Conspicuous Gallantry Under Fire

On 30 January 1971, six heavily armed members of SEAL Team One’s Zulu Platoon inserted by helicopter into a rice paddy deep inside enemy-held territory on South Vietnam’s Cà Mau Peninsula. Their mission was to search for and destroy Viet Cong (VC) insurgents who had fired on their helicopter in the same area less than an hour before. The VC had seriously wounded First Squad’s radioman, causing the patrol to abort its mission and return to base. The remaining SEALs of Squad One were back to even the score.¹It would not go well.

Within minutes, the VC had commenced firing from concealed positions on a dike some 250 meters away. Then, as the squad approached the dike, the VC opened up from less than 50 meters away with withering fire. Bullets wounded Zulu’s point man, patrol leader, automatic weapons man, and the assistant platoon leader, Lieutenant (junior grade) Thomas Richards, who had volunteered to replace First Squad’s wounded radioman. In that moment of chaos, Richards took charge of what remained of First Squad and a mission gone terribly wrong.² He would later be denied adequate recognition for the conspicuous gallantry he displayed.