Charles Kettles, heroic Vietnam veteran from Ypsilanti, Michigan, awarded the Medal of Honor | Eclectablog

The dashing young man in the photo above is Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Charles S. Kettles. LTC Kettles, who lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan, was awarded the Medal of Honor yesterday at a White House ceremony. His story is extraordinary. Here’s an excerpt from President Obama’s remarks: May 15, 1967, started as a hot Monday morning. Soldiers from the 101st Airborne were battling hundreds of heavily armed North Vietnamese in a rural riverbed. Our men were outnumbered. They needed support fast –- helicopters to get the wounded out and bring more soldiers into the fight. Chuck Kettles was a helo pilot. And just as he’d volunteered for active duty, on this morning he volunteered his Hueys –- even though he knew the danger. They called this place “Chump Valley” for a reason: Above the riverbed rose a 1,500-foot-tall hill, and the enemy was dug into an extensive series of tunnels and bunkers — the ideal spot for an ambush. But Chuck jumped into the cockpit and took off. Around 9 a.m., his compa

Source: Charles Kettles, heroic Vietnam veteran from Ypsilanti, Michigan, awarded the Medal of Honor | Eclectablog