Chief Master Sgt. Richard Etchberger may be "secret" hero no more

Medal of Honor

Airman may get highest award for actions in secret Laos mission
By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Oct 31, 2008 17:42:24 EDT

Pentagon officials told Cory Etchberger that his father died in a helicopter accident in Southeast Asia on March 11, 1968.

But even at 9 years old, Cory said he felt something was missing in the story when his family was secretly whisked into the Pentagon to accept his father’s Air Force Cross.

Turned out Chief Master Sgt. Richard Etchberger died saving three Americans fighting off waves of North Vietnamese commandos advancing on a top-secret U.S. radar station in the Laotian mountains, but those details were omitted.

Four decades later, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley has recommended Etchberger’s Air Force Cross be upgraded to the Medal of Honor. It’s now up to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and President Bush for final approval, said an Air Force official.

Etchberger was nominated for the Medal of Honor in 1968, but President Lyndon B. Johnson didn’t approve it. Military officials instead awarded Etchberger the Air Force Cross.

This is where the story gets complicated.

Johnson didn’t sign off on the award because the U.S. wasn’t supposed to have troops in Laos, and at the time of his death, Etchberger wasn’t technically in the Air Force.

Before he was deployed to Lima Site 85 — a radar station used to locate bombing targets in North Vietnam and Laos — Etchberger and his wife went to Washington, D.C., along with the other airmen about to go on the secret mission and their wives. There they were told they would be made into civilian employees who worked for Lockheed Aircraft Services as a cover, said Col. Gerald H. Clayton, then the commander of 1043rd Radar Evaluation Squadron, Detachment 1.

Only seven Americans survived past 3 a.m., and they were backed up against a ledge.

With rescue helicopters en route, records show Etchberger tended to the wounded while also trying to fight off the advancing enemy soldiers.

When the helicopters arrived, Clayton said Etchberger loaded the wounded Americans onto the rescue sling as the helicopter hovered over the station. He refused to leave until everyone else was on board.

Those who survived say Etchberger saved at least four airmen before he rushed onto the helicopter. But moments later, an armor-piercing round ripped through the helicopter’s underbelly, hitting Etchberger. He bled to death en route to an air base in Thailand.

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