Hometown: Wilmington, NC
Branch: U.S. Army
Unit: Detachment A-101, Company C, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) “Green Beret”, 1st Special Forces
Military Honors: Medal of Honor, Purple Heart
Date of Sacrifice: February 7, 1968 - KIA at Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, Quảng Trị Province, Republic of Vietnam
Age: 37
Conflict: Vietnam War, 1959-1975

Shortly after he was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, Eugene Ashley Jr.’s parents— Eugene and Cornelia Ashley—moved the family to New York City. There, Eugene Jr. grew up and attended Alexander Hamilton High School.

After high school, Ashley worked at dead-end jobs before enlisting in the United States Army on December 7, 1950. Six months earlier, the North Korean People’s Army had invaded South Korea. President Dwight D. Eisenhower committed American forces to a United Nations effort to prevent the spread of communism in the region.

The Army would become Ashley’s career for the next 18 years. He was assigned to the 187th Regimental Combat Team and deployed to the Korean Peninsula, where he served until his return to New York in 1953.

According to the U.S. Department of War:

In the years after he returned [from Korea], he served in many capacities, including as an infantryman, ambulance driver, anti-aircraft ammunition handler and as a specialist in heavy weapons and parachute repair. He also served as a cavalry and armored battle group squad leader, as well as a company sergeant.

By the 1960s, American forces were deployed in another Cold War conflict, this time to Vietnam. Sergeant Ashley completed the Special Forces Qualification Course in 1967, becoming one of the Army’s elite “Green Berets” and earning the rank of sergeant first class.

SFC Ashley went to Vietnam in January of 1968, just as North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive began. He served as a senior advisor with Detachment A-101, Company C, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), located at Special Forces Camp Lang Vei near the Demilitarized Zone in South Vietnam.

Having arrived just a few weeks earlier, SFC Ashley was less than a mile away when enemy North Vietnamese Army (NVA) tanks and infantry overwhelmed the camp. In what was later called the Battle of Lang Vei, the NVA destroyed the camp’s ammunition and fuel dumps, took out heavy weapons positions, overran bunkers, and blocked all avenues of approach to the camp.

SFC Eugene Ashley Jr. organized a small force of nearby Laotian soldiers and led five assaults to rescue American and Laotian survivors of the attack. His courageous actions would save the lives of those trapped by the enemy and would earn him the nation’s highest military award—the Congressional Medal of Honor.

His Medal of Honor citation reads, in part:

During the initial attack on the Special Forces camp by North Vietnamese Army forces, Sfc. Ashley supported the camp with high-explosive and illumination mortar rounds. When communications were lost with the main camp, he assumed the additional responsibility of directing air strikes and artillery support. Sfc. Ashley organized and equipped a small assault force composed of local friendly personnel.

During the ensuing battle, Sfc. Ashley led a total of five vigorous assaults against the enemy, continuously exposing himself to a voluminous hail of enemy grenades, machine gun and automatic-weapons fire. Throughout these assaults, he was plagued by numerous boobytrapped satchel charges in all bunkers on his avenue of approach.

During his fifth and final assault, he adjusted air strikes nearly on top of his assault element, forcing the enemy to withdraw and resulting in friendly control of the summit of the hill. While exposing himself to intense enemy fire, he was seriously wounded by machine-gun fire but continued his mission without regard for his personal safety.

After the fifth assault he lost consciousness and was carried from the summit by his comrades only to suffer a fatal wound when an enemy artillery round landed in the area. Sfc. Ashley displayed extraordinary heroism in risking his life in an attempt to save the lives of his entrapped comrades and commanding officer.

SFC Eugene Ashley Jr. was laid to rest in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He is honored at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., where his name is inscribed on Panel 37E, Line 77.

In 2012, Ashley was inducted as a Distinguished Member of the Special Forces. A year later, hall at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was named Ashley Hall in his honor.

Just outside of his hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, Eugene Ashley High School was named in his honor. The school’s mascot is a screaming eagle.

Also in Wilmington, a facility bearing his name—the Sgt. Eugene Ashley Memorial Center—provides short-term, transitional Bridge Housing for up to 16 homeless Veterans.

Sources
U.S. Department of War: Medal of Honor Monday: Army Sgt. 1st Class Eugene Ashley Jr.
We are the Mighty: Medal of Honor March: Remembering SFC Eugene Ashley, Jr.
U.S. Army: Indomitable Valor: Special Forces Heroism during Tet Offensive
United States Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School: Distinguished Member of the Special Forces Regiment
VA News: Veteran of the Day—Army Veteran Eugene Ashley Jr.
Congressional Medal of Honor Society: Eugene Ashley Jr.
Eugene Ashley High: Who is Army Sgt. 1st Class Eugene Ashley Jr?
U.S. Army, Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin: Courage Under Fire: SFC Eugene Ashley, Jr., and the Battle of Lang Vei
Burial Site: Find a Grave