![]() Taylor assumed command of one of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment's combat engineer companies in Nuremberg, West Germany. He earned at least 50 combat decorations – by his count, around 60 – including 43 Air Medals, a Bronze Star, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, and the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Bronze Star.Ĭapt. ![]() Taylor’s biography says that throughout his 2,000 combat missions in UH-1 and Cobra helicopters, he was forced down five times and engaged by enemy fire 340 times. “So, yeah, I’d rather be an ass-kicker than to have my ass kicked.” “You can kick some ass,” Taylor said of being in the Cobra. If the option was between being on the ground, where troops were being bombarded with gunfire and mortars constantly, or in the sky with rockets and thousands of rounds of ammunition, the choice was clear. It wasn’t long before Taylor realized he’d rather be an aviation officer than an armor officer – partly because of what was unfolding in Vietnam. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve in June 1966, according to his biography, and joined the active-duty Army in August that year as an armor officer. Taylor, born in Tennessee in 1942, joined the Army Reserve Officer Training Program while attending the University of Tennessee. “And I knew that if I didn’t go down and get them, they wouldn’t like it.” “I was doing my job,” he said matter-of-factly. Indeed, the White House news release announcing Taylor’s Medal of Honor said that his “conspicuous gallantry, his profound concern for his fellow soldiers, and his intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit and the United States Army.”īut for Taylor, who received dozens of combat awards and flew over 2,000 combat missions during his time in the military, his actions that night in 1968 weren’t anything particularly special. “And because of that he re-wrote the fate of four families for generations to come. “When duty called, Larry did everything – did everything – to answer,” Biden added. “If you ask anyone here, I’m pretty sure they’d say you did something extraordinary.” Now when I called Larry to let him know he finally was receiving this recognition, his response was, ‘I thought you had to do something to receive the Medal of Honor?’ … Well Larry, you sure as hell did something, man,” Biden said at a ceremony on Tuesday. ![]() “The Medal of Honor is our nation’s oldest and highest recognition of valor. Now, 55 years after that harrowing evening in Vietnam, Taylor received the Medal of Honor – the nation’s highest military award – from President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday for his heroism. “We took them down there and I landed, and I left my wide landing lights on and so the four of them ran out in front of the helicopter and then they turned around and lined up, all four of them, saluted, and then ran for the lights,” Taylor said. In a matter of moments, Taylor decided to drop them at a nearby water treatment plant where other Americans were waiting on the ground. “I said, I don’t know, I didn’t think that far ahead.” “My copilot says, ‘Sir, now that we’ve got ‘em, what the hell are we going to do with them?’” Taylor recounted to reporters last week. Taylor and his copilot had been called out in their AH-1G Cobra helicopter to rescue a four-man long-range reconnaissance patrol team who were pinned down by the enemy, with seemingly no way out. Larry Taylor had picked up four of his fellow soldiers during a raging firefight in Vietnam – the men clinging onto the outside of his helicopter, as there wasn’t room inside – that he realized he had to figure out where to take them.
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