Clarence Sasser, who ran through a hail of gunfire and sustained many wounds to save the lives of his fellow American soldiers during an ambush in the Vietnam War — an act of valor for which he received the Medal of Honor — died on May 13 in Sugar Land, Texas. He was 76.
The Congressional Medal of Honor Society announced the death in a statement, which did not provide further details.
The Medal of Honor is the U.S. military’s most prestigious decoration. Mr. Sasser was one of 61 living recipients, according to the Medal of Honor Society, a majority of whom fought in Vietnam. He was one of just three living Black recipients.
A combat medic, he earned his medal for saving, not taking, lives on Jan. 10, 1968 — “the longest day of my life,” he said in a 1987 oral history interview with the U.S. Army Medical Department Center of History and Heritage.
Mr. Sasser was stationed in the Mekong Delta, a riverine agricultural hub in South Vietnam that the Viet Cong could easily reach by crossing the nearby Cambodian border. Medics there aided soldiers who not only had mortar and bullet wounds but also jungle rot and fungal infections and leech bites, all inflicted by the swamps.
Days earlier, Mr. Sasser’s infantry company had been designated as backup. “For once we thought we were going to have a good mission,” he said in the oral history. Then, on the morning of the 10th, the company was told to head out on a reconnaissance mission to investigate reports of enemy activity. The soldiers loaded into helicopters.