Vietnam Veteran receives Silver Star after 44 year wait

44 years after risking life for comrades, helicopter pilot gets his Silver Star
Downed over Mekong Delta and wounded by ground fire, George Carlton Bloodworth led others to safety
The Baltimore Sun
By Matthew Hay Brown
January 2, 2014

Photograph of ceremony in Chris Van Hollen's Rockville office.

(Kenneth K. Lam, Baltimore Sun / January 2, 2014)

It was the kind of mission that Warrant Officer George Carlton Bloodworth flew daily in Vietnam. But on Sept. 20, 1969, it went badly wrong.

Bloodworth was piloting the second of two scout helicopters on a reconnaissance mission over the Mekong Delta in South Vietnam, speeding 100 feet off the ground, when the lead helicopter was shot down. As he circled back to search for its two-man crew, his own helicopter was shot down, and he was hit by ground fire.

Still, he found the downed crew and helped lead the wounded pilot, the pilot's crew chief and his own crew chief through withering fire to safety.

For his actions that day, Bloodworth was awarded the Silver Star, the military's third-highest decoration for valor. But he never received the medal. Until Thursday.

Surrounded by family — two sons, a daughter and their families — Bloodworth, now 75, finally got his Silver Star. It was pinned onto his blazer by Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Clark, commander of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, during a brief ceremony at the Rockville office of Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat.
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