As the Title suggests I am a vet, and proud of it, and proud of all those that wear the uniform of the United States of America. You name it we'll talk about it. Politics, sports and much more. However, I am also very interested in what is happening to this great country of ours, politically and socially...So SOUND OFF PRIVATE!!!

The Stars and Stripes

The Stars and Stripes
Respect Her, Defend Her, and Cherish what she stands for.

Monday, February 12, 2007

La Drang Hero Finally Gets Medal of Honor

Major Bruce P. Crandall



My congradulations to Major Crandall, it has been a long time coming (42 years) and if the movie "We Were Soldiers Once...and Young" did him any justice, he deserves much more than this.

A Company, 1, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)

MAJ Bruce P. Crandall will receive the Medal of Honor during a White House ceremony February 26, 2007 for his heroic actions in the Battle of Ia Drang.
Spouse: Arlene Crandall of Kent, Washington
Children: R. Donovan; Steven; Michael
Hometown: Olympia, WAEducation: BA University of Nebraska, 1969; MPA Golden GateUniversity, 1977

Drafted: U.S. Army, 1953Commissioned: Engineer Officer Candidate School, Ft. Belvoir, VA, 1954Deployments: Dominican Republic Expeditionary Force; two tours of Vietnam

Aircraft: U-1 Otter fixed wing; L-20 Beaver fixed wing; L-19 Birddog fixed wing; H-23 Raven "couldn't get off the ground on a hot day"; H-13; H-19; UH-1 Huey "best helicopter ever built"

Biography: LTC (Ret.) Crandall is a veteran Master Army Aviator in both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. He led over 900 combat missions during two tours in Vietnam.

Born in 1933, Crandall grew up in Olympia, Wash., where he played baseball and became a high school All American. He was drafted into the Army in 1953.

After commissioning and graduation from fixed-wing and helicopter training conducted by the Air Force and Army, he was assigned to a mapping group based out of the Presidio of San Francisco "that at the time was the largest flying military aviation unit in the world. " From there he went to fly L-19 Birddogs and L-20 Beavers in Alaska, again for topographic studies.

Crandall's first overseas flying assignment was to Wheelus AFB in Tripoli, Libya, mapping the desert for two years flying YU-1 Otter, L-20 Beaver, L-19 Birddog and H-23 Raven aircraft as an instructor pilot and unit test pilot.

His next overseas tours were flying over thousands of square miles of previously unmapped mountains and jungles in Central and South America. For this mission, he was based out of Howard AFB, Panama, and Costa Rica. While assigned to the 11th Air Assault Division, Crandall helped develop air-assault tactics as a platoon commander. In early 1965, he joined the Dominican Republic Expeditionary Force as a liaison to the 18th Airborne Corps.

Later that year, he would command the 1st Cavalry Division's Company A, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion at An Khe, Vietnam. Using the call sign "Ancient Serpent 6," he led a flying unit supporting eight battalions on the ground.

On Nov. 14, 1965, Crandall led the first major division operation of airmobile troops into Landing Zone X-Ray in Vietnam's Ia Drang Valley and is credited with evacuating some 70 wounded comrades with his wing man and fellow Medal of Honor recipient MAJ Ed Freeman. The two also flew in the ammunition needed for the 1/7th CAV (Custer's old battalion) to survive. The craft he was flying was unarmed.

Read the rest of the story at : http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/crandall/profile/index.html

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