Four Decades Later, Vietnam War Special Operators Will Get Long Overdue Medals

Posted Sep 18, 2011 by Howard Altman

Updated Sep 17, 2011 at 11:58 PM

Sunday evening, Richard Crawford of Lakeland will hop a flight from Tampa International Airport, bound for Las Vegas.

It’ll be a lot less dangerous then the one he took nearly 43 years ago to the day, when, as part of a special forces team, he mounted one of several choppers headed off to the jungles of Laos on a secret mission in a country we were not supposed to be in at the time.

The mission was to rescue a recon team that had come under heavy fire by North Vietnamese Army troops.

Over the course of several hours, the choppers were shredded by fire, one crashed, men were wounded but the recon team, including our Bru Montagnard allies, was saved.

We rolled in for the pick-up and immediately started receiving tremendous amounts of automatic weapons fire.

I could feel our helicopter getting rocked from the dozens of bullets hitting it and felt my head snap back while Scott & I continued to lay down machine-gun fire to protect the LZ and Jim Schaafs’ team. -Fom the eyewitness account of Roger F. Lockshier, SP-5/E-5Black AngelsCo. D 101st. Avn. Btn.101st. Abn. Div.

It was another harrowing day in the life of the secret Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG) - a highly classified multi-service US special forces unit which conducted covert, unconventional warfare operations prior to and during the Vietnam War. It was created more than two decades before U.S. Special Operations Command.

For more than four decades after making their way out of that harrowing firefight, the men, led by a now 68-year-old Crawford, have been fighting another battle.

One for recognition. And honor.

MACVSOG was not a publicly recognized unit until Aug. 22, 2000 when the entire unit received the Presidential Unit Citation (PUC), the highest award a “unit” can receive. It, the PUC, is for extraordinary heroism in military operations against an armed enemy. It is for that reason, as well as other combat activities that many men were not properly rewarded for their courageous and valorous service.

As we tried to gain altitude I could feel low frequency vibrations from the main rotor being shot up and high frequency vibrations from the tail rotor being shot. The engine was also starting to loose power and I could smell leaking JP-4 fuel and hydraulic fluid.

I got out of the helicopter and saw how my war-horse “Heavy” gun-ship that was the pride of the “Black Angels” was reduced to a twisted bullet ridden from nose to tail heap of smoldering metal. The smell of leaking JP-4 fuel and hydraulic fluid filled the air. Fom the eyewitness account of Roger F. Lockshier, SP-5/E-5Black AngelsCo. D 101st. Avn. Btn.101st. Abn. Div

For more than four decades, Crawford and about a dozen others have fought not just to be recognized, but for the medals they feel they had coming to them for doing such dangerous work on behalf of their country.

Thursday night, they received a huge victory when a representative of Senator Bill Nelson dropped off a box of medals – 33 in all for 15 men – at Crawford’s home. Sunday evening, Crawford and a few other men will fly to Las Vegas where the hardware will be presented to the surviving 14 at the annual Special Operations Association convention.

After being approached by Crawford, Nelson’s office took on the fight four years ago, says spokesman Bryan Gulley.

“From time to time the office gets requests from either a family member, or in these cases, a call from a fellow vet to help with recognizing veterans for actions and awards that were never given,” says Gulley in an email Saturday evening. “In this case, Richard Crawford, who with help from the recommending chain of command, diligently made contact with several vets and reassembled the award packet recommendations. The original submissions, quite possibly because of the nature of the missions, were either lost or misplaced. Several years passed and a renewed effort was undertaken to right this grave oversight. That’s when our office was contacted by Mr. Crawford seeking assistance.”

On Sept. 22, Crawford will hand the men their long-overdue rewards.

“It’s about time,” he says.

Here’s the full list of recipients Gulley sent me, and the medals they will receive, in alphabetical order.

then WO Richard Chapman of Ft. Pierce, Florida - Bronze Star
then SFC Joseph Conlon of New Hampshire - Bronze Star, Army Commendation Medal
then SPC Scott DeArman of Arizona - Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star
then SGT Louis DeSeta of Delaware - Bronze Star for Valor, Bronze Star with Oak Leaf cluster, Army Commendation Medal
then SPC4 Robert Donoghue of Massachusetts - Silver Star, Bronze Star
then SGT Raymond Frovarp of North Carolina - Bronze Star, Army Commendation Medal
then PFC Tony Herrell of Michigan - Bronze Star, Army Commendation Medal
then SPC Roger Lockshier of Connecticut - Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star
then SFC Preston Mills of Colorado - Silver Star, Bronze Star
then SGT Larry Payne of Missouri - Bronze Star, Army Commendation Medal
then SPC5 John Smith of Hawthorne, Florida - Silver Star, Bronze Star, Soldier’s medal with Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster, Army Commendation Medal
then SGT George Sternberg of Tennessee - Bronze Star, Army Commendation Medal
then 1LT Vernon Ward of of Mary Esther - Bronze Star, Army Commendation Medal
then SFC Patrick Watkins of Utah - Bronze Star, Army Commendation Medal
then CWO2 James Wittman (deceased) (son lives in Minnesota) - Silver Star and Bronze Star