A few years ago, Dave Hill, a Vietnam War veteran living in Nevada, started noticing something intriguing. Presidents were retroactively awarding the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest distinction, to veterans of conflicts long past. It gave him an idea.
Hill had always thought Larry Taylor — a Chattanooga-area helicopter pilot who, in a dashing never-before-seen maneuver, saved his and three other U.S. soldiers’ lives in Vietnam — deserved the prestigious medal. When Hill learned years later the pilot had received a lesser honor, he figured there was nothing to be done.
That veterans received the Medal of Honor decades after their wars suggested the existence of some kind of appeals process. Several years ago, Hill made it his mission to see that process through.
Now, after mustering the help of several compatriots, including Chattanooga area military and political leaders, the last surviving member of the group Taylor saved in 1968 has nearly completed his task.