View Full Version : inadvertently met a Medal of Honor Recipient
MackallResident
12-02-2009, 19:43
I just wanted to get this off of my chest.
I work near* Walter Reed AMC, and walking behind a building one day, taking a short cut to my destination, I walk past a Colonel smoking a cigarette. I give him the greeting of the day, and he asks me where I come from. I explain my roots and we have about ten minutes of dialogue and I am on my way, thinking that he is a really great individual.
Today, I was informed that man is the only Medal of Honor recipient still on active duty. I am in awe, I really am, what a Patriot!
Next time I see him(if I do), I will thank him.
The Reaper
12-02-2009, 19:57
I just wanted to get this off of my chest.
I work near* Walter Reed AMC, and walking behind a building one day, taking a short cut to my destination, I walk past a Colonel smoking a cigarette. I give him the greeting of the day, and he asks me where I come from. I explain my roots and we have about ten minutes of dialogue and I am on my way, thinking that he is a really great individual.
Today, I was informed that man is the only Medal of Honor recipient still on active duty. I am in awe, I really am, what a Patriot!
Next time I see him(if I do), I will thank him.
COL Roberts?
TR
MackallResident
12-02-2009, 20:02
Yessir, that would be correct. I am still fresh to the area, so I had not even heard that he was here, and definitely did not know what he looked like at the time.
Dozer523
12-02-2009, 21:28
Gordon R. Roberts
Specialist fourth Class, U.S. Army Company B, 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division
His two older brothers were already in the Navy when Gordon Roberts enlisted in the Army three days after graduating from high school in 1968. He became part of the 101st Airborne, the same unit his father had served in during World War II.
Specialist Fourth Class Roberts arrived in Vietnam in May 1969, and a few days later found himself in the middle of the battle for Hamburger Hill, a week-and-a-half-long battle with North Vietnamese Army troops in the A Shau Valley. For the next several weeks, his battalion attempted to block the enemy’s main resupply route from Laos.
At midday on July 11, Roberts heard the sound of heavy fighting about three and a half miles away, where another U.S. infantry company, badly outnumbered, had lost its battalion commander and was surrounded by the NVA. Roberts’s company boarded helicopters and went to relieve them.
After landing, Roberts’s platoon was maneuvering along a ridgeline to attack the heavily fortified enemy position that had the American company pinned down. Suddenly, the platoon was hit by fire coming from camouflaged North Vietnamese bunkers on a hill overlooking them. Roberts dived for cover with the rest of the men, but then, seeing that the platoon was likely to take serious casualties, he got to his feet and charged the closest enemy position, firing as he ran. He killed the two North Vietnamese manning the gun, then continued on to a second bunker. When a machine-gun round knocked his weapon from his hands, he grabbed another rifle from the ground, took out the second bunker, and destroyed a third with grenades.
As he charged a fourth enemy position, Roberts was now in a no-man’s-land, cut off from the rest of his platoon. With shells snapping past him, he fought his way to the company his unit had been trying to relieve when attacked. There he worked to move wounded GIs from exposed positions to an evacuation area, later returning to his own unit.
Roberts was back home, stationed at Fort Meade early in 1971, when he was informed that he was to receive the Medal of Honor. With his family looking on, he was presented with the medal by President Richard Nixon on March 2, 1971.
Three weeks later, Roberts was discharged from the Army. He graduated from college and pursued a career in social work for eighteen years; during that time he joined the National Guard and became an officer. He decided to go back on active duty in 1991 and served a tour of duty in Iraq in 2005 as the commander of a logistics battalion.
(from this site) http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/09/17/362455.aspx
and for more information try this one
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,95663,00.html
I was with Gordon Roberts when he was at Bragg as the Commander of the company next to mine (I was a 1SG)....very unpretentious and easy going, likable, but the man smoked like an 1890's freight train!
MSC Officer and current MCB CDR at WRAMC.
http://www.dcmilitary.com/stories/061908/stripe_28294.shtml
Richard
Incredible Story... When & If you see him again, Thank him for all of us...
MackallResident
12-03-2009, 16:39
I will surely shake his hand and render my own gratitude, with all of you in mind when I do it.
ZonieDiver
12-04-2009, 16:21
Gordon R. Roberts
Specialist fourth Class, U.S. Army Company B, 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division
His two older brothers were already in the Navy when Gordon Roberts enlisted in the Army three days after graduating from high school in 1968. He became part of the 101st Airborne, the same unit his father had served in during World War II.
Specialist Fourth Class Roberts arrived in Vietnam in May 1969, and a few days later found himself in the middle of the battle for Hamburger Hill, a week-and-a-half-long battle with North Vietnamese Army troops in the A Shau Valley. For the next several weeks, his battalion attempted to block the enemy’s main resupply route from Laos.
At midday on July 11, Roberts heard the sound of heavy fighting about three and a half miles away, where another U.S. infantry company, badly outnumbered, had lost its battalion commander and was surrounded by the NVA. Roberts’s company boarded helicopters and went to relieve them.
After landing, Roberts’s platoon was maneuvering along a ridgeline to attack the heavily fortified enemy position that had the American company pinned down. Suddenly, the platoon was hit by fire coming from camouflaged North Vietnamese bunkers on a hill overlooking them. Roberts dived for cover with the rest of the men, but then, seeing that the platoon was likely to take serious casualties, he got to his feet and charged the closest enemy position, firing as he ran. He killed the two North Vietnamese manning the gun, then continued on to a second bunker. When a machine-gun round knocked his weapon from his hands, he grabbed another rifle from the ground, took out the second bunker, and destroyed a third with grenades.
As he charged a fourth enemy position, Roberts was now in a no-man’s-land, cut off from the rest of his platoon. With shells snapping past him, he fought his way to the company his unit had been trying to relieve when attacked. There he worked to move wounded GIs from exposed positions to an evacuation area, later returning to his own unit.
Roberts was back home, stationed at Fort Meade early in 1971, when he was informed that he was to receive the Medal of Honor. With his family looking on, he was presented with the medal by President Richard Nixon on March 2, 1971.
Three weeks later, Roberts was discharged from the Army. He graduated from college and pursued a career in social work for eighteen years; during that time he joined the National Guard and became an officer. He decided to go back on active duty in 1991 and served a tour of duty in Iraq in 2005 as the commander of a logistics battalion.
(from this site) http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/09/17/362455.aspx
and for more information try this one
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,95663,00.html
What a man! Hamburger Hill! What a battle. It was the impetus for me to drop out of college - and ROTC - and enlist. Those were heady days - the late 60's - and the "battle lines" were drawn. I will always respect those who chose to "do the right thing." May we always have such patriots in difficult times. Trust me, those were difficult times...
MackallResident
01-08-2010, 20:55
To follow up:
I talk to him quite regularly now, he smokes, I spit. He is a great guy. He is not at all vain and would never speak of his actions, he would even shrug them off I imagine.
FYI: In is picture that is brandished everywhere around here, he has on all of his medals except for the Medal of Honor. I only hope that one day I can die in peace knowing that I gave no less than this man to our Country. He has forever impacted this Soldier.
I grew up in Gordon Roberts' hometown of Lebanon, Ohio. So he's quite the local hero around here. I seem to remember he tried his hand at some local politics but didn't get too far running for congress.
He was of course, the only guy around with MOH license plates.
Lebanon is also home to Neil Armstrong. A lot of pride for a place most would call a hicktown. High school with Woody Harrelson was uneventful but grade school with George Clooney was fun.
ODA572