The air rescue attempts are a catastrophe. Five more aircraft are lost and at least 11 more airmen are killed trying to reach him. So the Navy sends one SEAL, Lt. Tom Norris, with five South Vietnamese commandos, to go get him on foot.

X.com ^ | October 8, 2026 | Voices From Vietnam @VoicesfromNam

[ransomnote]

Voices From Vietnam
@VoicesfromNam

April 1972. Air Force navigator Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton is shot down behind North Vietnamese lines during the Easter Offensive. The air rescue attempts are a catastrophe. Five more aircraft are lost and at least 11 more airmen are killed trying to reach him.

So the Navy sends one SEAL, Lt. Tom Norris, with five South Vietnamese commandos, to go get him on foot.

One of them was Petty Officer Nguyen Van Kiet, a 27-year-old frogman from the South Vietnamese Navy.

They rescued one downed pilot from the river first. But as they pushed deeper to reach Hambleton, two of the commandos refused to go on. They would not risk their lives following an American to save an American.

Norris was ready to go alone. Kiet volunteered to go with him.

On the night of April 12, the two men found a deserted village, put on local fishermen's clothes, and took an abandoned sampan up the river in thick fog. North Vietnamese troops and tanks lined the shore.

They rowed right past Hambleton in the dark and came out under the Cam Lo bridge. They turned around and found him in a clump of bushes, alive but half delirious after 11 days behind enemy lines.

The sun was coming up. They hid him in the bottom of the boat under bamboo and started back downriver in daylight.

North Vietnamese soldiers spotted them and opened fire. Kiet pulled the sampan behind a riverbank and hid it while Norris called in air strikes. They made it out.

Norris received the Medal of Honor. Kiet received the Navy Cross, the only South Vietnamese sailor ever awarded it.

He later moved to Seattle, became an American citizen, and worked at Boeing for nearly 20 years.

 October 8, 2026

 

[Zathras]

Back when the military had to call McNamara for permission to engage.

[packrat35]

Both of these men had balls of steel.

[KC Burke]

I have spent some time with a friend who is a Vietnam era double Silver Star winner who did three tours in Vietnam. He was an Air Cavalry platoon leader and helicopter pilot for an early version of the gunships. One award was for a ground action leading his platoon and the other was for a gunship action paired with another Huey rescuing orphans under fire from VC.

As is typical, I looked up his awards so I didn’t come across any exaggerations and I am sure amazed by his stories. I was in the reserve in that era and humbled by his actions during the early 67-70 era he went thru.

[bobbo666]

In part that was because of the traitors in the Democratic party. You know, the ones who rioted and lied about soldiers every chance they had. Everything he did had to take into account attacks in Congress.
The same ones who turned a victory to a defeat by voiding the defense treaty we had with SViet gov’mt — this let the North come in and destroy what we bled for.

The same bunch who told BeijingBiden that abandoning Afghanistan was OK.

The same ones telling the world that Iran has already won.

The common thread is that these folks are commies — just like McCarthy warned us about.

[Mr. Lucky]

Boy, Howdy.

[Chainmail]

An amazing story of true heroism!

[ansel12]

In some ways Vietnam was the last of a type of American warrior breed, years in continuous combat for some, long term clandestine missions and small team penetrations into enemy territory in jungle conditions against highly capable and large enemy forces, lonely battles unlike WWII, penetrations and missions and battles of small groups of men of 5 or 12, or 20 alone and sometimes to the death for all of them, sometimes a team disappearing without anyone knowing how.

Look at the bodies and builds on the special operations guys and green berets, they aren’t puffed up with balloon muscles and well fed, they have the build of guys who live on cigarettes and search for canned peaches and live under constant stress, a world of hunting and killing, and some of them weren’t just elite soldiers but turned into stone cold jungle killers, and did it for years.

[ComputerGuy]

Amazing

[caver]

Wow! What a story.

[SkyDancer]

With a nine hour or so delay.

[dagunk]

Back when the military had to call McNamara for permission to engage.

********************************************************

We lost Vietnam in DC.

“Margaret Thatcher once quipped you could track the decline of the
British Empire with the invention and use of the telephone. I guess
she was implying Heretofore, commanders and viceroys in the field
ran their territories free of meddling by the home office. Pretty
much the same in WWII except for the onsight meddling later in the
game as they began deciding the political ending for the war in
Europe. By the time of Korea, we had the first instance of missions
being run out of the White House which was more than expanded under
Johnson in Vietnam. The results were disasterous.”

[ansel12]

If anyone wants to read a CIA report from January of 1968.

Intelligence Memorandum
The Manpower Situation in North Vietnam
Secret Copy No. 50 ER IM 68-4 January 1968
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85T00875R001500220004-4.pdf

[Paal Gulli]

A telephone works both ways. Not only can higher command meddle with his operations, the commander on the ground can call for reinforcements.

Which means troops in contact no longer have to fight as if there lives depend on it, they only have to fight to hold out until their relief arrives.

Then comes Vietnam and the relief starts arriving at 120 mph. With predictable consequences on the level of commitment exhibited by the boots on the ground.

[Mouton]

After reading that I came away with impression it is impossible to bomb a country living in the Stone Age back into one.

[ansel12]

I believe the great majority of the bombs weren’t dropped on North Vietnam, but memory is that when we took it North Vietnam itself, it weakened them.

It seems that by not taking the war to the North Vietnamese they could endure forever.

[DPMD]

Later, Norris, having lost an eye in another engagement with NVA, served as an FBI agent, and was reported to have been on their Hostage Rescue Team.

[DPMD]

Their mesomorph physiques have been likened to those of elite world class athletes.

[DPMD]

One riot, one ranger.

[ansel12]

It was heat, jungle, physical activity, and poor food.