Medal of Honor recipients visit with Hickam Airmen

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Lauren Main
  • 15th Wing Public Affairs
JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii --  Four Medal of Honor recipients visited Hickam Oct. 4 to visit with Airmen tell their tales from their time in service.

The Medal of Honor recipients shared stories from their time in the service with Airmen at the Pacific Air Forces Headquarters building and at a static C-17 Globemaster III, KC-135 Stratotanker and an F-22 Raptor. Three of the four recipients served in the U.S. Army and one served in the U.S. Air Force; ranging from the Korean to Vietnam Wars.

Sgt. 1st Class (Ret.) Ronald Rosser was the first to tell his story to the Airmen; describing the actions he performed as a young Army corporal in Korea which earned him his Medal of Honor.

Rosser, at the age of 22, led a charge up a snow-covered hill which was controlled by enemy forces. In an attempt to take the hill, Rosser became a hero as he made the decision to fight on alone as the sole remaining member of the charge.

"About half way up [the hill], I turned around and realized I was alone," said Rosser. "The rest were wounded or killed somewhere on the hill. So I accepted the fact that I wasn't going to collect social security in this lifetime, let out a war whoop and charged in."
Rosser calculated that after an hour of fighting, he was personally responsible for killing more than 20 enemy fighters with grenades and another 28 with rifle fire.

Leo Thorsness, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, was the next to tell his story to the hushed crowd.

As a former F-105 pilot, Thorsness eliminated enemies in the skies over North Vietnam in 1967. After his wingmen were hit and forced to bail from their aircraft during a mission. Thorsness continued to circle the sky above, despite being low on fuel, to ensure their safety as they drifted towards the ground. As he circled, another enemy aircraft zoned in on the parachutes and set up an attack. Although his aircraft was not designed for dogfights, Thorsness engaged the MiG and took it down with bursts from his Gatling gun.

Meanwhile, Thorsness' dwindling fuel supply became a growing problem. In an effort to stay in the air, he quickly air-refueled from a tanker and returned to the MiG-infested area to protect the downed crew from North Vietnamese soldiers. When his rear-seat weapons officer spotted four more MiGs in the area, he turned back through a barrage of North Vietnamese missiles to engage them. He hit another one and drove the remaining enemy planes away.

Two weeks later, on his 93rd mission, Thorsness was shot down and taken captive by the Vietcong. He spent six years as a Prisoner of War in Hanoi until his release in 1973.

Major (Ret.) Drew Dix, a U.S. Army Staff Sgt. and Special Forces adviser in 1968, and his men were working alongside U.S. Navy SEALS in and around Cambodia. Their mission was to collect intelligence on a rumored Vietcong offensive. After the men had completed their mission and set out to return to Chau Phu, they found that the Tet Offensive had already begun and the city had been overrun by two heavily armed Vietcong battalions.

Dix sprung into action and moved through the city with vigilance and speed, picking up friendly forces as he went. One of his first objectives was to rescue an American nurse who had been working at a local hospital. After which he reached several U.S. civilians whose building was being mortared and brought them to safety as well. Throughout the course of his rescue mission, Dix fought through the night and saved countless lives. By morning he had assembled a force of twenty men and armed them. After a fifty-six hour battle, the city was liberated and Dix's small band had killed an estimated two hundred enemy troops.

Lt. Col. (Ret.) George Hagemeister, like Dix and Rosser, is also a U.S. Army veteran. He was drafted in 1966, and upon completion of basic training, was selected to become a medical corpsman. In November of that year, Hagemeister shipped out and was on his way to Pleiku, Vietnam.

Early in the morning on March 20, 1967, an Army company operating in Binh Dinh Province was involved in heavy fighting with the enemy. The company's officers had been killed or wounded and the force was in danger of being overrun. Specialist 4th Class Hagemeister's platoon was ordered out on a rescue mission that afternoon. Soon after scrambling out of the helicopters that brought them close to the action, the Americans were ambushed from three sides by a North Vietnamese battalion supported by a Vietcong heavy-weapons company.

As his fellow Soldiers began to fall around him, Hagemeister ran to each of their sides to provide aid. He ran through an onslaught of gunfire each time to treat and encourage his comrades. As night fell, Hagemeister began to move the most seriously wounded of the Soldiers to safety. As he did so, he and his able-bodied comrades came under heavy sniper fire. Acting quickly, Hagemeister picked up a rifle and aimed carefully and pulled the trigger, shooting the sniper out of the tree. He eliminated numerous additional threats, all while continuing to move the injured Soldiers out of harm's way.

Though each individual act differed, each of the men were deemed worthy of receiving the nation's highest award for valor in action against an enemy force, that can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Forces of the United States.

After sharing their stories with the Airmen at the PACAF HQ, the men moved on to the 15th Wing flightline where they were greeted by a formation of Airmen who eagerly welcomed the men to tour the static aircraft.

"I got to talk to them, and I thought it was a really good experience," said Tech. Sgt. Rob Miller, boom operator with the 96th Air Refueling Squadron. "I feel like more Airmen should have the opportunity to learn from their heroism. Hearing their stories inspired me to do a better job every day."