Gary Rose, a hero you should know

[ricardo]

Gary Rose, a Special Forces medic in Vietnam/Laos, may finally be getting the Medal of Honor.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/sec...ARI?li=BBnb7Kz

From the article

On Sept. 11, 1970, the group launched one of its biggest missions of the war, Operation Tailwind. Helicopters dropped 136 men about 40 miles into Laos to “cause a huge ruckus,” Mr. Plaster said, and draw attention away from a C.I.A. operation to the north.

According to interviews and Army documents, North Vietnamese forces hit before the team even landed, piercing the helicopters with bullets. Three were shot before any boots hit the ground.

When the choppers touched down, the team swept into the jungle to escape enemy fire. The lone medic was Sergeant Rose, a soft-spoken 22-year-old from Southern California wearing a floppy jungle hat and camouflage face paint that did not quite hide his nerves. It was his second real combat mission. He had been wounded on his first.

Over the next four days, the company blew up ammunition bunkers and set fire to a supply camp, chased by an ever-increasing enemy force. By the end of the operation, a third of the company was wounded.

When a soldier was shot down in a clearing raked by machine guns, others yelled to stay down until the team could set up cover fire. But Sergeant Rose ran forward, firing as he went. He shielded the man to treat his wounds, then carried him to safety. “How or why Sgt. Rose was not killed in this action I’ll never know,” one platoon leader wrote in a statement at the time.