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
Charles Kettles, heroic Vietnam veteran from Ypsilanti, Michigan, awarded the Medal of Honor | Eclectablog
July 26, 2016
Written by recall369
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