Major Patrick Brady is awarded the Medal of Honor on October 9, 1969.

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On October 9, 1969, Seattle University graduate Major Patrick Brady becomes the first medic to earn the Medal of Honor in Vietnam "for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty" (Department of the Army). The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force that can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Forces of the United States. Generally presented to its recipient by the President of the United States, it is often called the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Major Brady was a helicopter pilot responsible for evacuating battle casualties near Chu Lai, Republic of Vietnam. On January 6, 1968, he made six flights to rescue a total of 51 wounded men from landing zones that were under enemy fire. He used three different UH-1H ambulance helicopters, all of which were damaged by mines and gunfire.

During the Vietnam War, 17 members of the U.S. Army Medical Corps were awarded the Medal of Honor. Eight of those awards were made posthumously.

Sources:
U.S. Army Office of Medical History website (www.armymedicine. army.mil/history/ MOH/ bradyp.htm); Walt Crowley, Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), 275.

By David Wilma, October 15, 2001

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Major Patrick Brady (b. 1939), Medal of Honor recipient, 1969
Courtesy U.S. Army, Office of Medical History