Suffolk County Historical Society: Garfield Langhorn, Medal Of Honor Winner / Vietnam | Honor Veterans

Photo of the Week

FROM THE SCHS LIBRARY ARCHIVES

“How shall we know it is us without our past?”
– John Steinbeck

Medal of Honor Recipient Garfield McConnell Langhorn, 1948-1969. (Image from the 1967 Riverhead High School Yearbook.)

Rank/Conflict: Private First Class, Vietnam War
Unit: Troop C, 7th Squadron (Airmobile), 17th Cavalry, 1st Aviation Brigade
Military Service Branch: U.S. Army
Medal Of Honor Action Date: January 15, 1969
Medal Of Honor Action Place: Near Plei Djereng, Pleiku Province, Republic of Vietnam

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Medal of Honor Recipient Garfield McConnell Langhorn, 1948-1969.

(Image from the 1967 Riverhead High School Yearbook.)

Riverhead High School graduate Garfield McConnell Langhorn, born September 10, 1948, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his act of extraordinary heroism during the Vietnam War. He was one of only four men from Long Island and the only one from Suffolk County to receive the medal during the Vietnam conflict. (The other Medal of Honor recipients from Long Island who served during the Vietnam War are George C. Lang of Hicksville, John Kedenburg of Baldwin, and Stephen Karopczyc of Bethpage.)

Langhorn joined the Army in Brooklyn, and by January 15, 1969, he was serving as a Private First Class in Troop C, 7th Squadron (Airmobile), 17th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Aviation Brigade. On that day, Langhorn’s unit attempted to rescue the crew of a downed American helicopter. After locating the crash site and the bodies of its crewmen, the unit turned back, only to be attacked by entrenched North Vietnamese forces. During the battle, Pfc. Langhorn threw himself on a live enemy grenade that had been thrown near several wounded soldiers. He was killed in the ensuing explosion while protecting the lives of his fellow soldiers.

Garfield McConnell Langhorn was 20 years old at the time of his death. He was buried in the Riverhead Cemetery. The Riverhead School District passed a resolution in 2004 declaring September 10, his birthday, Garfield Langhorn Day. A bronze bust of Pfc. Langhorn was erected on the grounds of Riverhead Town Hall in 1993, and the Town of Riverhead passed a separate resolution in 2022 declaring that Garfield Langhorn Day would be on the second Friday of October each year. In 2010, by an act of Congress, the new post office in Riverhead was named the PFC Garfield M. Langhorn Post Office. And in 2011 the street Pfc Langhorn grew up on in downtown Riverhead was renamed in his honor.

“Pfc. Langhorn’s extraordinary heroism at the cost of his life was in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflects great credit on himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.”

https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/garfield-m-langhorn

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