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Vietnam Vet Masanori “Mike” Miyagishima
Episode 2687 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about Vietnam Vet Masanori “Mike” Miyagishima and his service to our country. The featured story appeared on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service website and was titled: MI Detachment Commander Leads Assault Against Viet Cong (29 AUG 1966). The story was submitted by Lori Stewart, the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence Command Historian.
DVIDS is a state-of-the-art, 24/7 operation owned by DMA (Defense Media Activity) that provides a timely, accurate and reliable connection between the media around the world and the military serving at home and abroad.
The mission statement of the DVIDS is to provide an accurate, reliable source for media organizations to access U.S. service members and commanders deployed in support of military operations worldwide.
Miyagishima was born in Idaho but raised in Wyoming, he attended high school in Japan and was working in a Nevada copper mine when he decided to enlist in the U.S. Army on 31 July 1943. After graduating from the Military Intelligence Service Language School at Camp Savage, Minnesota, then Sgt. Miyagishima deployed to the Southwest Pacific Area during World War II. He served as an interpreter/translator for the 31st and 93d Infantry Divisions in New Guinea and the Philippines. From 1945-1959, he held several counterintelligence and liaison positions in Japan and received his commission in 1951. After a year as chief of the counterintelligence branch in the division’s G-2 section, Maj. Miyagishima assumed command of the 25th MI Detachment.
On the morning of 29 August, assault elements of the 2d Battalion, 27th Infantry, and an intelligence squad from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) encountered a Viet Cong special unit. Dodging multiple booby traps and steady enemy fire, Miyagishima took the lead and personally searched the holes and tunnel entrances indicated by the prisoner. At the end of the operation, eight enemy soldiers had been killed, thirteen captured, nineteen tunnels destroyed, and the Viet Cong unit and its threat to local citizens and 25th Infantry Division facilities had been eliminated.
Listen to episode 2687 and discover more about Vietnam Vet Masanori “Mike” Miyagishima and his service to our country.
