Roger Donlon, first Medal of Honor recipient from Vietnam, dies at 89

The first round of incoming fire set a roof ablaze at Camp Nam Dong, an outpost of South Vietnamese forces along with a 12-member U.S. Special Forces detachment near the Laotian border. Within minutes, North Vietnamese fighters were hitting hard with mortars, grenades and machine guns.

The commanding officer of Team A-726, an Army captain named Roger Donlon, was hurled through a door by a blast just after 2:45 a.m. A staff sergeant raced to the communications room and radioed the air base in Danang, about 30 miles to the east.

“Roger. Roger. Go ahead, Nam Dong,” came the reply.

“Request flare ship and an airstrike. … We are under heavy mortar fire.”

The base was surrounded. North Vietnamese soldiers and allied guerrillas, known to U.S. forces as Viet Cong or V.C., pressed closer through the jungle.

“The burning mess hall cast an eerie, dancing light over the camp, spectacular now with swirling smoke and the flashes of exploding shells. The V.C. mortars were zeroed in on us,” recalled Capt. Donlon, who was wounded four times during the battle and became the first Medal of Honor recipient from the Vietnam War for his defense of Nam Dong. He died Jan. 25 in Leavenworth, Kan., at 89, more than 35 years after retiring from the military with the rank of colonel.

For days before the attack on July 6, 1964, expectations grew that the North Vietnamese would attempt to overrun the camp — defended by more than 300 South Vietnamese soldiers and local militiamen, the American unit and an Australian military adviser. Vietnamese villagers nearby had become nervous, likely picking up clues of the North Vietnamese plans, Capt. Donlon recalled.

The camp was not a major military site but its location, in a valley near Laos, offered a critical vantage point to monitor and disrupt movements of North Vietnamese guerrillas.

Capt. Donlon was checking the guard roster when the first attack wave hit. A shell slammed into a wall. Soon, the command post was on fire. Capt. Donlon and Master Sgt. Gabriel Ralph Alamo raced inside to save as much ammunition and weapons as they could haul out.