Richard Etchberger, MOH

[Bilge_Rat]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Obama on Tuesday awarded the Medal of Honor to an Air Force chief master sergeant who died saving three fellow airmen in Laos on a secret mission that was kept under wraps for more than 40 years.

“Today your nation finally acknowledges and fully honors your father’s bravery,” Mr. Obama told the three sons of the airman, Chief Master Sgt. Richard L. Etchberger, at a White House ceremony.

“Even though it’s been 42 years, it’s never too late to do the right thing,” Mr. Obama said.

One of the sons said afterward that his father would have been humbled to receive the nation’s highest military honor. “He would be here just saying, ‘I was doing my job up there,’ ” Richard Etchberger told reporters.

A native of Hamburg, Pa., Chief Master Sergeant Etchberger was an electronics expert without formal combat training in March 1968 when he single-handedly kept the North Vietnamese enemy at bay while helping evacuate wounded comrades from their radar station on a remote Laotian mountain after coming under attack.

The next morning, Chief Master Sergeant Etchberger managed to get three wounded comrades into rescue slings and on their way to safety. But he was fatally wounded after enemy ground fire struck the helicopter trying to lift him to safety. Richard Etchberger, the son, said the family was told only that his father had died in a helicopter crash

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/us...al.html?ref=us