One Who Was Belligerent

Friday, Dec. 11, 1964

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So far, 225 U.S. servicemen have been killed in that Vietnamese war in which their country still does not admit to being an official combatant. Last week, the White House announced that a Medal of Honor had been awarded to Army Special Forces Captain Roger Hugh C. Donlon for "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity" in action against the Viet Cong.

Said the White House announcement: "This is the first Medal of Honor awarded to an individual who distinguished himself while serving with a friendly force engaged in an armed conflict in which the United States is not a belligerent party."

The mild idiocy of that statement should take nothing away from DonIon, now 30. A tall, sandy-haired man, he enlisted in the Air Force in 1953, was appointed to West Point in 1955. After two years, he decided that the military life was not for him, left to take a job as a data processor with International Business Machines Corp. in Manhattan. A mere ten months of button-down hustle and bustle made Donlon decide that he really wanted to be a soldier. He enlisted in the Army, graduated in 1959 from Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Ga.

In Viet Nam last summer, Donlon was commanding a detachment assigned to defend Camp Nam Dong, 400 miles north of Saigon. At 2:25 a.m. on July 6, a Viet Cong battalion launched a full-scale surprise attack. In the course of the five-hour battle, DonIon seemed to be everywhere, firing and hurling hand grenades under a hail of enemy bullets and mortar shells. He shot down a three-man Viet Cong demolition team threatening the main gate of the defense compound. He dragged urgently needed ammunition across open areas to gun positions. When he discovered a wounded gun crew, he stayed behind to cover their withdrawal. Donlon himself was wounded four times, the first a stomach wound into which he stuffed a handkerchief to stem the flow of blood. Yet he refused aid for himself until after daylight, when all of his men had been tended to.