April 24Apr 24 #1 This Bronze Star popped up on ebay. Named with a Vietnamese name … Van Ngoc Nguyen. The way the naming convention with Vietnamese names works I’m assuming his name on the medal is a bit backwards. They put his last name where an American last name would be (go figure) but as he would write it it should be Nguyen Van Ngoc. It comes with an article from the Honolulu Times from 1967 about a Captain Nguyen Van Ngoc of Vietnam Marine Corps. He was stationed in Hawaii at the Marine Corps Air Station working with the Vietnamese Language School. This is from newspapers.com though and clearly is someone plopping the name in a search engine. Nguyen is an extremely common last name in Vietnam so I wasn’t convinced it was him. I did a bit more digging. Nothing but another version of this article came up with a google search of “Captain Nguyen Van Ngoc”. I decided to put his name into findagrave.com First I put in his last name as Nguyen, his first name as Van and his middle name as Ngoc (which is the correct order). Nothing particularly relevant came up. Then I put his first name as Nguyen, his Middle name as Van and his last name as Ngoc (the way you would write it). A hit came up for a man born in 1904 and buried in a Catholic cemetery in 1980 in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania. The picture of the grave has an American Legion disk next to it. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/242617028/nguyen-van-ngoc I then went back to the ebay listing. The medal was shipped by “Multi County Pickers” from Southampton, Pennsylvania. That is 9.2 miles from the Cheltenham where he is buried! Then I started doing the math. At first 1904 seemed an early date of birth. He would have been 60 in 1964. But then I went back to the article. It says Nguyen was a trained lawyer at a French college and was a 15 year veteran with combat experience. It then says he was planning on retiring the next year and moving to the US to teach Vietnamese. That would make him 64 in 1968. That seems like a perfectly logical timeline. Next I found a Philadelphia Inquirer article about a mobile Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial coming to Bucks County, PA. The article includes a picture of a Vietnam veteran holding a young Vietnamese girl. The caption reads: “Army Capt, Rick Kiernan, a combat infantry advisor who trained and led South Vietnamese soldiers in Duc Hoa in 1970, lived in the village and befriended its children, including Mia Van Ngoc, whose dad Nguyen Van Ngoc was a South Vietnamese Army Captain, trained by Kiernan.” This is all circumstantial of course. But it appears to me that this Bronze Star must have been issued after 1967 to Captain Nguyen Van Ngoc of the Vietnam Marine Corps who after serving in combat went to work at the Vietnam Language School in Hawaii. Retiring in 1968 he moved to Pennsylvania, dying in 1980. I’d love to know more. Any info would be appreciated.
April 26Apr 26 Author #2 After searching on Ancestry.com I came across another possibility in the database "Vietnam War, Awards and Decorations of Honor, 1965-1972". This one certainly is more direct evidence. Name: Van Ngoc Nguyen Date Recommended Award Received: 29 Aug 1969 Date Award Forwarded: 7 Sep 1969 Service/Country: RVN Army Command/Staff: III Corps Recommended Award: Bronze Star Medal (Valor) Approved Award: Bronze Star Medal (Valor) Location Award Presented: Award Presented in Republic of Vietnam [South Vietnam] (RVN) Posthumous: Award presented while Living No rank unfortunately. The 3rd Corps of the ARVN was based in the region surrounding Saigon. It was made up of the 5th, 18th and 25th Infantry Divisions. By July 1969 the process of Vietnamization had begun. 3rd Corps was part of II Field Force under General Julian Ewell ("The Butcher of the Delta"). He began Operation Dong Tien ("Progress Together") by "buddying up" US units with ARVN units. The most important piece of this operation took place just north of Saigon between US 1st Inf Div (Big Red One) and the 5th Div ARVN. In addition to fighting alongside the 1ID, the 5th Div was assisted by MACV Advisory Team 70. It is possible (again now we are back to circumstantial evidence) that Van Ngoc Nguyen earned his BS during this battle. It is interesting to note that there are about 1000 entries for ARVN soldiers in this database. Almost all of them are either Army Commendation Medals or Bronze Star Medals (V). About 10 are Silver Stars. There are also a handful of Air Medals. All of them were awarded from Summer 1969 to 1971. I suppose part of the Vietnamization process was rewarding ARVN soldiers with US awards to encourage their morale. Many of these units were judged very poorly by US commanders. Interestingly I learned in poking around for this that only 3 ARVN men earned a Distinguished Service Cross during the war. One of them was Phan Ngoc Luong during the Tet Offensive. He was actually originally recommended for the Medal of Honor. https://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient/recipient-4674/
April 26Apr 26 Author #3 This was the headquarters of MACV Advisory Team 70 during the war. You can see the 5th ARVN Division badge in the upper right corner.
April 27Apr 27 Author #4 Here is a link to the Ancestry Database (Vietnam War, Awards and Decorations of Honor, 1965-1972): https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/8847/?count=50 It contains records for the following Service/Country: RVN Army - 10,831 RVN Navy - 46 RVN Marine Corps - 73 Thailand Army - 2,702 USAF - 3,726 US Army - 59,223 USMC - 1,331 USN - 2,167 Republic of Korea, Army - 401 ROK Marine Corps - 12 Philippine Army - 37
April 27Apr 27 Author #5 Even rarer than the 3 DSC's are the two Navy Crosses awarded to RVN forces for the war. The remarkable story of one of them is here: https://sof.news/history/a-most-unusual-sea-commando/ Note: The article says he was the only NC but there were two.
Create an account or sign in to comment