Vietnam Marine Corps MoH Engraving Formats

[FFZFlyer]

It wasn't too difficult to come up with formats for the engraving on MoHs awarded members of the Marine Corps for Vietnam service. First, I only have photos of 7 of the 57 medals awarded. I have no photos of posthumously awarded MoHs for this period. There are two formats observed on the 7 samples I have:

 

Format #1 - 6 lines of engraving; 6 samples RANK (Abbrev)

FULL NAME

USMC

FOR ACTION ABOVE AND BEYOND

THE CALL OF DUTY IN VIETNAM

ON (the date of the action)

 

One sample of Format #1 is slightly different with the last word on the fifth line being "ON." The 6th line on that sample

contains only the date of the action.

 

Format #2 - 7 lines of engraving; 1 sample RANK. FULL NAME, USMC

FOR

ACTION ABOVE AND BEYOND

THE CALL OF DUTY

IN VIETNAM

FROM

30 APRIL TO 2 MAY 1968

 

Here is the Format #2 for Vargas, who received his MoH on 14 May 1970:

 

 

When Jay Vargas's award was announced (and as it is listed in The Green Book), his name was given as "M. Sando Vargas." The story released at the time indicated that Vargas had requested his medal be engraved with the name of his deceased mother, M. Sando, as a tribute to her. Somehow, her name was listed in The Green Book, too. Now, whether or not her name was actually put on the MoH he received in May 1970, I do not know. If her name was engraved on his original medal, perhaps he keeps that one in a secure location and obtained a second engraved medal for wear. Anything is possible. It would be quite interesting to see James Livingston's engraving, too, as the medals were presented on the same date.

 

Without a broader sample base it is impossible to know if Format #2 was used on other USMC MoHs for Vietnam. If anyone has such photos please share.

 

 

[FFZFlyer]

Here's a sample of Format #1, with a slight variation.

 

 

I posted O'Malley's MoH as the first example of a Format #1 because it was the first award to a living Marine for Vietnam, being presented to O'Malley on 6 December 1966. You can see that the 6th line contains only the date of the action and "ON" completes the 5th line. This is the only Format #1 with this variation that I have seen. Perhaps HQ USMC opted to alter the standard verbiage to balance out the layout. Who knows.

 

 

 

 

[FFZFlyer]

Here's an example of a standard Format #1 with "ON" and the date of action all on the 6th line:

 

 

Barnum's MoH was presented to him on 27 February 1967, just a few months after O'Malley received his.

[FFZFlyer]

Mike Clausen received his MoH on 15 June 1971. The standard Format #1 was still being used:

 

 

 

[FFZFlyer]

Here's a duplicate MoH that maintains the Format #1 engraving:

 

Exactly when this medal was issued I do not know, but believe it was in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Pless' mother petitioned the USMC for a duplicate set of medals because her daughter-in-law claimed the originals were all lost. As I recall, she had a difficult time convincing the USMC to issue the duplicates, but she was nothing if not persistent. The only real variation is that the rank is spelled out.

[BigJohn#3RD]

Thanks for posting.

[FFZFlyer]

Finally, here's a photo of the MoH Wesley Fox wears:

 

 

And here's a photo of a Wesley Fox MoH that appeared in an OMSA Journal some years back:

 

 

The JOMSA article stated that this Fox medal was authentic. But is it.

 

Note that the first line, the rank, is placed much higher on the medal than on the other samples, including the piece Fox wears. In addition, the first three lines are all cut with a much larger font than on any of the other samples, stretching his name completely across the back of the medal. The first three lines are also separated by more space from the final three lines than the other samples are. On no other samples are periods used after the letters, U S M C. The spacing between the bottom three lines appears irregular and the individual letters do not appear as "sharply" cut as on the other samples. The final three lines also appear to be a larger font than that used on the other samples, but it is hard to tell. And, finally, the 6th line, the date, is not anywhere near centered.

 

I do not believe this second Fox MoH is authentic, in the sense that it is the medal originally presented to Fox in March 1971. I have no idea where it came from, of course. I can only speculate that perhaps it was engraved wrong/sloppily and it got "out" into private hands, much like the Billy Lauffer scratched piece. Again, the transfer of MoHs among enthusiasts was much easier then. Or perhaps it is a "privately" engraved piece done for whatever reason. That's all just my opinion.

 

If anyone has other info on the Fox piece or other USMC Vietnam War engravings please feel free to post.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

 

 

[firefighter]

Great looking medals.

[Dave]

Fox's Medal of Honor as pictured (the questionable one) is currently in the Marine Corps Museum. I photographed it on Monday. It supposedly came from Fox himself as a direct donation. It also matches the engraving on Donald Cook's Medal of Honor, which is also in the Museum and which I also photographed on Monday.

 

These are great! Thanks for posting them!

Dave

[FFZFlyer]

Fox's Medal of Honor as pictured (the questionable one) is currently in the Marine Corps Museum. I photographed it on Monday. It supposedly came from Fox himself as a direct donation. It also matches the engraving on Donald Cook's Medal of Honor, which is also in the Museum and which I also photographed on Monday.

 

These are great! Thanks for posting them!

 

Dave

 

That is fantastic information and exactly the type of response I was hoping would pop up. This really adds to the body of knowledge on this topic

 

I have a number of questions. First, do you know all of the MoHs the museum has, including those not on display? I was there about 4 years ago and was disappointed at how few MoHs they had on display. I had expected to see Daly's two pieces, but nothing and none of the docents there that day seemed to know to much, except to say that they rotated the medals. Did you photograph all of the medals there? If so, did that include Daly's 1900 medal from China. Someone here posted a photo of the 1915 medal, but not the first one.

 

Now, to Fox. That is so interesting that the 2d piece was given by Fox to the museum. Even more interesting is that the engraving format matches Cook;s. Cook's medal was presented in May 1980, nine years after Fox received his original award. I can only assume that the format changed sometime between 1971 and 1980 (or a new engraver was hired/contracted). Are you able to share a photo of Cook's engraving, here or PM? If not, I'm assuming the larger font is used for the first 3 lines? Is the bottom line with the date on Cook's piece also off center?

 

I am speculating that the piece the museum has is a duplicate that Fox obtained during the later stages of his career and ended up giving it to the museum when they appealed for donations. If that is a correct supposition, I'm surprised that "DUPLICATE AWARD" was not engraved on it, as it was on Pless's. I've heard of other MoH recipients who obtained a "wear" medal and kept their original in a secure location.

 

Most interesting and I appreciate your comments and help.

[uniformcollector]

Regarding Vargas', I asked him about his original medal. He said that it was lost in a house fire and he asked for a replacement (shown). Also, I have seen many recipients store, frame, donate, etc. their original medal and wear a replacement. Col. Fisher had his framed and wore a replacement. His replacement, however was marked "For Display Only". If you would like, I can post a photo of it.

 

Thanks again for all of your posts. They are some of the most interesting I have seen on the forum for quite some time!

[Dave]

 

That is fantastic information and exactly the type of response I was hoping would pop up. This really adds to the body of knowledge on this topic

 

I have a number of questions. First, do you know all of the MoHs the museum has, including those not on display? I was there about 4 years ago and was disappointed at how few MoHs they had on display. I had expected to see Daly's two pieces, but nothing and none of the docents there that day seemed to know to much, except to say that they rotated the medals. Did you photograph all of the medals there? If so, did that include Daly's 1900 medal from China. Someone here posted a photo of the 1915 medal, but not the first one.

 

Now, to Fox. That is so interesting that the 2d piece was given by Fox to the museum. Even more interesting is that the engraving format matches Cook;s. Cook's medal was presented in May 1980, nine years after Fox received his original award. I can only assume that the format changed sometime between 1971 and 1980 (or a new engraver was hired/contracted). Are you able to share a photo of Cook's engraving, here or PM? If not, I'm assuming the larger font is used for the first 3 lines? Is the bottom line with the date on Cook's piece also off center?

 

I am speculating that the piece the museum has is a duplicate that Fox obtained during the later stages of his career and ended up giving it to the museum when they appealed for donations. If that is a correct supposition, I'm surprised that "DUPLICATE AWARD" was not engraved on it, as it was on Pless's. I've heard of other MoH recipients who obtained a "wear" medal and kept their original in a secure location.

 

Most interesting and I appreciate your comments and help.

 

 

I was there to photograph their posthumous Purple Hearts...though they had far more than I needed. When I saw the MOHs, I asked (very nicely) to photograph them and was granted permission to do so. I can't tell you how many they had, but my guess is maybe 40 or so, from the Civil War through Vietnam. These included Smedley Butler's, Edson's, etc...some really incredible stuff. I photographed around 2/3 of what was there as I was running short on time (and my actual purpose was photographing the posthumous Purple Hearts...) Now that I'm back from my trip, I need to get in touch with their PAO to find out what I can do and not do with the images I have. If I can share them, I'm happy to post them up (I have good shots of both Butler's MOHs plus okay shots of his medal bar, to include all the edge numbers on the medals...that would make a great thread, right there!)

[FFZFlyer]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to see these engravings. I hope you can do so. Do they have both of Daly's MoHs? If so, did you photograph his first one?

 

Thanks.

[Dave]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to see these engravings. I hope you can do so. Do they have both of Daly's MoHs? If so, did you photograph his first one?

 

Thanks.

 

 

Yes, and Daly's MOHs are in a thread from a couple weeks back (I think both were photographed?) They are on display, so I didn't photograph them.

 

I did just get permission to post up the photos. Now I have to go and edit them!

[FFZFlyer]

 

 

Yes, and Daly's MOHs are in a thread from a couple weeks back (I think both were photographed?) They are on display, so I didn't photograph them.

 

I did just get permission to post up the photos. Now I have to go and edit them!

Only the Haiti MoH for Daly was posted. I asked about the China one, but no response.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing your photos. Should be very, very interesting.

 

BTW, for quick editing I use the express version of Pixlr. Very easy to use.

[Dave]

I'm good for editing photos...just flying back and forth across the country prevents it from easily being done (and I hate editing pics on my laptop!)

[Dave]

I finally bit the bullet and edited the pics for Fox's and Cook's here on my laptop. While I'm not thrilled with the editing, they are what they are! Both are courtesy of the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

[Dave]

And Fox's...

[FFZFlyer]

Still wondering why that last line on Fox's is not centered. Operator error?

 

Thanks so much for posting. These really increase the body of knowledge on engravings.

[Hermanus]

I saw another one on line on FB. Its from pfc Ralph E. Dias. This is how it looks.

 

 

Regards

Herman

[manayunkman]

This is a great thread.

[Jarhead8007]

Fox's Medal of Honor as pictured (the questionable one) is currently in the Marine Corps Museum. I photographed it on Monday. It supposedly came from Fox himself as a direct donation. It also matches the engraving on Donald Cook's Medal of Honor, which is also in the Museum and which I also photographed on Monday.

 

These are great! Thanks for posting them!

 

Dave

Dave,

 

I just saw this one after it got a bump forward. If that's the one photographed from the National Museum of the Marine Corps' collection, I was in the room in the basement of Lejeune Hall (Quantico Base HQ building) when Col Fox personally handed this medal to the Director of the Museum prior to opening day back in 2006 (if memory serves me right on the date). He related the story of how duplicate medals were produced so recipients could donate them to an institution for display and still have one to wear. Also, if I remember correctly, he credited Barney Barnum with pushing for that rule change.

 

S/F

Scott