Larry Taylor honored with parade, ceremony

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – A hometown hero received his homecoming celebration on Monday. 

Captain Larry Taylor received the Medal of Honor from President Joe Biden last Tuesday, September 5.

The parade and ceremony held Monday in Downtown Chattanooga meant the world to Medal of Honor recipient Captain Larry Taylor and the lone surviving member of the four men he saved in Vietnam 45 years ago, Sergeant Dave Hill.

Medal of Honor recipient and Chattanooga native Captain Larry Taylor speaking at a press conference after a parade and ceremony in his honor.

The parade was the first of its kind in Chattanooga since Charles Coolidge was honored in 1946.

Sergeant Hill said, “Larry Taylor had his own motto. Leave no man behind, and he never did. For him, it meant never leave them on the ground.”

Sergeant Hill was part of a reconnaissance team that got surrounded by the Viet Cong on the night of June 18, 1968.

He along with three others were fighting them off with the equipment they had hoping for help to arrive.

Sergeant Hill said, “He couldn’t land in the middle he would’ve been shot all up. (We) had those last grenades and that was it so, sayonara, you’re not going to defend yourself with a name.”

Captain Taylor was able to save those four men that night, altering their families’ trajectories.

It’s an act that retired Army General B.B. Bell said should have been recognized sooner, but was not due to difficulty communicating information in Vietnam in 1968.

General Bell said, “Dave’s outfit was located 40 kilometers away from Larry’s outfit. The next morning when it was time to do the post-combat interviews, would you have gotten into your handy dandy Jeep and driven 40 miles through enemy territory to talk to Dave? Not on your life, because you would have been killed going up there.”

For Sargeant Hill, he says there are multiple lessons you can take from Captain Taylor’s heroism and bravery on that dark night in Vietnam.

He said, “Prepare yourself, have a code to live by, a code of honor. Principles you can fall back on, and no matter what it is, don’t give up.”

Captain Taylor says he is grateful for the recognition.

He said, “You couldn’t ask for better support, and that is what it’s all about. You realize that those people on the ground are your brothers, and if you were on the other foot, they would stop for you.”