THE PLATOON LEADER WHO DIED FOR HIS MEN

2ndLt John P. Bobo was a US Marine platoon leader who served in Vietnam in 1966 during Operation Prairie.

Working as a hunter-killer team, he and his men were setting out ambushes for the night when a reinforced North Vietnamese company attacked them and covered them with machine gun and mortar fire.

Bobo organized a hasty defense at once and ran from position to position to lead his men through the superior enemy fire. Along with his own casualties he found an unused rocket launcher, put a new squad together on the spot and had them engage the enemy machine gun nests with it.

Some time later an enemy mortar round hit Bobo and tore off his right leg below the knee. Even in that condition the 2nd Lieutenant refused to be evacuated and ordered his men to move him into a good firing position. There he manned a machine gun while a belt was pulled around his thigh as a tourniquet and he rammed the stump of his leg into the dirt to slow the bleeding. From that position he beat back several enemy waves that were trying to overrun the withdrawing Marines. Bobo was hit several times and died behind the machine gun. The platoon leader’s furious resistance pulled the Marines back into the fight, and in the end they held their position.

John P. Bobo was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his selfless action. He was 24 years old at the time of the engagement.

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