Charles Seymour Kettles is known being as United States Army lieutenant colonel and a Medal of Honor recipient who received the honor in 2016 for his efforts in the Vietnam War. Unfortunately Kettles passed away January 21st, 2019 but this is a legend whose story needs to be told.
Kettles was born January 9th, 1930 in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He studied engineering at Eastern Michigan University (then Michigan State Normal College). At the age of 21 he was drafted into the United States Army. He completed basic training at Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky and then he attended Officer Candidate School at For Knox. There he earned his commission as an armor officer in the United States Army Reserve on February 28th, 1953. In 1954, he attended Army Aviation School and then served active duty tours in South Korea, Japan and Thailand.
When he left active duty in 1956, Kettles setup a Ford dealership in Dewitt, Michigan with his brother, and continued serving with the Army Reserve as a member of the 4th Battalion, 20th Field Artillery. But that didn’t last long as in 1963 he volunteered for active duty and with the Army in great need of helicopter pilots he was sent to helicopter transition training at Fort Wolters, Texas.
In 1965, during a tour of duty in France he was trained to pilot the UH-1D Huey and was assigned to the 176th Aviation Company at Fort Benning, Georgia in 1966 before deploying to Vietnam in 1967. It was on this tour in Vietnam that Kettles would earn the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroic actions on May 15th, 1967. This would later be upgraded to the Medal of Honor in July 2016.
The official citation can be found here. But on May 15th, 1967, members of the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division were ambushed in Song Trau Cau by approximately 1,000 North Vietnamese Army regulars. The regulars were armed with automatic weapons, machine guns, mortars and recoilless rifles. To make matters worse, the enemy forces were embedded in tunnels and fortified bunkers which shielded them from suppressive fire. Upon hearing US soldiers were pinned and the enemy was inflicting casualties, then-Major Kettles volunteered to lead six UH-1D helicopters. Kettles had hopes of bringing in reinforcements and evacuating wounded personnel. As the Hueys approached the landing zone they became under enemy attack from multiple directions, killing soldiers before they could even dismount.
Even rounds coming in heavy on the landing zone, damaging helicopters, Kettles refused to leave until all the reinforcements and supplies were off-loaded and wounded personnel were loaded on. Kettles then led the units out of the battle area and back to a staging area. Kettles then returned to the battle zone bringing more reinforcements, this time encountering mortar fire as well as automatic weapon fire upon arrival. Upon departing the second time, Kettles was advised he had fuel streaming out of his Huey and even with the bird heavily damaged he nursed it back to base.
Within a few hours of returning back to base the infantry battalion commander requested immediate emergency extraction of approximately 40 troops from the 101st Airborne Division 1st Brigade as well as four personnel from Kettles’ unit who were stranded after their helicopter was destroyed. Even with only one flyable Huey in his company, Kettles volunteered to return to the battle zone leading six evacuation helicopters with 5 being from the 161st Aviation Company. The Hueys made it to the battle zone and loaded all the personnel and headed out. However while on route back to base, Kettles was advised eight troops had been unable to reach the landing zones the Hueys were evacuating from. As a result, they had become stranded and were alone on the battlefield.
Kettles immediately passed the lead to another helicopter and returned to the landing zone to get the remaining troops. This time he had no gunship, artillery, or tactical aircraft support which allowed enemy forces to concentrated all their firepower on his Huey. Enemy forces were able to damage Kettles’ tail boom and main rotor blade as well as shatter both front windshields. Despite all this, Kettles maintained a sense of calm and allowed the remaining eight troops to board his bird. This time severely damaged, Kettles again guided his Huey back to safety. Without his efforts, the eight troops would have never made it back.
For his efforts, Kettles was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 1968. On July 18th, 2016, a special Act of Congress was passed to extended the time limit for awarding the Medal of Honor specifically just for Kettles and this incident. As a result, his Distinguished Service Cross was upgraded to the Medal of Honor. A member of the US Army present that day said, “Major Kettles became our John Wayne [that day]” and President Obama added “With all due respect to John Wayne, he couldn’t do what Chuck Kettles did”.
“We got the 44 out. None of those names appear on the wall in Washington. There’s nothing more important than that.”
Retired Lt. Col. Charles Kettles
