I was born on a small farm in Virginia,
northern Virginia, not far, a couple miles from Herndon, Virginia.
The first of ten children.
I loved farming. I loved everything about the work.
We had horses. That was our means of plowing and all.
We couldn't afford tractors.
I loved horses, and really intended to be a farmer.
And if it had not been for the Korean War,
I probably would not have gotten away from the farm.
But the Korean War started.
And when I could get a break from thrashing wheat and making hay,
I visited the Marine recruiter and ended up enlisting.
NARRATOR: Wesley Fox enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1950.
Contrary to his plans to be a farmer,
he wound up instead staying in the military for 43 years
and rising to the rank of colonel..
Fox served two tours of duty in Korea
as a Marine rifleman and later as a platoon sergeant.
His defining moment, however, would come
during the Vietnam War.
My assignment was with the Vietnamese Marines as an advisor,
infantry battalion advisor.
The Tet Offensive caught me halfway through that tour.
But basically I was not happy
with the way the Vietnamese handled the war.
It was too much of what I classified as "search and avoid,"
instead of "search and destroy" operations.
We didn't take the fight to the enemy.
Bottom line is I extended six months in Vietnam
to go north with our Marines
because I knew they knew how to take the fight to the enemy.
I was a first lieutenant by that time.
And even though a Marine rifle company commander normally is a captain,
I had hopes of getting a company as a first lieutenant.
And as luck would have it, I did end up as company commander
of Alpha, First Battalion, Ninth Marines.
That was a good experience throughout the whole six months.
But I think the highlight of the whole tour and Vietnam experience,
of course, was my fight on 22 February, 1969,
in which my mission was to see if an enemy unit was where it was the day before.
And if it was, to do something about it.
Well, I found them. They were there.
And I locked into them,
only to find they were a bigger force
than my small, under-strength rifle company.
At that time I was down to less than 90 Marines from a 240-man rifle company.
When the fight started I had two platoons in the assault,
--in an assault formation, moving through that jungle
towards the sounds of the mortar tubes that were popping.
And at that point the enemy also had a machine gun
that was firing in the trees.
So we had a focal point.
It was like, "Here we are. Come and get us."
And we did that.
Two platoons up and one in reserve.
So on that rainy, miserable, cloudy day
when we couldn't use air, or artillery, or anything else,
it was nothing but a rifleman's fight.
Early in that fight I lost all of my platoon leaders,
killed or wounded.
So the leadership was not really there.
But again, what I'm saying, it was...
...it was each Marine's motivation
to take the fight to the enemy,
to move into the sounds of the enemy's guns.
The point where I realized that it's a bigger force
than what mine was was when my assault stalled.
And at that point I moved along my forward Marines in that jungle.
Each Marine that I saw was down.
And unless he was firing his rifle,
he appeared or probably impressed [me] that he was a casualty.
At that point I realized it's a stronger force than mine.
And what I would like to do is break contact,
"Sorry, guys," and get out of here.
I thought that I was hurt worse than I was.
I realized in order to break contact
I've gotta get all of my casualties out.
I'm not leaving anybody.
I'm gonna lose more Marines doing that.
And then I probably won't have enough to defend us with.
Carrying the wounded, we're gonna have our hands full
and we won't be able to fight.
So at that point, the one thing I did was made the decision
that we'll win this fight. We'll either walk out or we'll all stay in the valley.
And I called my reserve platoon commander up
and told him to take his platoon in the attack between the center,
of my two attacking platoons.
A mortar or a rocket-propelled grenade, I'm not sure which it was,
landed amongst us at about the time that he understood the order
and seriously wounded that platoon commander.
My company executive officer, Lieutenant Lee Harron,
was standing there. He had heard what I'd told Jim Davis to do.
And Lee wasn't hurt.
So I told Lee to take the second platoon in the attack, which Lee did.
NARRATOR: As the reserve platoon slammed forward,
the executive officer was struck down by machine gun fire.
With the platoon now leaderless,
Fox stepped in,
re-organizing the company and directing their fire.
Together they hurled grenades into the enemy ranks and drove them into retreat.
Though wounded in the final assault,
Fox refused medical attention.
Instead, he established a defensive position
to ensure the safe evacuation
of his wounded buddies.
My battalion commander, a couple of days after the fight...
I was in his CP. He was on the ridge with us.
My company, Alpha, and Charlie were on the ridge with the battalion command group.
And...
I, for whatever reason, was in his CP
getting some guidance of what we were gonna do I guess.
And I'm on my helmet, seated on my helmet,
and he tells me he's gonna put me in for the Medal of Honor.
Well, I almost fell off my helmet. I couldn't believe it.
So this was January of '70 it was approved on Nixon's desk.
I didn't get it until March of '71,
a year and three months later,
waiting for the right political climate.
Being a Marine at that point, I'd had
22 years in the Marine Corps.
So I was pleased and proud to receive the Medal
for what my company did, for what we did on 22 February.
A lot of our countrymen don't know what the Medal of Honor is, and that's
one of the tasks that the Medal of Honor Society has,
is making our young people aware and our countrymen aware
of what our servicemen have done,
and along the way, some of the recognitions that they get.
Again, I'm pleased and proud to wear it for the Marine Corps
and what my Marines did on that particular fight.
Again...
I feel a little bit of an emptiness in knowing
that there were others that deserved it in that fight that were not awarded.
Again, because nobody was there to tell their story.