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There are a lot of dudes on the internet that talk about how they did X, Y, Z heroic action, but can't talk about it because it's classified and all that. Most of those guys are full of shit. They are liars with pathetic lives. However, there are a few men, men like Richard Etchberger, who put bodies in the ground like a regular Johnny Appleseed of death, despite having zero formal combat training.Also for the longest time, nobody could talk about how or where he was when he performed the actions that initially saw him awarded the Air Force Cross, but later upgraded to the Medal of Honor.Next to Vietnam, there was this little country called Laos. Officially, there weren't any United States military personnel in Laos. There were...employees of Lockheed in Laos though. They also happened to "formerly" be in the United States Air Force. Please take note of the quotes as and realize that they were still...in the Air Force (big surprise there huh?). Richard Etchberger and the other supporting cast members of Lima Site 85 came under intense attack one day, March 11th, 1968 and that's when shit got real.See Richard and all of his buddies manning Lime Site 85 were operating a radar station that directed airstrikes on North Vietnam. North Vietnam was getting really tired of the United States Air Force and the United States Navy putting warheads on foreheads. The North Vietnamese soon found the radar sight and threw hell against it.Woe unto them.
During the attack, several of Richard's compatriots were wounded or killed. Richard was only a ground radar superintendent, honorable work if you can get it, but not exactly a combat job. Like it mattered. Richard held off the enemy assault single-handedly with an M-16 and he continued to call in airstrikes on the sonsofbitches pouring in from the jungle around them.Richard Etchberger held off an entire enemy assault by himself, was denied the Medal of Honor (initially) despite saving the lives of three men. Upon being loaded into the helicopter Etchberger was hit and fatally wounded.
Initially, his family was told he was killed in a helicopter accident. The details of his mission and what happened to him that fateful day were declassified 14 years later and was awarded the Medal of Honor in 2010.
