A retired Army Green Beret credited with saving multiple lives during a covert four-day mission into Laos to target North Vietnamese soldiers operating there will receive the Medal of Honor next month, 47 years after his heroic actions, the White House announced Wednesday.
President Donald Trump will present the military’s highest honor to retired Army Capt. Gary Michael Rose on Oct. 23 at the White House, an upgrade of the Distinguished Service Cross Rose received in 1971. Rose was awarded the nation’s second highest medal for valor just four months after the Special Forces mission in which he survived bullet and rocket wounds and a helicopter crash to provide life-saving aid to more than 100 comrades, according to the award citation.
Soldiers who served with him, lawmakers and Pentagon officials have lobbied for several years for Rose’s award to be upgraded, which required a special waiver passed by Congress and presidential approval.
In an Army statement, Rose said the Medal of Honor belongs to the secretive unit he served with during the Vietnam War, the Army’s Military Assistance Command Studies and Observations Group.
“That medal, to me, recognizes finally the service of all the men in all those years that served in MACSOG,” Rose, 69, said in the statement. “It’s a collective medal from my perspective [which represents] all the courage and honor and dedication to duty that those men served.”
HT: Tuskers