Burn Ban in Effect. All outdoor burning is prohibited in Franklin County.
Today's hero is:
Mdeal of Honor winner Harvey C Barnum
After graduating from Saint Anselm College in 1962, he was commissioned a 2nd Lt. in the US Marines and by 1965, was an artillery forward observer with 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, 3rd Marine Division.
On December 18, 1965, Lt. Barnum and his battalion, operating in Quang Tin Province, were hit by an overwhelming North Vietnamese Army force. With men getting hit all around him and his company commander dying in his arms, the 25-year-old lieutenant, who had been in country for only two weeks, took charge.
Taking the radio off the company's dead radio operator, Barnum began calling in fire support, directing his young Marines, and organizing a counterattack.
Moving from one fighting position to the next, Barnum had his men concentrate their fire against a trench line filled with communist soldiers, and then, in total disregard for his own safety, he grabbed a rocket launcher and fired it three times at the enemy position, killing countless NVA.
With his company still taking heavy casualties and running out of ammunition, Barnum called in attack Huey helicopters, personally directing their fire by standing up and using his arms to point out targets.
He then called in helicopters to transport the dead and wounded off the battlefield. When told that the helos couldn't land, he ran into the open and radioed, “If I can stand here, by God, you can land here." Moments later, the choppers landed and extracted all his wounded and dead Marines.
Still outnumbered 10-1, Barnum then led his men across hundreds of yards of open ground to friendly lines."It is the worst feeling in the world to charge across fire-swept ground," he later said in Vietnam Magazine. "I told everyone, once we start, guys, there’s no stopping." Miraculously, all his Marines made it.
For his gallant initiative and heroic conduct that saved the lives of countless Marines, Barnum was awarded the Medal of Honor. "I was lucky," he later said. "I wasn’t even wounded. My pack was all shot up. It just wasn’t my turn to go. The good Lord was watching over me."
Two years later, on February 27, 1967, Captain Barnum was presented the MOH at Marine Barracks Washington, DC., more commonly known as "8th & I," by Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze.
Postscript:
Barnum returned to Vietnam in 1968 and again saw combat, receiving the Bronze Star with Combat "V," the Navy Achievement Medal with Combat "V," and a Purple Heart. He retired from the Marines in 1989 as a Colonel with 27 years of service to country and Corps.
In 2013 it was announced that the Arleigh Burke-class ship USS Harvey C. Barnum, Jr. (DDG-124) would be named in his honor. The US Navy guided-missile destroyer will be commissioned in 2024.
