Henderson history: Nixon awarded Littrell highest military honor in 1973

Gary L. Littrell was a little unclear for the longest time about the 1970 battle in Vietnam that led to him achieving the nation’s highest military honor.

He attributed it to the ordeal of battle and a lack of sleep over four days, according to the Department of Defense website called Medal of Honor Monday.

“When … our missions were declassified, a young historian went to the Pentagon and got the actual operations report and some of the witness statements for my award,” Littrell said. “I started reading them, and it came back: ‘Oh my God, I do remember that happening.’ It was, of course, some interesting reading, but … you get so fatigued that you just, you don't remember everything that went on. You just remember you had your hands full.”

Littrell retired from the Army in October 1983 with the rank of command sergeant major, which for all intents and purposes is the highest rank possible for enlisted personnel at battalion or higher levels. He has lived in Florida since 1987 but was born in Henderson Oct. 26, 1944.

“He had a terribly tough life as a young boy” because his mother and a brother died when he was young, his grandmother, Hallie Littrell, said in The Gleaner of Oct. 16, 1973, the day after her grandson met the president. “They were killed in 1951 as they were hit by a car while stepping off a bus here.”

He then went to live on a Spottsville farm with his other grandparents, Ive and Zada Williams, before leaving Henderson County in 1957. About 1953, however, an uncle drove him to Fort Campbell to see soldiers practicing parachute jumps, which made a distinct impression on him.

“So, in 1961, one day after his 17th birthday, he joined the Army,” the Army website says. By the next year he was in Okinawa, where he found his wife of 58 years before she died in 2022. His next stop was the Dominican Republic during the 1965 U.S. intervention there, before returning to the United States and graduating Ranger school in 1966. He remained an instructor there until his orders for Vietnam came in 1969.

Eight months into the first of his two tours of Vietnam Sgt. 1st Class Gary Littrell was an adviser to a Ranger battalion of the South Vietnamese Army at the Dak Seang base camp near the Laos border. The unit received orders to advance toward the border and guide air strikes on enemy fighters there. The night of April 4, 1970, they reached the top of a hill and realized the 473 South Vietnamese rangers and four U.S. advisers were surrounded by about 5,000 North Vietnamese troops.

No sooner than they had set up a defensive perimeter than an “intense” mortar barrage struck, killing the South Vietnamese commander, one of the advisers, and severely injuring the two other advisers, according to the citation language.

Over the next several days, Littrell “continuously moved to those points most seriously threatened by the enemy, redistributed ammunition, strengthened faltering defenses, cared for the wounded and shouted encouragement to the Vietnamese in their own language.”

The citation says Littrell exhibited “near superhuman endurance” as he “singlehandedly bolstered the besieged battalion. Repeatedly abandoning positions of relative safety, he directed artillery and air support by day and marked the unit's location by night, despite the heavy, concentrated enemy fire.”

When his commanding officer finally radioed that a narrow five-mile-long path of escape had been established, “numerous ambushes were encountered” but helicopter gunships protected their flanks as he “repeatedly prevented widespread disorder by directing air strikes to within 50 meters of their position.

“Through his indomitable courage and complete disregard for his safety, he averted excess loss of life and injury to the members of the battalion. The sustained extraordinary courage and selflessness displayed by Sfc. Littrell over an extended period of time were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on him and the U.S. Army.”

The Medal of Honor website says after the ordeal was over Littrell discovered only 41 of the original 477 men survived the battle.

Not long afterward he learned that his name had been submitted for the Medal of Honor, but he forgot about it after hearing nothing for several months. More than three years later an order to appear before the commanding general of the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell, where he was a training sergeant, caused him a little nervousness.

Back then, Littrell said, “I was a little wild” and his first thought was, “Oh, my God, what did I do now?”

But the news was good. The general told him his nomination for the medal had been approved.

The Gleaner’s article about his appearance at the White House appeared in the Oct. 16, 1973, edition but the following day there was a follow-up article about Littrell being honored at Fort Campbell.

His wife, Mitsue, better known in the United States as Susie, was present, along with their two sons, Jerry and Larry, along with his Henderson sister, Joyce Bellew. They had also attended the event in Washington, D.C.

One Army official at the event said Littrell was an unusual Medal of Honor recipient in that he had not been wounded. (Henderson’s only other recipient of that medal lost a leg. Marine Pfc. Luther Skaggs Jr. received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions July 21-22, 1944, on Guam.)

Littrell said he “definitely” was going to make the Army a career because he had already served “12 wonderful, wonderful years.” He conceded, however, he had been “scared to death most of the time” during the four-day siege. “I probably wasn’t wounded because I was running fast.”

Mayor Bill Newman proclaimed Nov. 1, 1973, as Gary Littrell Day, which featured a parade, a reception for dignitaries, and a luncheon at the Teen Center in Atkinson Park, which is now The Gathering Place.

The war in Vietnam was an extremely divisive issue in America at the time but Littrell brushed aside a reporter’s question about U.S. involvement there. “I’m a soldier; that’s all I can say. I’ll go where the Army sends me and do what they tell me to do.”

In speaking to the approximately 300 people at the Teen Center, according to the Nov. 2 Gleaner, Littrell made a statement that, with variations, he has repeated throughout his life:

“If it’s possible on Gary Littrell Day in Henderson, visit a friend who lost a son or a husband and honor them. Those are the ones that need honoring. They did things above the call of duty, but it wasn’t seen and it wasn’t recognized.

They gave their lives. These are the people who need to be honored.”

100 YEARS AGO

The Henderson Business and Professional Women’s Club had grown to about 100 members from the 65 charter members it had when organized Nov. 14, 1921, according to The Gleaner of Oct. 18, 1923.

The article was a reprint from the Indianapolis News, which said the Henderson club was one of the nation’s most successful under the leadership of Ellen Young, principal of Seventh Street School.

“One of the most gratifying things is that our women go in for athletics to a very marked degree,” Young said, particularly basketball, hiking, volleyball, and swimming. “We all realize that no businesswoman gets exercise enough and that she needs it to keep her body in good condition.”

The local club disbanded more than two decades ago.

75 YEARS AGO

Francele Armstrong’s Gleaner column of Oct. 24, 1948, noted Henderson County was a state leader in Blacks providing public services to the Black community.

Public Health Nurse Jane Cole had been on the job at the county health department for 14 years. She was one of Kentucky’s seven Black public health nurses, not counting those in the Louisville area.

Home Demonstration Agent Thelma B. House had responsibility for both Henderson and Union counties. She was one of five Black agents in the state and the first in Western Kentucky. She is more widely known as Thelma Johnson, which was her name when she was the first Black elected to local public office (school board) in 1978 and named Citizen of the Year in 1984.

Grace Howard was one of three Black child welfare workers in the state. She had only recently assumed her duties here.

25 YEARS AGO

Billboards proclaiming “Someone you know and love is gay” were causing a bit of a stir in Henderson and Evansville, according to The Gleaner of Oct. 18, 1998.

The billboards were paid for by Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, better known as PFLAG.

“If it saves one child from committing suicide that would be my goal,” said PFLAG member Glenda Guess. “We’ve got to make this world a safer place for young people.”

Not everyone approved, however. Larry Wood had a letter to the editor in The Gleaner of Oct. 3. “If the purpose of the billboard is to seek greater societal acceptance of homosexual behavior, I find it reprehensible. Why would anyone want to make it that much easier for young people to accept such behavior?”

“So many of our kids lead tragic lives, not being able to be who they are,” Guess said.

Readers of The Gleaner can reach Frank Boyett at YesNews42@yahoo.com.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Henderson history: Nixon awarded Littrell highest military honor in 1973