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The Hero of Lang Vei Medal of Honor recipient SFC Eugene Ashley Jr.
A Lang Vei fighting bunker for local forces in 1967. (U.S. Army)
Episode 3188 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about the attack on Lang Vei. The featured story is titled: North Vietnam’s first major tank battle overran a Special Forces outpost. It appeared on the We Are The Mighty website and was submitted by Friedrich Seiltgen.
Seiltgen reported that In early 1968, as the Tet Offensive stunned American and South Vietnamese forces across Vietnam, a small Special Forces outpost near the Laotian border became the site of one of the war’s most brutal and consequential fights. Special Forces Camp Lang Vei, manned by just 24 Green Berets and roughly 500 CIDG troops, sat four miles west of Khe Sanh—directly in the path of a new and terrifying enemy threat: North Vietnamese tanks.
Built hastily after an earlier camp had been destroyed, Lang Vei was hardened but isolated. Despite warnings from a North Vietnamese deserter and survivors of a nearby armored assault in Laos, intelligence about an impending attack went largely unheeded. Shortly after midnight on Feb. 7, 1968, the North Vietnamese Army launched a coordinated assault using infantry, sappers, and nearly a dozen Soviet-made PT-76 tanks. Mortars and artillery softened the camp before tanks smashed through the wire, overrunning trenches and bunkers as defenders fought desperately with recoilless rifles, LAW rockets, claymores, and small arms.
As organized resistance collapsed and survivors fell back to the operations bunker, one man outside the perimeter repeatedly bent the battle through sheer will and courage. Sgt. 1st Class Eugene Ashley Jr., leading a small, improvised rescue force, launched five separate assaults through intense fire, mines, and artillery to reach the surrounded camp. Between attacks, he directed artillery and danger-close airstrikes to clear paths for the defenders. On his final assault, Ashley was mortally wounded, but his actions opened the way for survivors to escape.
Ashley’s extraordinary heroism earned him the Medal of Honor and saved lives. His selfless leadership did more than shape the outcome at Lang Vei—it helped blunt the North Vietnamese armored threat and stands as a timeless example of valor against overwhelming odds.
Listen to Episode 3188 and discover more about the attack on Lang Vei.
