mountaineering phase of ranger school for three and a half years uh then went to vietnam as an advisor to the vietnam rangers and that's where i i received my the medal of honor um come back went to the 101st airborne division was fortunate enough to be selected as the initial cadre of the air assault school and stayed at fort campbell until 1977 and i had several phone calls from the assignments branch saying we formed a new battalion the first the 75th ranger battalion so in february of 1977 i said you know i've i've got to get back with the rangers and so i joined the first 75th ranger battalion and i left there went to the sergeant majors academy and then the one of the best assignments after the sergeant majors academy i went to panama and both of my sons was able to spend their high school years in panama and graduate and so left there come back to fort carson colorado and so far away from being a ranger that i was very unhappy and i was a mechanized infantry battalion and i i was a firm believer if you can't put it in a rut sack and jump out of an airplane with it it's too much equipment and so i retired and started second career with the veterans administration and i retired at the tampa va hospital i was the patient advocate and i stayed deeply involved volunteering now uh with the veterans in tampa uh when i when i'm in town and have the time so life is life has been good i had a a very dysfunctional childhood um my dad left us when my mother and and three children when you know i was four years old uh my mother got killed in a car accident when i was five and i lived with various family members throughout and you know when i went down and watched the the paratroopers jump i said you know i am a nobody if i can be a paratrooper for the first time in my life i can be somebody and when i got to okinawa i had a young sergeant named sawyer unfortunately got killed in vietnam and he was a young sergeant e5 and he was wearing the army ranger tab and he was the absolute best non-commissioned officer i'd ever seen and it's like i have to be like sergeant sawyer and then i guess it just got in my blood when you serve with the best you want to stay with the best and so i i strived to go to every school i possibly could to become a better non-commissioned officer and serving with the first 75th ranger battalion was just such a joy you know the world was our training ground we only had one battalion now they have four battalions we only had one battalion this was in the 70s when money was tough for the military but the world was our turning ground we had all the money we needed to train and my young rangers were razor sharp if they was when when they were called upon to battle they were ready well when i was 92nd we had a so-called combat tour the second was deployed in 1965 to the dominican republic so i had a year of a so-called combat tour in dominican republic i got a combat patch cib uh but when i was an instructor in ranger school all the other instructors had been to vietnam i had not and just my conscience wouldn't wouldn't let let me live with that i was the only instructor in the mountain ranger camp that had not been to vietnam so i volunteered to go to vietnam i was fortunate enough to be selected to be an advisor so i went to year to language school and was assigned to the 22nd ranger group vietnamese ranger group in vietnam and with a year of language school it was just i was widely received and my vietnamese group commander colonel psalm had gone through american ranger school and he remembered me from the mountaineering committee and so it was just an immediate bond and my first tour in vietnam was an enjoyable tour 99.9 99.9 there's that one percent that uh you know you always say uh that's not that wasn't fun but i truly enjoyed it i i worked with some seriously professional vietnamese i was just going to ask you what was the quality of their rangers right before i got to vietnam that i was with the 23rd ranger battalion the battalion had been basically annihilated life expectancy of a vietnamese ranger battalion was was eight months at the time and it had been pretty much annihilated so i linked up with a group of officers and senior ncos we went to their ranger school vietnamese ranger school and so we formed the ranger battalion from the graduates of ranger school so we had a brand new brand new battalion and that was good with my instructor time and and my friendship with colonel sam who i'd put through american ranger school it was just a perfect fit and we can started going on operations and continue to train and eight months later that's when i got in the battle that earned the the medal of honor and by that time uh eight months those little rangers were in perfect fighting condition what in addition to the training what was the general assignment of this unit that you were attached to we were we were first ready for two core if uh one of the vietnamese units got into a situation more than they could handle then they would call for a ranger battalion similar to you know the range of battalions american reign of japanese now serving in afghanistan the particular mission that i got the award the 66th nba regiment the 29th nba regiment in the k-6 sapr battalion had come down the ho chi minh trail and was attacking special forces base camp along the border and they had overrun a particular base camp and doxiang and my battalion's mission was to move to the base camp penetrate the perimeter get inside set up a reinforced perimeter and evacuate the dead and wounded and i got it got cut a little bit short uh you don't move in vietnam at night and so we got up on a hill just short of the compound i said well we'll spend the night here and we'll push forward at daybreak and fortunate for the special forces base camp when the the two regiments in the in the sniper battalion realized that they had a ranger battalion up on a hill they withdrew from the from the special forces base camp and surrounded our hill so they had us pretty much outnumbered they were it was a 66 right nba regiment the 29th in the k-6 hyper battalion which was approximately five thousand and i had four advisors and 473 vietnamese rangers on the hill and outnumbered but the odds were about the same uh it was it was an even fight in my opinion we had the high ground i had american uh artillery and airs fast movers from uh road thailand helicopter support when you have a high ground and you have the support you have the advantage we got up on the hill and i had been in country eight months and i was a sergeant first class e-7 and i had two young lieutenants and a young sergeant e5 and both of them were relatively new in country and with my eight months in country you know you develop a sixth sense uh things were not right on that hill and it's i'm thinking i'm not hearing noises i'm not hearing the monkeys i'm not hearing the birds you know if you're not hearing jungle noises that means there's people out there and so i looked at the two lieutenants and sardony five and i said you know we need to dig a fighting position you know it's kindly rope you can't dig a foxhole i mean it was really rough rocky terrain i said we need to at least take us a fighting position that says i just don't feel comfortable about tonight and then they were complaining listen to the old man they referred to me as the old man because you know they were young i was 24 years old and i was the old man so i said i'm gonna i'm gonna fall off the side of the hill and uh blow us a landing zone because i i just have a feeling we may need some chopper support before you know before daylight and i had just blown the lz and i and oh before i left the hill they was complaining about should we or should we not dig a fighting position and i said you guys do whatever you want to do and i turn to my two i referred to them as cowboys uh the vietnamese issued each of us two uh individuals bodyguards comfort uh foxhole diggers whatever that that i needed and i told my two cowboys i said you dig a you dig a you dig a hole big enough for the three of us and the others didn't want to hold that's fine and so i i fell off the side of the hill and i'd just blown a lz and i heard an old hollow thump and it was and i said oh that don't sound good that sounds like 60 millimeter mortar and then i heard three more three more and three more and i said there are 12 mortars in the air and i said i i bet they've got this hill zeroed so my first thought was run as hard and fast as you can hopefully the two cowboys have got the uh you know got you a fighting position hopefully even a fox hole and they had they had done a real good job when i got there the battalion commander his rto and lieutenant greene was in the only foxhole that was dug that was mine i wasn't too happy about that and at the age of 24 i i i i didn't want any shrapnel in my face i thought i had the cutest little face in the world and i didn't want it messed up with shrapnel so i see this big tree and so i go face first body first into the tree and i said you know if i'm gonna get shrapnel and get it in the back and uh so i started counting the impacts and i counted twelve you know and i'm thinking and i didn't feel the sting so you know if i've got shrapnel it's not much i can smell the the burned eggs and if you're close enough to a mortar round to smell uh the burnt egg it's in your hip pocket so i knew it was very very close so i said you know i'm going to get him walk over and talk to battalion commander lieutenant greene about being in my foxhole and i walked over and one of the 12 rounds had gone in that foxhole um hit lieutenant green in the chest and the battalion commander and his rto was uh was killed the concussion and so i i fortunately got a chopper in and i told him i said drink just as much ammo as you can and i need to get you know hump the lieutenant humphreys sergeant dice the battalion commander's body lieutenant green's body out and we were fortunate enough to do that and then that was the last chopper um but the battle started and it was just they attempted to breach the hill you know massive wave after wave after wave and our little vietnamese rangers fought them all fought them off and the battle went uh four days and four nights and about two o'clock in the morning on day four i'm i'm crawling around the perimeter trying to readjust ammunition and you know treat the wounded the best i can the battalion surgeon and i were the only two that was wounded and so we were taking care of the ones that we could that seriously wounded in and come to realization that we were out of ammo we abused everything that we had and it was like two o'clock in the morning i remember leaning up against a tree and i'm saying the next wave you know it's going to be hand-to-hand combat and our chances of seeing the sun rise is very small and a very quiet tranquil feeling come over me you know it's you know lord if you want me take me i uh i'm not ready i got a wife and two kids at home and uh but i understand i mean battles battle but the next wave never come apparently we had beaten them down to the point that they were out of ammunition also and so that morning right after sunrise we was given the order to withdraw and i had approximately eight eight kilometers or kilometers to uh to move and again we were completely out of ammunition but fortunately and i asked for air support uh to escort us off the hill and i was told that you know there was no support available because we weren't in direct contact and we had troops in direct contact so all the support was going and rightly so to the ones that was in in direct contact but the people that had been supporting me over that four days and four nights i come up on the radio and said you know if we get a diverted mission you know give us your location and we'll do the best we can to support you and they did we had enough diverted missions that they pretty much leapfrogged me off of the off of the hill the uh helicopter gunships would cover our flanks and we got a few fast movers that got missions diverted and they can only stay on station but 10 to 15 minutes they didn't want to go back to thailand with a belly full of bombs so they would literally blow me a a bomb crater and and we would go from crater to crater and and we got to the lz and got everyone in medevac and the next day i went over to the vietnamese hospital and to get a head count and we had 41 walking wounded survived the entire dear and the only two people that wasn't wounded was the uh uh battalion surgeon and myself and we laughed about it afterwards saying you know how did how did we survive you know because we were everywhere and i remember him saying well well thrown shiela terrell we never stayed in one spot long enough to get hit and so i guess that was a good way of looking at it but very very fortunate the only two that that wasn't wounded so i went up on the hill with 473 and four advisers and myself and 41 walking women did come off the hill four days later unfortunately at the time the battalion exo had some psychological issues after the medallion commander was killed and i'm calling back on the radio talking to my commander and to colonel psalm who had an outstanding relationship with and he directed me to shoot the battalion commander and and take command and i said well the battalion xo i said no i said i i can't shoot him i said i'll just ask him to stay in the foxhole and stay out of the way which he did and i got the company commanders together and i said okay you know i'm i'm the only one left here in the headquarters element and of course they loved me and they loved that american radio without that american radio they had no support so the company commanders and the platoon leaders and the platoon sergeants all was very happy that you know that colonel psalm had said basically you're the battalion commander rally the troops and and fight through and the trust that they gave me i hoped i earned their trust i hope it wasn't just given to me i hope the eight months that i had worked with them and going through ranger school with them i think was a great help their ranger school um but there was there was no hesitation whatsoever pretty much i was appointed as the battalion commander and we had a job to do and four days and four nights later i i wish i could have brought more than 41 off the hill but we were credited for annihilating the 66 nba regiment the 29th nba regiment the kasich sapper battalion well we we we would have hot spots i would call it a particular side of the hill that that they would that they would try to make their advance and so i would i would take the radio and and crawl to that that side to where i could actually see what was going on instead of you know getting it relayed and i had some issues um the fast movers out of out of thailand did not want to drop the munitions close enough you know they was afraid of a friendly fire okay and uh i can remember telling one i said you know you you got to get it in closer and he said well i can't he said you know it's i'm danger close now i can't bring anything any closer you know i said you know we don't have a choice you're dropping it behind them you know they're literally on our doorstep so you've got to walk it in and uh he's well i can't and i said okay i'll withdraw how many how many meters back do you want me to move and uh so about 10 minutes later we didn't move but about 10 minutes later i said okay i've withdrawn to a safe safe element let's bring it on in and it was interesting uh napalm sucks all the air of the oxygen out of the air and you bring you put it in your hip pocket you you have difficulty breathing for a while but you know you have to do what you had to do when they're when they're on your doorstep i mean you've got you've got to bring it in artillery was a challenge because it was a rainy season and we was getting uh 81 millimeter mortar and in the rainy season every time a mortar fires a little base plant playing plate will will will shrink a little bit and i was getting some pretty radical fire a little to the right a little bit to the left and a couple of rounds went over my head and i said you know i might shut you guys down i can't i can't use you and uh thankfully with helicopter gunships and the fast movers would get the gun ships were fantastic they would put it of course they they could they could be low enough that they could see the battle and they would put it exactly where i wanted i didn't have any issue about danger clothes for them i mean they they would they'd bring it in within 50 meters and that's exactly where i needed it i i moved to [Music] the critical part of the perimeter knowing this constantly so i i don't think there'd be a number of of me moving but you know i don't think it exposing uh myself the one time that i said i can't do this anymore was um we had a c-130 gunship overhead and he was illuminating the battlefield for us he had the spotlights and uh he lost position and i would have to literally stand there with a strobe light and uh and and identify the position and so he could you know at night they would that was before gps was really at the level that it is now now with gps i mean it's it's been port accurate but then you know they would drift off and then okay i've lost your location i'm not sure where you are and after about three times of uh turning that strobe light on every time i turn that strobe light on people try to shoot it out and uh i remember making the comment i said look i'm not standing up there being the statue of liberty if you know them more i said you have to find us you know look for look for red tracers instead of green tracers green tracers the enemy red tracers is us so keep us lit up but every time i turn that strobe light on it uh and people tried to put it out and i thought i quit turning the strobe light on but that's the only time i i would consider exposing myself that was not a good feeling to flip a cerobite on i think the key was was you be there with them instead of hiding back in a in a foxhole on top of the hill i mean you actually get out and go from hold a hole i had earned their respect most of them again i put through ranger school their ranger school and uh with my ranger school experience in the states i i i helped with the instruction and i had worked with them again for eight months and so for me to to to rally the troops i mean that was that was easy i had earned their respect and it was just you know we got to do it you know we are rangers you know there's no saying you know and and one of the phrases i kept repeating over and over bit bit dumb shot and it's like you know rangers kill rangers kill you know in other words you don't get killed and so i i in their language i kept getting you know rangers rangers killed let's go rangers kill and that was uh that was a rallying call rangers kill and is there any food or water over these four days no oh no we we carried a basic amount of rice with us but we ran completely out of water that was a scary part and i did get one resupply of water in they couldn't land but they took 155 halitur canisters because they're sealed they're airtight and they would fill them with water and they would make a low pass they couldn't land but they could make a low pass over and they would kick the canisters out and that's a little bit dangerous you know you get a you get a four foot canister 12 inches diameter full of water falling out of the sky you got to be careful when i'm hitching the head and get your attention but yeah i when when i got off of the hill my lips were were chapped quite a bit because uh i had been pretty much licking the moisture off of the off of the leaves of the trees you know in the morning you know it's just moisture and i guess the sap from the leaves it really irritated my tongue and lips but no we we water was our our pro four days without eating that's that's nothing okay we had a basic supply of food but we didn't have time to cook it so you know you can't eat dry rice so but water was water was an issue i i i remember the when i finally made it back to the lz our sister battalion the 22nd battalion was there and my very close friend and roommate was adviser to that battalion back then i smoked pretty heavily and i walked in their perimeter and he had a canteen cup with a hot cup of coffee and a cigarette and he gave me a big hug handed me the cigarette and a cup of coffee and you know you would you have no idea what a cigarette and a cup of coffee would be like you just take it for granted okay that meant the world to me that was the best tasting coffee i'd ever tasted that nicotine was good thank god i quit smoking you know i'm a firm believer that training is everything and you train and the rangers train our training is as close to actual combat as you'll ever get so i think it was my training adrenaline my love for my fellow rangers you know you just fight through exhaustion and when you get when you get tired suck it up you know rangers lead the way move on keep charging and so you know people one of the questions that uh that people ask me is well did you sleep during that four days and four nights i had to have i don't remember sleeping but there's no doubt in my mind that throughout that four days and four nights and during the law and fire that i probably leaned back against the tree and caught a 10 to 15 minute nap i don't think i could stay away four days and four nights but i i i think back and say well i never i can't remember saying okay i'm gonna go lay down and sleep for an hour to wake me up you know no it just there was that that didn't happen but i had to have kidnapped because it's virtually impossible uh the problem that i had one of the problems i had when i come off the hill was i i couldn't eat uh once i got everybody evacuated they asked me to go over the hospital and and just get a check and i said i don't need a checkup there's nothing wrong with me but i remember getting over there in the dining facility and they they brought me out a big salad and a steak and and i'm looking at it and i nibbled at the salad and drank the milk oh my god i couldn't get enough milk but that was the only thing i couldn't eat right you know just after four days pretty much your stomach shrinks up and it took me several days to get to where i could actually eat i weighed 132 pounds and so it it took a while to eat and that was one of the burning memories in my mind it's like wow will i ever be able to eat again and but i've i made it as you can tell i i'm back to where i'm eating good now i guess reality set in probably two days after the battle when when our two-star general general collins invited me to his office and basically wanted to know why so many of us got killed and so i had to basically tell the story to him that i'm telling you now but it was the first time telling that story and i and i think seeing the 41 walking wounded in the hospital that i visited the vietnamese hospital been reality started to set in that wow this was rougher than what i thought you know i didn't realize all that had gone on then i started reading the radio telephone logs and saying things that i don't remember saying and so reading the logs talking with the general giving him a debrief basically of what had transpired then reality set in that you know i'm a very lucky person i could've got myself killed when did you find out i know it was a couple years later when did you find out first of all that you were put in for the medal of honor and secondly that you were to receive it soon when i was in my going away party um four months after the action my colonel psalm and my little advisory team threw me a beautiful going away party and my colonel at the time come up and put his arm around my neck and he says you know that battle you got in there four or five months ago on that hill he says um i think we're gonna put you in for the medal of honor oh okay now i i didn't take it serious so i went back to uh i went back to the 101st airborne division and uh oh no excuse me i went back as an instructor in ranger school and i got another set of orders to go back to vietnam and i said well this is odd because i had been told if he was recommended for the for the medal of honor that they wouldn't let you get back in combat and so i pulled that tour in vietnam was there for the uh ceasefire was eight month tour and i left there and went back to fort campbell kentucky and master sergeant morris medal of honor recipient from 101st was at the library and i said oh i'd do anything to meet a medal of honor recipient so during my lunch break i stood in line for an hour to you know just to shake his hand and while i was at the library i said you know i'm just gonna i'm gonna get a book on prerequisites for the medal of honor just out of curiosity and read it and one of the things that i read said you know traditionally you would not be allowed to go back into combat and that the medal should be presented within three years we'd been just a little over three years so i guess as well that's you know i uh i guess uh you know the hills history and i was okay with that because you know no one goes into battle looking for awards and three and a half years later i was a um and division g3 i was the uh training nco for the division and i made a lot of training inspections and we had a colonel by the name of honeycutt and every time that i would give him an unsatisfactory in his brigade he would be in the general's office and the general would call me down and hunnicutt would call me every name in the book and tell the general keep this sorry no count rascal out of my my brigade i don't need any more his inspections i know how to train my troops it was it was fun so i had just failed uh one of their companies in a on training and i knew i'd be down to see the general and be called every name of the book by honeycutt again and so i had word that you know general sydney b very my idol i said wanted to see me at 1700 hours so boy it's going to be interesting so i go down knock on the door go and report and i'm looking for a honeycut and he's not there and general berry says come on in sit down on the couch and let's talk so he makes small talk for five to ten minutes and i'm waiting for honeycutt to break through the door any time i thought he was just running late you know and tell me why is he setting me down on the couch and then he said we just got we just got the word that president nixon wants to see in the white house in about six weeks to present you the medal of honor and so i was caught completely off guard i i never expected it and so the next uh about six weeks i was getting mentally and physically prepared to go to the white house and uh was able to take all of my family my immediate family my wife my children my father and stepmother and brothers and sisters i was all invited to the white house we spent five days there total sightseeing and and so my presentation was by president nixon and it was in between watergate and goodbye he come in the room there was a total of nine of us he came in the room shook her hand put the metal around her neck muttered something and moved on he was in the room probably every bit of ten minutes presenting nine of us to ward and moved out he had you know i made the comment before he had bigger fish to fry that day than medal of honor presentations he was getting ready to resign and but we spent five days um press secretary ziegler took us all through the white house other than the private living quarters we got a complete tour fantastic tour and then we spent five days just sightseeing trip over the pentagon to see the hall of heroes and then back to work what does it mean to you to be a recipient of the medal when i got the medal i was still on active duty and my job was to train soldiers so i took the medal off and put it in my top dresser drawer i tried not to let the the word metal bond across my lips i think i wore it twice and that was when i was in dress blues uh i could hear the troops talking you know about you know my my my first sergeant or my sergeant major is a medal of honor recipient you know but it was something that i uh it was just it was just to me a history and i after i retired i remember how badly i wanted to shake the hand of a medal of honor recipient master sergeant morris and i stood in line for over an hour just to shake his hand and i said you know i'm depriving the troops of the opportunity and so i took the medal out in the top dresser drawer knocked the dust off of it and i started touring meeting and you know this medal means so much uh every time i put it on example this morning there in the uh in the hotel you know i put the medal on i come downstairs and every service member every veteran comes over shakes my hand and says you know thank you for using can i have a picture and so [Music] i don't wear this metal for me i wear this metal for those that i can be in contact with and it means so much to them i didn't earn this medal i don't feel that i deserve this medal i was a non-commissioned officer doing a job i didn't do anything heroic i'd done my job but i i wear this medal for those 400 plus that gave their lives on that hill i'm the customer of the medal they earned it i get to wear it for a couple them questions before we let you go when troops came home from vietnam this is well known not very well received by the public did you experience much of that i did not i had two minor incidents two very very minor and i took immediate action and and moved on but fortunately for me i stayed on active duty i went back to fort campbell kentucky started training troops okay lived on base and so i didn't have the issues that you know out of that group of nine medal of honor recipients two of them had severe issues when they come back adjustment one tried to go to college and couldn't ended up moving up in the national forest living in you know in a cave uh one kenneth case uh went out in the greenhouse put a rope around his neck and jumped but i didn't have those issues some of my fellow recipients that we were rewarded the same time did have issues so when you hear the uh the horror stories about you know been being spit on in the airport and all that i didn't witness any of that long career in the united states military what are you most proud of i think i think i'm i'm mostly proud to say that i was in a position to where i could train troops you know i've got an old saying if you subject your troops to combat and they're not properly trained you deprive them of their basic right to live and i i live by those principles and i think the proudest of my 22 years in the military that i was able to train young rangers and young soldiers to where if they were subjected to combat they were trained to where they could survive and that's the proudest memories there's no particular incident it's just an overall i trained my troops and very proud of that sir we thank you for your heroic service to our country and we thank you for your time with us today thank you it's good to be here gary latrell vietnam veteran also recipient of the congressional medal of honor i'm greg corumbus this has been veterans chronicles you

Channel: American Veterans Center

Views: 1,409,994

Keywords: AVC, American Veterans Center, Vietnam War, veteran, oral history, Gary Littrell, Medal of Honor, MOH, US Army

Id: 3uIvz6r2qds

Length: 43min 17sec (2597 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 11 2017