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Army 1st Lt. Loren Hagen poses for a photo in Vietnam shortly before his final mission on Aug. 7, 1971, when he died in action saving members of his team. Hagen posthumously received the Medal of Honor.
The Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observations Group was activated, Jan. 24, 1964, to function as a joint special operations task force in Vietnam. The 5th Special Forces Group was the largest source of volunteers for the unit.
Episode 2762 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about Army Capt. Loren D. Hagen 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 Capt. Loren D. Hagen. It was submitted by Katie Lange, the outstanding writer for DOD News.
Lange, in her story, reported that Army Capt. Loren Douglas Hagen joined the Green Berets during the Vietnam War so he could find a childhood friend who’d never returned from deployment. Hagen didn’t come home, either, but the extraordinary heroism he displayed while leading his men during a harrowing mission earned him a posthumous Medal of Honor.
Lange added this about Hagen, he was born on Feb. 25, 1946, to Loren and Eunice Hagen, and went by his middle name, Doug. For much of his childhood, he and his two younger brothers lived in Moorhead, Minnesota, on the border with Fargo, North Dakota, until their parents moved them to Decatur, Illinois. There, Hagen excelled at MacArthur High School, where he was an honor student and the president of the student council his senior year. He was also an Eagle Scout.
After high school, Hagen moved back to the Fargo area to attend North Dakota State University. He earned an engineering degree in 1968 before enlisting in the Army when the Vietnam War was still escalating.
Hagen was commissioned as an officer before training to join the Special Forces. He eventually served in the same unit Boyer had been in, according to a 2016 Decatur Herald and Review article. They were both part of the Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observations Group, which often conducted dangerous, classified missions in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Listen to episode 2762 and discover more about Army Capt. Loren D. Hagen and his Congressional Medal of Honor award honors.
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