Profiles of Valor: He Saved Our Lives
“Leave no man behind.”
Previously, I had the privilege of writing a Profile of Valor about my friend, SGT Dave Hill (USA, Ret.), titled, “The Last Ranger Standing.” What follows is Dave’s firsthand account of how our mutual friend, Medal of Honor recipient CPT Larry Taylor (USA, Ret.), saved his life, and those of three other Rangers.
First, a bit about Dave’s 1st Infantry Division and the deadly night in Vietnam when he and Larry Taylor first met.
After the Revolutionary War, America’s military capacity contracted until buildups were required because of foreign threats in the centuries since. The 1st Infantry Division (1ID) is the oldest Army division in continued service. It was organized in 1917 during World War I, when it picked up its nickname, “The Big Red One,” or BRO, now garrisoned at Fort Riley, Kansas.
During WWI, the BRO mounted the first American offensive against the German enemy, capturing the French village of Cantigny. It, along with other newly formed Army and Marine divisions, continued to fight on the “western front” until the end of the War, on November 11, 1918 — the Americans proving to be a decisive factor in the Allied victory.
Downsized after World War I and further during the Great Depression, the rise of the NAZI Third Reich, the “Third Empire,” created an immediate need to substantially grow the 1st Division’s capacity. Hard and costly lessons would be paid, first in North Africa at places like the Kasserine Pass and later at Anzio on the Italian mainland. The 1st Infantry Division was at the forefront in the European theater, and Gen. Omar Bradley insisted that they would be the vanguards for the first Army’s attack on what the Germans called “Festung Europa” — Fortress Europe.
On the morning of June 6th, 1944, on the bullet- and artillery-swept “Omaha Beach” in the Normandy region of France, the BRO, at very high cost, again prevailed, though suffering nearly 3,000 casualties on that one day. From there, they fought across northern Europe, held Belgium’s Elsenborn Ridge during the “Battle of the Bulge,” and ultimately moved into Germany. Total casualties were 20,659 (15,374 in Europe and 5,285 in North Africa and Sicily). There were 17 BRO soldiers who earned the Medal of Honor during World War II.
The 1st Division’s next war would be fought in the jungles, mountains, and rice paddies of a then-largely unknown country named Vietnam.
On September 5, 2023, Army attack helicopter pilot CAPT Larry Taylor became the 38th Big Red One Medal of Honor recipient for his courageous and selfless actions on the night of June 18, 1968.
Dave’s personal account of follows:
Senior U.S. Army combat commanders, at the start of a major operation or campaign, often issue what is known as a “sense of the commander” order to provide guidance — beyond the specific battle plan — for their subordinate commanders, should communication between them and their commander be lost. It is to state the primary thrust of the overall unit battle plan while nonetheless allowing the flexibility to alter their portion of that plan should it have become outdated and, therefore, no longer possible or logical for them to adhere to.
It becomes particularly important when communications are either totally eliminated or so sporadic as to be rendered useless, or the tempo of battle does not provide the opportunity for consultation with senior commanders by those officers truly at the “point of the spear.” In such circumstances, it gives general direction while not “shackling” the decision-making of isolated subordinate officers — the commander having full confidence in his leaders’ experience and judgment to adjust to a rapidly changing combat situation. I believe that within the Big Red One and for its leaders and troops — at all levels — they generally needed only to refer to and be guided by the Big Red One’s motto. It provides a clear, simple, and executable guide for officers, NCOs, and enlisted men stuck in an isolated situation.
It reads simply: No mission too difficult. No sacrifice too great. Duty first. For those in our Division, those simple but direct words had been ingrained in us for direction when we most needed them.
CAPT Taylor was additionally guided by his own personal creed and motto: “Leave no man behind.” On a deadly night in Vietnam, it meant to him that he would not leave me and three other rangers — his fellow BRO soldiers — on the ground, surrounded by the enemy, out of ammunition, and facing certain death.
So, for CAPT Taylor, there was no confusion, no lack of clarity that night. He knew what he, as the on-scene senior commander over our battle space, must do. And do so with as much “innovation” as our shared situation required.
Here is why CAPT Larry Taylor was awarded our nation’s highest military honor.
On the night of 18 June 1968, our four-man Army Ranger long range patrol (LRP) team, radio call-sign “Wildcat 2,” of which I was the assistant team leader, had been conducting our recon mission and inadvertently entered a North Vietnamese army company’s staging area. We soon became surrounded, though our presence was not initially known to the enemy. We could not exfiltrate the area, so we quickly and quietly set up our position behind a water buffalo cart path to make our stand. We were clearly going to have to somehow fight our way out of the enemy encirclement but could not hope to do so just on our own. So, we called for help! That help came from our primary air support, the helicopters and pilots of D Troop (air), 1st Squadron/4th Cavalry. They had always been there for us in the past and we knew they would spare no effort in getting us out of our current desperate situation.
When Larry Taylor, as flight leader of his two-ship “light fire team” of Cobra attack helicopters, arrived over our surrounded team, he analyzed the challenges facing him and us Rangers and the assets he brought with him to prevail in that fight. He quickly reviewed what he faced on the ground below and the tools available to accomplish his mission: “I am starting this battle with tremendous assets: 1) My flight possesses a massive amount of aerial rockets and ‘mini-gun’/ machine-gun ammunition; 2) I have a fast, powerful, and agile means of delivering them — our two Bell AH1-g Cobra attack helicopters; 3) The expected imminent arrival of another Cobra flight to continue to destroy the enemy and prevent the ranger team from being overrun and destroyed, thereby allowing us to fly to the nearest "re-arm and re-fuel” base, before returning to the fight; and, 4) The eventual arrival of the UH1-d Huey troop-carrier helicopter with which to conduct an emergency extraction of the ranger team, protected by the Cobras.
So, after clearly establishing our team’s position on the ground, he and his wingman commenced their initial attacks on the enemy surrounding us. The Cobras and our team slugged it out with the enemy for the next 35-40 minutes, soon expending both our own and the helicopters’ ammunition. By the end of the battle, each of our riflemen had fired nearly 650 rounds and were each down to final magazines. Likewise, CAPT Taylor and his wingman had expended all 152 of their rockets and nearly all of their 16,000 “mini-gun” machine gun rounds. The Cobras were also nearly out of fuel.
Minutes later, Taylor was advised by his D Troop headquarters that there would now be no additional attack helicopters to relieve him and his wingman, as all other D Troop gunships were either committed to other battles or too far away from our fight to get there in time to assist. He was also informed that the “Huey” transport helicopter that had been expected to extract our team had suffered total communications failure and been forced to abort and return to their Phu Loi airfield for repair. No replacement Huey was immediately available to join Taylor and make the extraction. By now, his Cobras were out of ordnance needed to protect us on the ground. Yet we were still encircled by the enemy.
Taylor’s new assessment was: “We clearly are not going to be able to prevail by force of arms over the overwhelming number of well-armed and determined enemy. So many problems and too few assets to conceivably overcome all of them. What to do?”
He then determined, despite being ordered by a misguided senior officer back at our base camp not to do so, to pursue the most audacious option available to him. He decided to use his Cobra to somehow extract our ranger team from its situation. Understand, a Cobra is strictly a two-man helicopter, with no internal cabin in which to carry us, and no attempt had ever been made to use a Cobra to carry troops. But he reasoned that he would try to use his Cobra to somehow get our Ranger team out of there. He was not sure exactly how but believed that it could and must be done or, at least, attempted. He thought: “If they can bust out of the weakest side of the enemy envelopment, that to the southeast, he would meet us in the vast rice paddy and carry the four of us on the outside of his Cobra and out of our predicament. He figured that just because his attack helicopter had not been designed to transport troops, it did not mean that it could not be utilized in that role if required. Improvise — Adapt — Overcome. That night, it was desperately required.
Taylor reminded himself also that the enemy probably did not believe he had the ability to extract the team on his Cobra, as even Taylor’s commanders did not believe he could and, in fact, had ordered him not to make the attempt. It was, for the Rangers on the ground, now down to a few claymore directional anti-personnel mines and some hand grenades, our only chance for survival.
CAPT Taylor was not an insubordinate officer, and though he had been ordered to "return to base,” he believed that such an order had to have been the result of a misunderstanding of both the Ranger team’s situation and his own potential capability to extract them. Standard procedure would have been for him to temporarily withdraw to rearm and refuel, but he knew that, with no relieving gunships, our team would be overrun and killed before he could return. No recriminations would have come his way from anyone had he merely followed the standard operating procedure and departed to the nearest friendly base. But Taylor was not “wired that way.” He had to live up to his own self-imposed standards of leadership, determination, and selfless courage. He was “the man in the arena,” so it was solely his call, and he made it without hesitation!
Taylor told our LRP team to aim our remaining claymore mines to the northeast and southeast and, on his command, to detonate them and hopefully thereby create a short-lived escape route through the weakest part of the enemy encirclement. He directed us to then “run like hell” 100 meters into the vast rice paddy area, on an azimuth of 135 degrees (southeast), where he would meet us.
On Taylor’s call, while he made a diversionary “fake” (now being totally out of ordnance) attack run against the enemy line to the west, with his landing light on, our team detonated our remaining claymores and made our “break-out.” We all arrived precisely at the designated location in the rice paddies to the southeast of the enemy lines.
Though we did not yet know how he intended to use his Cobra to extract us, we soon found out. We were shocked to find Taylor’s two-man Cobra gunship (which we had never before seen up close until that night) land alongside us. CAPT Taylor, just before landing, had advised our team leader that we had 10 seconds to climb aboard anywhere we could on the outside of his ship so he could get us out of there. As the Cobra has only a single cockpit, with just barely room for its pilot and copilot, we had to find somewhere to latch onto the outside of his ship. Instinctively, two of us jumped onto his left-side rocket pods and the other two onto the opposite side landing skid. We thumped on the side of his fuselage, and he immediately flew up to approximately 1500 ft and out of enemy small arms range before starting slowly moving forward toward the nearest friendly firebase.
After quickly descending to a couple hundred feet and making the 15-mile flight at about 50 knots forward speed, we arrived at an American armored cavalry position northeast of Saigon’s Tanh Aon Nhut airbase.
Throughout the battle, CAPT Taylor had kept his head while developing solutions to the dire situation in which he and we found ourselves that night. He had done what we now call “thinking outside the box.” He followed the reasoning advised by famed Ranger Gen. Hal Moore: “As a leader, there is always one more thing you can do to turn a bad situation in your favor; and after that, one more thing!”
For Larry Taylor’s actions that night, he received our nation’s third-highest valor award, the Silver Star medal. But decades later, when I was the sole remaining member of the Ranger team Larry saved that night, I still believed that Taylor’s actions warranted the Medal of Honor. And 55 years later, with the help of his advocates with the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center in Larry’s hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, coincidentally the birthplace of the Medal of Honor, the Department of Defense upgraded his Silver Star to the Medal of Honor he so richly deserved.
Fortunately, CAPT Larry Taylor was able to receive that award at a White House ceremony before he passed on to his eternal reward on January 28, 2024. His courageous and selfless actions all those years ago will never be forgotten, both memorialized with other Medal of Honor recipients at the Heritage Center and now on “Larry Taylor Drive” at Ft. Riley.
I thank you, sir, as do all the descendants of those four Rangers you saved that dark and deadly night in Vietnam.
Publisher’s Note: Dave Hill would not include this, but I will: When Wild Cat 2 was out of ammo, running for Taylor’s Cobra, Dave intentionally fell back behind the other three with his bag of grenades and provided cover by stopping every 10 yards and throwing grenades toward the enemy lines. For his actions that night, he was awarded a Silver Star.
Footnote: In the White House photo I took accompanying this profile, in the center seated is CAPT Taylor, and on the right is SGT Hill.
Rangers: Your example of valor — humble American Patriots defending Liberty for all above and beyond the call of duty, and in disregard for the peril to your own lives — is eternal.
“Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
Live your life worthy of their sacrifice.
(Read more Profiles of Valor here.)
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate – 1776
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