Two Vietnam veterans receive Silver Star at the Presidio of Monterey.

Hunkered in the highlands of the Kon Tum Province in Vietnam, a South Vietnamese Army battalion came under heavy fire from a much larger Viet Cong unit. U.S. military adviser Major John Duffy was embedded with the allied force as casualties started to mount on April 14, 1972. While injured five times Duffy refuse the leave the South Vietnamese battalion and called for aerial support.

Helicopters brought assistance even though conditions were treacherous with low clouds, a darkening sky and heavy anti-aircraft fire. Instead of staying put after the first round of support pilots Chief Warrant Officer II Daniel E. Jones and Captain William S. Reeder Jr. voluntarily refueled and reloaded their helicopters to provide further assistance.

For their brazen disregard of their own safety, Congressman Sam Farr, D-Carmel, awarded Jones and Reeder the Silver Star Medal for Gallantry at the Presidio of Monterey on March 8. The award is the third highest decoration for valor in the U.S. military. Their flights saved the lives of dozens of South Vietnamese fighters and their military adviser Duffy, who received the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions in the same battle.

“It’s instinct. No one would ever do what those guys did if they ever thought about it,” Duffy says of their heroics. “Instinct and training.”

Also attending the ceremony were Lt. Col. Me Van Le and Major Hai Doan of the South Vietnamese Army whose lives were also saved by the actions of Jones and Reeder.

“I salute you,” Doan said to the retired pilots. “You saved our lives.”

Duffy originally recommended the two helicopter pilots for the Silver Star in the early 1970s, but the recommendation was lost in a clerical error. But Duffy was persistent and for the past 40 years continued to lobby the government to decorate the soldiers for their bravery.

Farr called Duffy—a highly decorated soldier with 62 awards, 27 for valor in combat and eight Purple Heart after four years in Vietnam and a total of 11 in oversea engagements—the closest thing to an embodied Rambo of anyone he has ever met.

“Duffy was never going to let these men be forgotten,” Farr said at the ceremony.

Farr, along with Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, have recommended to the Secretary of the Army that Duffy’s Distinguished Service Cross be upgraded to the Medal of Honor, the highest decoration in the U.S. Military.

Duffy, who now lives in Santa Cruz, has written numerous books of poetry including one on the battle for which the day’s awards were given.