Captain Larry L. Taylor will receive the Medal of Honor on Tuesday in recognition of his bravery as a Cobra attack helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War.
President Joe Biden called Taylor to inform him of the award in July after a six-year campaign led by Taylor’s supporters to see him presented with the military’s highest decoration, according to Fox 4 KDFW.
During his one-year deployment in the Vietnam War, Taylor — then a first lieutenant — flew over 2,000 combat missions in UH-1 and Cobra helicopters and was engaged by enemy fire 340 times.
“There’s nothing in the book that says how to do that and I think about 90% of flying a helicopter in Vietnam was making it up as you go along,” Taylor said, according to Fox 4. “Nobody could criticize you ‘cause they couldn’t do any better than you did and they didn’t know what you were doing anyway.”
While Taylor was forced down a total of five times, he is proud of never losing a man during his missions. A total of 58,220 U.S. military personnel died in the Vietnam conflict.
One mission in particular came extremely close to challenging Taylor’s record.
When a four-man long-range reconnaissance team found itself surrounded by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces on the evening of June 18, 1968, Taylor was sent in to retrieve them.
Upon arriving at the site northeast of what is now Ho Chi Minh City, Taylor and another pilot in an attack helicopter found the team through the use of flares and engaged in a half-hour firefight with enemy forces.
Despite both helicopter pilots having nearly exhausted their miniguns and aerial rockets, the enemy forces continued to advance toward the team on the ground, leaving them no clear escape route.
Thinking outside of the box, Taylor commanded his wingman to exhaust the remaining ammo rounds by targeting the eastern flank and returning to base. Using his helicopter’s landing lights as a distraction, Taylor then fired on the western flank and created an opportunity for the stranded team to move toward a new extraction point to the southeast.
Yet even as he approached the new extraction point, Taylor was beset by enemy fire.
“I finally just flew up behind [the team] and sat down on the ground,” Taylor recounted, according to Fox 4. “They turned around and jumped on the aircraft. A couple were sitting on the skids. One was sitting on the rocket pods, and I don’t know where the other one was, but they beat on the side of the ship twice, which meant haul a- -. And we did!”
At significant risk to his own life, Taylor was able to return safely to base with the four men.
As described by David Hill, a member of that team, Taylor had extracted them from a situation in which their chances of survival were “absolutely zero,” according to Fox 4.
While the Army rewarded Taylor’s daring and innovative tactics with several commendations, including the Silver Star, 43 Air Medals, a Bronze Star, and two Distinguished Flying Crosses, Hill has long felt that the former pilot deserved the Medal of Honor.
Joining other like-minded supporters of Taylor “determined to turn that around,” Hill pushed for years to see Taylor’s selfless act of bravery recognized.
After gathering enough documentation and testimony to get a recommendation from the Army that Taylor’s Silver Star be upgraded to the Medal of Honor, it was approved by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and then by Biden.
Taylor, who currently lives with his wife Toni in his native state of Tennessee, will join Biden in the White House for the Medal of Honor ceremony on September 5 at 2:30 p.m. CT.
Those wishing to watch the event online can do so here.
