Garfield M. Langhorn

He shielded wounded comrades by falling onto a live grenade.

Garfield McConnell Langhorn was born in Cumberland, Virginia, on 10 September 1948. He grew up in Riverhead, New York, and graduated from Riverhead High School in 1967. Drafted into the Army in 1968, he deployed to Vietnam that November after becoming engaged to his childhood sweetheart, Joan Brown-Smith. He served as a U.S. Army private first class and radio operator in Troop C, 7th Squadron, 17th Cavalry, 1st Aviation Brigade.

Near Plei Djereng, South Vietnam, on 15 January 1969, his platoon searched for the pilots of a downed helicopter. After finding both dead, the soldiers were ambushed while carrying their bodies to a pickup site. Langhorn called for gunship support and provided covering fire for wounded men within the platoon's perimeter.

After dark, an enemy grenade landed near the casualties. Langhorn threw himself onto it and absorbed the explosion, saving his comrades at the cost of his own life.

President Richard M. Nixon presented his posthumous Medal of Honor to his family on 7 April 1970. Initially buried in Riverhead Cemetery, he was reinterred at Calverton National Cemetery on 3 July 2026 at his family's request. Riverhead's post office was named in his honour in 2010, and he entered the Army Aviation Hall of Fame in 1998.

Medal of Honor citation

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Pfc. Langhorn distinguished himself while serving as a radio operator with Troop C, near Plei Djereng in Pleiku Province. Pfc. Langhorn's platoon was inserted into a landing zone to rescue two pilots of a Cobra helicopter shot down by enemy fire on a heavily timbered slope. He provided radio coordination with the command-and-control aircraft overhead while the troops hacked their way through dense undergrowth to the wreckage, where both aviators were found dead. As the men were taking the bodies to a pickup site, they suddenly came under intense fire from North Vietnamese soldiers in camouflaged bunkers to the front and right flank, and within minutes they were surrounded. Pfc. Langhorn immediately radioed for help from the orbiting gunships, which began to place minigun and rocket fire on the aggressors. He then lay between the platoon leader and another man, operating the radio and providing covering fire for the wounded who had been moved to the center of the small perimeter. Darkness soon fell, making it impossible for the gunships to give accurate support, and the aggressors began to probe the perimeter. An enemy hand grenade landed in front of Pfc. Langhorn and a few feet from personnel who had become casualties. Choosing to protect these wounded, he unhesitatingly threw himself on the grenade, scooped it beneath his body, and absorbed the blast. By sacrificing himself, he saved the lives of his comrades. Pfc. Langhorn's extraordinary heroism at the cost of his life was in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.