PFC GARFIELD M. LANGHORN
Troop C, 7th Squadron (Airmobile
17th Cavalry, 1st Aviation Brigade
Pleiku Province, RVN
15 January 1969
PFC Langhorn was serving as a radio operator when his platoon was inserted into a landing zone to rescue 2 Gunship Pilots shot down by enemy fire on a heavily timbered slope.
He provided commo with the C-n-C aircraft overhead while the troops hacked their way through dense undergrowth to the wreckage, where both aviators were found dead.
The Platoon came under intense fire from North Vietnamese bunkers to the front and right flank.
They were immediately surrounded.
PFC Langhorn radioed for help from the orbiting gunships, who put accurate minigun and rocket fire on the aggressors. With darkness, the gunships could no longer provide covering fire and the NVA began to probe the perimeter.
American wounded were grouped together in a hasty aid station when an enemy hand grenade landed in a group of casualties. Langhorn saw the grenade and could easily have taken cover from his position.
Instead, PFC Garfield M. Langhorn made a conscious decision to protect his wounded and unhesitatingly dove toward the grenade scooping it beneath his body. Langhorn’s body absorbed the blast saving the lives of the wounded.
No greater love.
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