Father receives Purple Heart at son's promotion

By Warrant Officer Christina Follett, 470th MI BrigadeNovember 22, 2010

Purple Heart
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas -- When Clavis Gilbert Sr. attended his son's promotion to chief warrant officer 2 on Oct. 15, he didn't anticipate receiving a decoration of his own.

However, while members of U.S. Army South and the 470th Military Intelligence Brigade were gathered for the promotion of Clavis Gilbert Jr.; he took the opportunity to present his father with the Purple Heart he had earned for wounds received in Vietnam 40 years ago.

The elder Gilbert enlisted in the Army in May 1962 and in April 1970 deployed to Saigon, Vietnam, as a platoon sergeant. While on a patrol in December 1970, Gilbert's convoy was ambushed.

After reacting to contact, the convoy pushed forward out of the kill zone and rallied at the top of a hill just up the road from the ambush site. While accounting for his Soldiers, Gilbert realized that one vehicle was missing.

Communication between vehicles was not possible, so Gilbert, as convoy commander, returned to the ambush site and retrieved Soldiers there.

After the area was secured, Gilbert became aware that he was shot twice in the leg and was medically evacuated to Okinawa, Japan, where he spent a month recovering.

Following recovery, Gilbert returned to his unit in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, surprising fellow Soldiers, as members of his unit thought he had died. Gilbert completed his tour in Vietnam and returned to the U.S.

In 1973, a fire at the Army's human resource records repository in St. Louis, Mo., destroyed thousands of documents, including paperwork documenting Gilbert's heroic actions in Vietnam.

In 2003, after years of inquiries and statements attempting to re-document that day in Vietnam, Gilbert finally received his Purple Heart - via certified mail. However, his son wanted him to receive it during a military ceremony and, with the "covert cooperation" of his mother, LaRue, arranged to make it happen on the occasion of his promotion.

With Family and friends in attendance and Soldiers standing at attention, the orders were read, and the younger Gilbert presented the Purple Heart to his father.

"It was the right thing to do," Gilbert said. "Dad is not a person to give himself a lot of credit, but it was important to my Family to recognize him in among service members."

Attending the event were Lt. Col. Terance Huston, brigade S3 (operations and training officer), who offered words of appreciation on behalf of the unit, and brigade Command Sgt. Maj. Ronald Mason, who presented the Vietnam veteran with a coin of excellence on behalf of the brigade com- mander, Col. Jim Lee.

The new chief warrant officer 3 said the surprise recognition caught his father off guard.

"I've never seen him that overwhelmed," he said. "I think hearing his story told by someone else brought him back to that day in Vietnam."