He was awarded a Silver Star for a battle the US said never happened
By Richard Sisk
Friday, Oct 17, 2025
In just one week in February 1968 America would suffer the highest casualties of the Vietnam War — from North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive, the battles of Hue and Quang Tri and the siege of Khe Sanh, the news out of southeast Asia was very bad to dismal.
But it wasn’t even the full picture.
For decades, the battle of Lima Site 85 — a top-secret American tactical air navigation radar site atop at 5,800-foot-high mountaintop 15 miles from the North Vietnamese border — would remain secret, unreported.
While “officially neutral,” Laos helped to pit communist Pathet Lao rebels backed by North Vietnam against the U.S.-supported royal Laotian government, which received assistance from CIA paramilitary advisers, Thai mercenaries and fighters from the Hmong mountain tribes.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2025/10/17/he-was-awarded-a-silver-star-for-a-battle-the-us-said-never-happened/
