Vietnam War hero falls on grenade for his men

For his heroic actions in a 1968 incident during the Vietnam War, Freddy Rios received the Distinguished Service Cross and was nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor.

“Around midnight, we suddenly came under heavy mortar and artillery fire. Generally, the Viet Cong would rain down on you before they’d try to overrun and take your position. So we were well aware that this was just the beginning of a long night for us.

“During the attack, a grenade was thrown in the midst of my men. It was a chicom, which is a Chinese-made grenade. One of its characteristics is that the explosive mechanism spurts out sparks that you can see at night. As a result of my training, I knew that it would not explode until 13 seconds after the person that throws it releases the safety lock.

“For some reason I assumed that I had at least three or four seconds to jump on the grenade and protect my men. It was just spontaneous, split-second thinking, and I jumped on it. Fortunately, I was able to jump back up immediately, pick up the grenade and throw it back. It was out of my hands for only one or two seconds when it blew up in the air about 18 to 20 feet away.

“The next thing that occurred was the mass assault. We had enemy fire coming from all directions. In the dark, it was just madness. We were popping flares so that we could see, but we were more or less shooting at shadows. I was able to rally my men, and at that point I could tell that two (Viet Cong) went down as a result of me firing my weapon. In that particular battle, we killed 21 Viet Cong.

“But the very surprising and rewarding thing about it was that my platoon suffered no wounded other than shrapnel fragmentations here and there. We used to laugh that those were like mosquito bites, and we would just pick them out and throw them away.”

— Freddy Rios, sergeant, U.S. Army

(Freddy Rios passed away on Oct. 15, 2019.)