Sergeant, US Army, Daniel Fernandez  

Daniel Fernandez enlisted in the United States Army in 1962, 3 years before the first US troops arrived in Vietnam.¹

In 1965, Specialist 4th Class (Sp4c) Daniel Fernandez volunteered for a second combat tour in Vietnam with C Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division. On February 18, 1966, 8 months into his second tour, a Viet Cong rifle company ambushed Fernandez’s patrol in Hau Nghia Province, Republic of Vietnam. The ambush pushed the patrol back and wounded an American soldier. Fernandez, a sergeant, and 2 other volunteers fought through the enemy attack to rescue the wounded soldier; as the rescue party reached the wounded man, the sergeant was shot in the knee.  Fernandez took charge of the group and moved them to cover to provide aid to the wounded soldiers. As they reached cover, an enemy grenade landed amidst the group; Fernandez saw the grenade and realized some of the other soldiers did not see it and did not have time to react.  Fernandez jumped over the wounded sergeant and onto the grenade, covering it with his body as it exploded, saving the lives of the 4 other soldiers and losing his life.

On April 26, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson flew the Fernandez family to Washington DC, and posthumously presented Fernandez’s Medal of Honor to his family. In addition to the Medal of Honor, Daniel Fernandez’s hometown of Los Lunas, New Mexico, remembers his sacrifice with a junior high school, a park, a Veterans of Foreign Wars post, and a road named in his honor.²