Photo By Lori Stewart | Two members of his platoon assist Sp4c. Alfred Rascon to an evacuation area after the...... read more read more
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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE ROLL CALL
Alfred Rascon Receives Medal of Honor
On Feb. 8, 2000, Lt. Col. (Retired) Alfred Rascon received a Medal of Honor from President Bill Clinton in a White House ceremony. While Rascon earned the medal by actions he conducted as a medic in Vietnam thirty-four years earlier, he later went on to have a varied military and civilian career in Military Intelligence.
Born in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1945, Alfred Rascon migrated to the United States with his parents when he was about four years old. Living and attending school in the Los Angeles area, Rascon knew from an early age he wanted to join the U.S. Army. He enlisted in 1963, at the age of seventeen, with a waiver signed by his parents. Trained as a medic, not the paratrooper he wanted to be, he found himself with the 173d Airborne Brigade (Separate), the first combat unit deployed to Vietnam in 1965. Sp4c. Rascon was assigned to the Reconnaissance Platoon, Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 503d Infantry.
In March 1966, during Operation SILVER CITY, Rascon was severely injured during a short but intense firefight with enemy forces in Long Khanh Province. Throughout the battle, he treated his fellow soldiers, used his body multiple times to shield soldiers against grenade attacks and, under enemy fire, retrieved one of the platoon’s M-60 machine guns and ammunition before it could be captured by the enemy. By the time his platoon members forced him to the medical evacuation area, he had been so severely wounded, medics worried about his chances for survival. The chaplain gave last rites.
Rascon did survive, however, and was honorably discharged from the Army two months later and placed in the Army Reserves. In 1969, now a U.S. citizen, he was ordered back to duty. After completing Officer Candidate School, Rascon received his commission as a second lieutenant of infantry. He completed the Special Forces Qualification Couse and then German language training at the Defense Language Institute.
At this point, Rascon’s military career took a turn. Instead of heading to his new assignment with an airborne unit in Germany, he was sent to Panama to serve with the 470th MI Group in a succession of positions: adjutant, area intelligence officer, and assistant operations officer. After rebranching to Military Intelligence, he completed his second year-long tour in Vietnam, this time as an intelligence liaison officer with a South Vietnamese unit in IV Corps in the far south. Returning to the U.S., he served as counterintelligence chief with the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson before attending the MI Advance Course at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. After graduation, he served a short time as executive officer of the 2d Battalion, School Brigade. In 1976, now a major, Rascon returned to Panama as an intelligence liaison officer and commander of Detachment A, 470th MI Group.
Major Rascon left the Army in 1984 but not the Intelligence Community. He worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration and then established an intelligence unit at the National Central Bureau of the U.S. office of the International Police Organization (INTERPOL). Moving to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, he helped stand up the Intelligence and Analysis Branch and served as senior special agent in charge of Overseas Operations for the Anti-Smuggling Branch. Finally, in 2001, he was confirmed by the Senate as the director of the Selective Service.
The Army, however, was not yet done with Rascon. Ordered back to active duty in 2002, the 57-year-old Rason returned to his original medical field with an assignment in the Office of the Surgeon General. Between 2002-2008, he completed tours to Afghanistan and then Iraq, before finally retiring as a lieutenant colonel.
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| Date Taken: | 01.31.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 01.31.2025 15:41 |
| Story ID: | 489900 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 56 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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