Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 11, 1990 TAG: 9003112617
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ST. LOUIS LENGTH: Medium
While on patrol in Vietnam on March 21, 1969, 16 days before the end of his 13-month tour of duty, Lahr and several other Marines descended the steep banks of a stream to fill canteens.
It turned out they had stumbled on a huge North Vietnamese supply cache, said Denver Lawson Freeman, who probably would have died there if it weren't for Lahr. As they stooped in the 2-foot-deep water, they were suddenly ambushed with machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades.
A grenade fell nearby, wounding Freeman and several others.
"Corporal Lahr, with complete disregard for his own safety . . . assisted several Marines to safety," the award citation says. "Despite the heavy fire, he made several trips . . . until he himself was wounded and unable to continue."
Lahr said he took one round from a rifle. The bullet went into his shoulder, grazed his lung, hit three ribs and finally lodged in his spine, paralyzing him from the waist down.
For 20 years, neither Freeman nor Lahr knew that the other had survived.
But through a contact he made at a Marine Corps reunion last summer, Freeman learned Lahr was living in Lincoln, Ill. He set out to see that his friend received the honor he deserved.
Lahr downplayed his heroism, saying he did it all on impulse and didn't even know immediately that he was shot.
"It all happened so fast," he said as he fingered the citation for heroism. "I fell down in the water and grabbed a big rock. I didn't know I was hit until I looked down and saw the blood running away from me in the water."
He remembers nothing more until he awoke on a hospital ship some days later.
by CNB