A camera captured this Vietnam veteran's rescue but how he got there is a harrowing story

Editor’s Note: This article is a part of the USA TODAY Network’s series Vietnam War: Remembering the sacrifices of many. As the nation celebrates Memorial Day, a federal holiday centered around honoring those who lost their lives defending America, we tracked down a living Vietnam War veteran whose heroics were captured in still photos.

Paul Longgrear grew up a rounder. Never knew his father. Mom married five times. He figured he’d never amount to anything — landed in jail twice, graduated last in his high school class, got kicked out of college.

Then he got drafted. It was his salvation, though he nearly died.

“The very first day, I looked around and I thought, I found a home,” Longgrear said. “It was the first time I’d ever done something successfully.”

During training, he met a beautiful woman — a woman with integrity, a Christian. Longgrear persuaded her to marry him. Nine months and a week later, the father of a brand-new baby, he left for Vietnam. Standing on the porch, his wife said, “I’ll send you Rice Krispie squares and I’ll be praying for you.”

“Don’t forget the Rice Krispie squares,” he said.

A few months later, Lieutenant Longgrear was a Green Beret, commanding a strike force of indigenous Montagnard mercenaries, in more trouble than his teenage self could imagine.

The North Vietnamese attacked in Russian-built tanks. After fighting all night, Longgrear and his men retreated into the Lang Vei camp, which had been overrun.

They hunkered down in a command bunker pocked with holes. Everyone was injured — Longgrear had been knocked out; one of his men died then and there. A machine gun trained on the entrance kept them trapped. An enemy soldier pushed his flamethrower through the holes and shot, trying to burn them out, setting the building on fire.

“It was the worst thing I ever saw,” Longgrear remembered. The Montagnards were fearless fighters, but “it was a hopeless situation.”

Longgrear didn’t like the feeling he had, hiding. It reminded him of being in jail. It made him feel like a coward.

Outside, Sgt. Eugene Ashley was fighting to rescue them. “I’m just a few yards away,” he radioed. He would distract the enemy, he said, and Longgrear’s group could get them from behind.

Four times, Ashley and his men advanced. They made a fifth attempt. Ashley was killed.

That was it. Longgrear was breaking out anyway. “I guess I kinda lost my mind and went crazy,” he said.

Go, he told his soldiers. He’d cover the rear. Don’t come back for anyone.

They scrambled away. Longgrear killed the machine gunner. At the side of a tank, he saw movement. North Vietnamese soldiers were counting combat pay they’d robbed from dead Montagnards. He killed them, too.

But his rifle jammed and his ankle popped. He couldn’t run. And someone was shuffling up behind him.

Longgrear wheeled around, wielding his rifle like a club. Then everything went silent. Aircraft froze in mid-air. A blinding light shone.

“What are you going to do?” the Lord asked him, in Longgrear's account.

“What kind of a question is that?” the soldier replied.

Longgrear didn’t know God. He didn’t go to church. He remembered his wife saying she would pray for him.

“What are you going to do now,” the Lord said, like an impatient Southern mama.

“God, I don’t want to die,” Longgrear said, and he began to cry. He had been saved, he realized, in more ways than one.

The war snapped back into place. Longgrear scrambled up a hill and caught up with his men. Just one helicopter touched down at the rendezvous point, and they had to shoot North Vietnamese soldiers off the struts as it rose back into the air.

Even as they landed at the base, the North Vietnamese were shooting. Longgrear tried to carry the Montagnard commander, Nga, to safety, but he could barely walk himself. A medic caught him and they raced to the medical bunker, hunched to make a smaller target, shots flying around them.

A news photographer captured the moment. Longgrear’s Memphis in-laws saw him in The Commercial-Appeal.

Longgrear was airlifted back to the U.S. He recovered from his injuries. He saw his baby and got his wife pregnant again. Then he went back to Vietnam.

“I was a professional soldier,” he said. “That’s what I had decided to do.”

Ashley was awarded a Medal of Honor posthumously. Longgrear served for another quarter-century, retiring as a colonel with lots of honors. He lives in Georgia now and is active in sharing the story of the Lang Vei battle.

“If you saw me in a uniform you’d think I was some kind of hero or something,” he said.  

How we located Longgrear, James Cook and Dr. Joe Wolfe: To find subjects for this project, we began with the photos. We combed through the Associated Press archives, the Library of Congress, Getty, the National Archives and the U.S. Department of Defense Flickr collection, among other photo collections, looking for historic moments, visually striking shots, Southern residents, women and Black veterans.

Where the subjects in the photo were bylined, we checked a range of directories, including Google, Ancestry’s Military Records collection, Lexis-Nexis public records, Together We Served, Legacy and Facebook, using a variety of spellings. We put out the word to various veterans’ groups and historians for specific military divisions and operations, prisoners of war, the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center and Operation Homecoming.

In the end, we were able to track down three living veterans. If you know anything about Lt. AL Walker, please let us know.

Danielle Dreilinger is an American South storytelling reporter and the author of the book “The Secret History of Home Economics.” You can reach her at ddreilinger@gannett.com or 919/236-3141.