Michael Edwin Thornton

He braved enemy fire to rescue and tow his wounded commander

Michael Edwin Thornton earned the Medal of Honor for a rescue during a Vietnam War intelligence patrol on October 31, 1972. Born on March 23, 1949, in Greenville, South Carolina, he grew up near Spartanburg and enlisted in the Navy in 1967 after high school. After completing SEAL training, he joined SEAL Team ONE and served in Southeast Asia.

Serving as a petty officer and assistant adviser with the Naval Advisory Group, Thornton accompanied Lieutenant Thomas R. Norris and three South Vietnamese naval commandos on a reconnaissance and prisoner-capture mission. When the patrol encountered a larger enemy force, it fought toward the shore to avoid encirclement. Told that Norris had been hit and was believed dead, Thornton returned through enemy fire, found him alive but unconscious, and carried him to the water. He inflated Norris's lifejacket and towed him seaward for about two hours until support craft arrived. His determination saved Norris and helped ensure that all patrol members were extracted.

President Richard M. Nixon presented Thornton's Medal of Honor at the White House on October 15, 1973. Norris, whose own Medal of Honor recognized a separate rescue earlier in 1972, survived his wounds.

Thornton's subsequent assignments included SEAL training instructor, service with SEAL Team TWO, an exchange with the British Special Boat Squadron, and work establishing the Naval Special Warfare Development Group. Commissioned an ensign in 1982, he served in the diving and salvage community. As a company commander from 1990, he coordinated rapid-response deployments supporting Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He retired as a Navy lieutenant in May 1992.

Medal of Honor citation

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while participating in a daring operation against enemy forces. PO Thornton, as assistant U.S. Navy adviser, along with a U.S. Navy lieutenant serving as senior adviser, accompanied a three-man Vietnamese Navy SEAL patrol on an intelligence-gathering and prisoner capture operation against an enemy-occupied naval river base. Launched from a Vietnamese Navy junk in a rubber boat, the patrol reached land and was continuing on foot toward its objective when it suddenly came under heavy fire from a numerically superior force. The patrol called in naval gunfire support and then engaged the enemy in a fierce firefight, accounting for many enemy casualties before moving back to the waterline to prevent encirclement. Upon learning that the senior adviser had been hit by enemy fire and was believed to be dead, PO Thornton returned through a hail of fire to the lieutenant's last position, quickly disposed of two enemy soldiers about to overrun the position, and succeeded in removing the seriously wounded and unconscious Senior Naval Advisor to the water's edge. He then inflated the lieutenant's lifejacket and towed him seaward for approximately two hours until picked up by support craft. By his extraordinary courage and perseverance, PO Thornton was directly responsible for saving the life of his superior officer and enabling the safe extraction of all patrol members, thereby upholding the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.