Michigan Vietnam vet is Trump’s first Medal of Honor recipient
SOUTH HAVEN, Mich. — Members of Army medic James McCloughan’s unit in Vietnam called him “Doc.”
Now, those soldiers, several of whom McCloughan saved during the ferocious, dayslong Battle of Nui Yon Hill in 1969, will have a new name for him: Medal of Honor recipient.
Army spokeswoman Valerie L. Mongello said Tuesday the 71-year-old from South Haven, Mich., will become the first person to be awarded the nation’s highest military honor by President Donald Trump.
“I feel honored to be able to accept this for the 89 men that fought that battle,” McCloughan said, referencing the number of American combatants, dozens of whom were killed, wounded or went missing during the 48 hours of fighting against hundreds of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong.
Then a 23-yearold private first class who was drafted a year earlier after earning a degree in sociology from Olivet College, McCloughan repeatedly entered the “kill zone” to rescue wounded comrades, despite being pelted with shrapnel from a rocket propelled grenade.
McCloughan “voluntarily risked his life on nine separate occasions to rescue wounded and disoriented comrades,” the White House said in an emailed statement Tuesday. “He suffered wounds from shrapnel and small arms fire on three separate occasions, but refused medical evacuation to stay with his unit, and continued to brave enemy fire to rescue, treat, and defend wounded Americans.”
McCloughan described the shrapnel as “a real bad sting,” during an interview with The Associated Press at his South Haven home, not far from Lake Michigan. “But at that particular time, I was tending to two guys and dragging them at the same time into a trench line.”