President Joe Biden awards the Medal of Honor to Capt. Larry Taylor, an Army pilot from the Vietnam War who risked his life to rescue a reconnaissance staff that was about to be overrun by the enemy, throughout a ceremony Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023, on the White House.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

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Jacquelyn Martin/AP

President Joe Biden awards the Medal of Honor to Capt. Larry Taylor, an Army pilot from the Vietnam War who risked his life to rescue a reconnaissance staff that was about to be overrun by the enemy, throughout a ceremony Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023, on the White House.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden awarded the Medal of Honor to Capt. Larry Taylor on Tuesday, honoring the Army pilot who risked his life throughout the Vietnam War by flying into heavy enemy fireplace to avoid wasting 4 members of a reconnaissance staff from virtually sure dying as they had been about to be overrun.

On the night time of June 18, 1968, then-1st Lt. Taylor flew his Cobra assault helicopter to rescue the lads after that they had turn into surrounded by the enemy.

“It was pitch black. No moon. No stars. No light beyond the glow of Lieutenant Taylor’s cockpit control, when he heard a whisper coming through his radio, ‘We’re surrounded,'” Biden mentioned, including, “Lieutenant Taylor knew the risks, but he was ready.”

Taylor, a Tennessean who’s now 81, recalled in an interview final week that he had to determine easy methods to get the lads out, in any other case “they wouldn’t make it.”

David Hill, one of many 4 Taylor saved that night time, mentioned his actions had been what “we now call thinking outside the box.”

Hill and the others had been on an evening mission to trace the motion of enemy troops in a village close to the Saigon River after they had been found by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops. An intense firefight ensued and shortly they had been working out of ammunition. They radioed for assist.

Taylor arrived in minutes on the website northeast of what’s now Ho Chi Minh City. He requested the staff to ship up flares to mark their location in the dead of night. Taylor and a pilot in an accompanying helicopter began firing their ships’ Miniguns and rockets on the enemy, making low-level assault runs and braving intense floor fireplace for a few half-hour.

But with each helicopters almost out of ammunition and the enemy persevering with to advance, Taylor surveyed the staff’s meant escape route to some extent close to the river and concluded that the lads would by no means make it.

He had to think about one thing else.

Now working low on gas and virtually out of ammunition himself, Taylor directed his wingman to fireside the rounds left in his Minigun alongside the staff’s jap flank and return to base camp, whereas Taylor fired his remaining rounds on the western flank. He used the touchdown lights to distract the enemy, shopping for time for the patrol staff to go south and east towards a brand new extraction level he had recognized.

After they arrived, Taylor landed beneath heavy enemy fireplace and at nice private danger. The 4 staff members rushed towards the helicopter and clung to the outside — it solely had two seats — and Taylor whisked them away to security. He was on the bottom for about 10 seconds.

“I finally just flew up behind them and sat down on the ground,” Taylor mentioned by phone. “They turned around and jumped on the aircraft. A couple were sitting on the skids. One was sitting on the rocket pods, and I don’t know where the other one was, but they beat on the side of the ship twice, which meant haul a–. And we did!”

During the medal ceremony, Biden mentioned that Taylor’s plane was “hit multiple times” and that, in response to “Army standards, he could have left the fight.” At one level, the president mentioned, Taylor was directed to withdraw however “he refused to put his own life above the lives of those in need.”

“That’s valor,” Biden mentioned. “That’s our nation at its very best.”

The military says that what Taylor did that night time had by no means been tried.

The president, whose spouse, first lady Jill Biden, tested positive on Monday for COVID, and Taylor wore facemasks to begin the ceremony. But each later eliminated them and later stood collectively maskless as Biden positioned the medal on Taylor, shook his hand and saluted him.

In the interview earlier than the ceremony, Taylor mentioned he flew a whole lot of fight missions in UH-1 and Cobra helicopters throughout a 12 months’s deployment in Vietnam and, “We never lost a man.”

“You just do whatever is expedient and do whatever to save the lives of the people you’re trying to rescue,” he mentioned.

Taylor left Vietnam in August 1968. He was launched from Army lively responsibility in August 1970, having attained the rank of captain, and was discharged from the Army Reserve in October 1973.

He later ran a roofing and sheet steel firm in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He and his spouse, Toni, stay in Signal Mountain, Tennessee.

Taylor acquired scores of fight decorations, together with the Silver Star, a Bronze Star and two Distinguished Flying Crosses. The president famous that, all informed, Taylor flew greater than 2,000 fight missions — incomes 43 air medals.

“Thank God he’s not wearing all of them on his chest. He’d have trouble standing,” Biden joked.

Still, Hill mentioned in an interview that he and Taylor’s different supporters had been shocked to study through the years that Taylor had not been awarded a Medal of Honor.

Hill mentioned they believed Taylor deserved the medal, the army’s highest ornament for service members who go above and past the decision of responsibility, typically risking their lives by means of selfless acts of valor.

Their marketing campaign lasted greater than six years. Biden referred to as Taylor in July with the information.

Biden mentioned Tuesday that Taylor did not see among the males he rescued that night time in 1968 till many years later, at Army reunions.

“But the greatest honor of all, the family showed up at these reunions too,” Biden mentioned. “They’d look for Larry. They’d hug him. They’d say ‘You don’t know me, but you saved my Daddy’s life.'”