Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Army Sgt. Gary B. Beikirch, Medal of Honor recipient.
Episode 2711 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about Vietnam Vet Army SGT Gary Beikirch and his Congressional Medal of Honor award. The featured story comes from The U.S. Department of Defense website and was titled: Medal of Honor Monday: Army SGT Gary Beikirch. It was submitted by Katie Lange, a writer for DOD News.
Lange, in her story, reported that according to DoD documents, Army Sgt. Gary Burnell Beikirch made a post-military career out of helping veterans and children — a passion he discovered while healing from wounds he suffered in Vietnam that left him temporarily paralyzed. During the battle where he earned those scars, Beikirch saved several wounded men. For that, he earned the Medal of Honor.
Lange also reported that Beikirch said he, his brother and his mother lived with various aunts and uncles over the next several years, moving so often that he’d attended 11 schools before he reached ninth grade. By that age, he was tired of the constant shuffle, so he moved in permanently with a close aunt and uncle in Greece, New York. He stayed there until he graduated high school.
Beikirch went to college in 1965 but dropped out after about two years. He decided he wanted to become a Green Beret, so he joined the Army in 1967, shortly before his 20th birthday. The young soldier was initially placed in an airborne infantry unit before going to Special Forces school. He eventually earned his Green Beret as a medic, a specialty he chose because he “wanted to help people more than anything else,” he said in a Library of Congress Veterans History Project interview.
By July 1969, Beikirch was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group and was sent to Vietnam. He became the chief medical officer of Detachment B-24, Company B, based at Special Forces Camp Dak Seang near the border of Laos in central South Vietnam.
Listen to episode 2711 and discover more about Vietnam Vet Army SGT Gary Beikirch and his Congressional Medal of Honor award.
