JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas –
Born in 1944 in Piqua, Ohio, William H. Pitsenbarger was an ambitious only child. He wanted to quit high school to join the U.S. Army Special Forces' Green Berets, but his parents convinced him to stay in school. After graduating in 1962, Pitsenbarger joined the U.S. Air Force.
Airman 1st Class Pitsenbarger learned his military skills in a series of demanding schools. After basic training, he volunteered for pararescue work and embarked on a rigorous training program, which included U.S. Army parachute school, survival school, a rescue and survival medical course, and the U.S. Navy's scuba diving school. More U.S. Air Force rescue training and jungle survival school followed. His final training was in air crash rescue and firefighting, followed with an assignment to the HH-43 Huskie helicopter.
Arriving in Vietnam in August 1965, Pitsenbarger completed more than 250 missions, including one in which he hung from an HH-43's cable to rescue a wounded South Vietnamese soldier from a burning minefield. This action earned him the Airman's Medal and the Republic of Vietnam's Medal of Military Merit and Gallantry Cross with Bronze Palm.
The last mission, on April 11, 1966, in thick jungle near Saigon, an infantry company of 134 soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division, Big Red One, was surrounded by a Viet Cong battalion of approximately 500 troops. In a fierce firefight, the North Vietnamese surrounded and pinned down the Americans. As the battle went on, the number of U.S. casualties grew steadily.
Detachment 6 of the U.S. Air Force's 38th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron received an urgent call to evacuate the wounded. Army helicopters could not land in the battle zone because there were no clearings in the tall, dense triple-canopied forest. The tallest trees rose 150 feet, and a second layer stood at about 100 feet, with a third layer below. Only U.S. Air Force HH-43 Huskie helicopters with cables and winches could hoist the injured from the jungle.
Pitsenbarger was the rescue and survival specialist aboard Pedro 73, one of the two Huskies on the mission. The Huskies were to take turns hoisting litters with critically wounded patients through the forest canopy and delivering them to a nearby airfield. Pedro 73's crew, while under fire and hovering in a hole in the forest below the tallest trees and barely large enough for the Huskie, saw that the ground troops desperately needed help loading wounded into the litter. Pitsenbarger volunteered to be lowered to the ground to help. He descended a hundred feet into the firefight with a medical bag, a supply of splints, a rifle and a pistol.
On the ground, Pitsenbarger organized and speeded the evacuation, enabling the Huskies to rescue nine soldiers on several trips. Normally, pararescuemen return to the helicopter, but he chose to stay and help the beleaguered troops. As the fight continued, Pedro 73 was badly damaged by ground fire and forced to withdraw. Rather than escape with the last Huskie, he chose to stay on the ground and aid the wounded. Soon the firefight grew too intense for the helicopters to return.
"There was only one man on the ground that day who would have turned down a ride out of that hell hole." said F. David Peters, Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division. "And that man was Pitsenbarger."
As darkness fell, Pitsenbarger not only cared for the wounded, but also collected and distributed ammunition to the surviving soldiers several times under enemy fire. In the early evening, he was mortally wounded fighting alongside the remaining infantrymen. The Viet Cong withdrew during the night, and the following morning U.S. forces were able to recover survivors and the fallen. Charlie Company had suffered 80 percent casualties.
For coordinating the successful rescues, caring for the wounded and sacrificing his life while aggressively defending his comrades, Pitsenbarger received the Air Force Cross on June 30, 1966. After review, the original award was upgraded, and on Dec. 8, 2000, the Medal of Honor was presented to his family in a ceremony at the U.S. Air Force Museum. He is the 59th Medal of Honor recipient, and sixth enlisted recipient, from the Air Force and its predecessor organizations.
Pitsenbarger was only 21 years old when he was killed in action. But in his short life and valorous Air Force career, he was an example of dedication, compassion and tenacity for all those with whom he served. In his work, and especially on his final mission, he embodied the pararescueman's motto: "That Others May Live." (Courtesy, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force)