THE WALL OF FACES

I briefly met Bob on Hill 285 that afternoon! I learned the next morning that he was one of the KIAs. Condolences to family and friends for your loss! Made effort to procure marker showing award of DSC!

Thank you for your service to our country so long ago sir. Your Distinguished Service Cross citation attests to your courage and devotion to your fellow soldiers. As long as you are remembered you will always be with us….

Dear Lt Robert Wright, Thank you for your service as a Field Artillery Unit Commander. Saying thank you isn't enough, but it is from the heart. Lent has begun. Time passes quickly. Please watch over America, it stills needs your strength, courage, guidance, and faithfulness, especially now. Rest in peace with the angels.

On the evening of January 2, 1970, B Company,4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry, Americal Division, was in a night defensive posture on Hill 285, eight miles east of Duc Pho in Quang Ngai Province, RVN. The company was combat assaulted to the hill earlier that morning to secure it as a fire base in support of Operation Iron Mountain. The company organized its defenses, and by dark had completed its preparations with sand bags, earthen berms, Claymore mines, and trip flares. Adverse weather prevented resupply helicopters from bringing in additional defensive material. As the sun set, the company’s field strength was 118 men and officers, including three 81mm mortar tubes. Without any warning, at approximately 11:45 PM the American position received about sixty rounds of mixed 60mm and 82mm mortar fire along with heavy small arms and automatic weapons fire. This was followed by a ground attack by an estimated reinforced North Vietnamese Army (NVA) sapper company from the north and northwest. Unbeknownst to the Americans, the enemy had moved by stealth in three platoon-sized elements up the brush-covered draws on the west side of the Hill 285, silently cut the Claymore wires, then opening fire with AK-50’s, B-40 rockets, and Chicom grenades. The defenders returned fire with unit weapons and received support from helicopter gunships and artillery. The southernmost attacking groups, including the NVA commander and his three-man command group, were cut down by heavy M16 and M79 fire. The U.S. artillery forward observer attached to B Company was killed when he moved against six sappers who succeeded in permeating the perimeter on the north side. A quick reaction by a B Company platoon leader and his radioman eliminated this threat. By 3:50 AM, the NVA began to withdraw, dragging away their dead and wounded. U.S. losses were seven killed and twelve wounded. The lost Americans included infantrymen PFC Tanner M. Brown Jr., PFC Raul Garcia Jr., PFC Dallas R. Snodgrass, SP4 Joseph M. D'Angelico, PFC Steven L. Green, and medic SP4 Frank M. Dunsmore Jr.; and 2LT Robert C. Wright, the forward artillery observer from A-6/11 Arty; he was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Brown, Garcia, and Snodgrass were posthumously promoted to Corporal. Sweeps of the area at dawn yielded twenty-nine dead NVA and twelve individual weapons and one crew-served weapon captured. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org and archive.org]

Robert Carrol Wright

Distinguished Service Cross
AWARDED FOR ACTIONS
DURING Vietnam War
Service: Army
Rank: Second Lieutenant
Battalion: 6th Battalion
Division: Americal Division
GENERAL ORDERS:
Headquarters, U.S. Army, Vietnam, General Orders No. 745 (March 24, 1970)
CITATION:
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918 (amended by act of July 25, 1963), takes pride in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross (Posthumously) to Second Lieutenant (Field Artillery) Robert Carrol Wright, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam, while serving with Battery A, 6th Battalion, 11th Artillery, American Division. Second Lieutenant Wright distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions on 2 January 1970 while in command of an advance party of field artillerymen establishing a firebase on Hill 285 near the town of Duc Pho. Late that night the hill came under intense mortar, rocket-propelled grenade, and small arms fire from an attacking enemy force. Lieutenant Wright immediately began adjusting artillery fire on the attackers, repeatedly exposing himself to the storm of incoming fire as he attempted to determine the enemy's exact positions. Moments after the hostile force initiated their attack, an enemy mortar round impacted near Lieutenant Wright and his radio operator, inflicting them both with shrapnel wounds. Despite his wounds, Lieutenant Wright continued to coordinate friendly supporting fire until sappers breached the defensive position and were advancing toward his position. Unable to engage the infiltrators with his damaged rifle, Lieutenant Wright stood out in the open and yelled at the intruders in order to draw their attention and fire to himself and away from the wounded radioman who could not move. Lieutenant Wright then led the sappers in a running chase over forty meters away from the radioman before he was mortally felled by their fire. Second Lieutenant Wright's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty, at the cost of his life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.