Fifty-seven years after he stayed at his radios through three days of mortar fire during the Vietnam War, retired Army Lt. Col. David Gauntlett received the Bronze Star Medal with Valor during an Oregon National Guard ceremony in Salem, Oregon, Oct. 19.
Army Brig. Gen. Russell Gibson, Oregon's assistant adjutant general, hosted the ceremony. Guests included politicians, Gauntlett's family, fellow Vietnam War veterans, and members of the Oregon Army and Air National Guard.
From May 12-14, 1969, Gauntlett, a 20-year-old Air Force sergeant, operated a radio at the Song Be Base Camp in Phuoc Long Province, Vietnam. The province sat along the Cambodian border, near a North Vietnamese supply route linked to the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Gauntlett ran communications for a forward air control detachment there. His radio was the only link for coordinating airstrikes and air support across the province.
When the compound came under repeated mortar fire, Gauntlett stayed in the exposed position of a radio jeep for three days and nights with little rest. The mortar shrapnel wounded him in the shoulder, and he kept working the radios. According to his award citation, his presence at the radios accelerated the effort to find and destroy the source of the attacks and reduced the possible casualties.
During the ceremony, Gibson explained the difference between a Bronze Star awarded for service and one awarded for valor.
"A Bronze Star for valor typically means something went down," he said. "Your mettle was tested, and you survived that test."
He tied Gauntlett's actions to what the Oregon National Guard expects of its members today.
"We often talk in our organization today about mastering the basics, being competent in your skill set to ensure mission accomplishment, and having disciplined initiative," Gibson said. "David demonstrated exactly that."
Gauntlett was recommended for the award in 1969, but the paperwork was lost. Around 2000, he reconnected on a veterans' website with Dick Gerry, a former Air Force captain. Gerry had been the air liaison officer in charge of the Air Force forward air control detachment at the base camp in Vietnam. Gerry later called Gauntlett to say he found his original typed draft of the citation from 1969.
That discovery launched a five-year effort to rebuild and validate the recommendation. Rep. Val Hoyle's office worked with the War Department on the case, and Gauntlett and his supporters tracked down eyewitnesses who were on the ground in 1969. Hoyle and Sen. Ron Wyden first presented the medal and citation to Gauntlett at a town hall in Brookings, Oregon.
"It shouldn't have taken 57 years for a country that says we prioritize our veterans," Hoyle said. "We have to do better."
Hoyle said an amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act would streamline the process so other veterans don't face the same wait. Something positive did come out of the situation, Hoyle noted, the long delay meant Gauntlett's children and grandchildren could be there to see him honored.
"A veteran's contribution should be honored equally, whether the service occurred decades ago or recently," Gibson said. "Service is not diminished by the passage of time."
At Gauntlett's request, an Air Force senior noncommissioned officer read the citation. Chief Master Sgt. Darron Forbes, Oregon Air National Guard state command chief, read it as Gauntlett's wife, Barbara, and Gerry joined him on stage.
In his remarks, Gauntlett recognized the veterans who helped make the award possible. They included Gerry and Rick Zamora, an Air Force sergeant who provided intelligence support to his detachment.
He also recognized Robert Pryor, who was a specialist with Detachment A-344, 5th Special Forces Group, in 1969. On June 20, 1969, Pryor was gravely wounded during an attack at Camp Bunard, also in Phuoc Long Province. He received the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions and went on to serve 28 years in the Army.
"Dave saved my life that day," Pryor said after the ceremony.
Gauntlett said he accepted the medal on behalf of everyone who served.
"I accept it not for myself, but for the 2,700,000 young Americans who served in that war," he said, adding he also dedicated it to the more than 58,000 service members whose names are on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the more than 300,000 who were wounded, the 7,484 women who served during the war, and the forward air controllers who protected troops on the ground.
Service runs deep in the Gauntlett family, with more than 100 years of combined service across the generations. His father served as a Marine in the South Pacific during World War II, also operating a radio jeep. His brothers both served approximately 28 years in the Air Force and Air National Guard. His wife served in the Indiana Army National Guard and as a lieutenant in the Navy.
Gauntlett enlisted in the Air Force at 17 in 1966. After the Vietnam War, he attended Southern Oregon College and joined the Oregon Air National Guard. There, he earned a commission as a weapons controller and served full-time as a military technician and operations officer.
He later served in the Air Force Reserve and spent two years supporting the Royal Saudi Air Force as a civilian controller. He then transferred to the Indiana Army National Guard, where he served as an Army ROTC instructor at Indiana University, and later as a staff officer at the Pentagon.
He retired from the Army as lieutenant colonel in 1994. His combined military and civilian service spanned more than 50 years. He returned to Oregon in 2015.
Gauntlett closed his remarks by reciting the oath of enlistment he once administered to new recruits.
"I want you to know that the oath does not have an expiration date," he said.
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