40 SOG Commandos Dropped Into Cambodia to Rescue One Missing Sergeant. Half Never Made It Out.

On December 30th, 1968, roughly forty men flew across a border their own country swore they never crossed. Their job was simple and almost impossible: find one missing American, Private First Class Robert Scherdin, lost the day before somewhere in the Cambodian jungle. Ninety seconds after the helicopters touched down, a mine went off in the middle of them. Two companies of North Vietnamese regulars opened up from the high ground. The rescuers became the ones who needed rescuing. This is the story of a MACV-SOG Bright Light mission, and of Sergeant First Class Robert Howard, who took command of the fight with a destroyed weapon and two ruined hands and held that hillside for three and a half hours. It became the third time in thirteen months he was put up for the Medal of Honor. The first two got buried because the war they were fighting officially didn't exist. Scherdin was never found. His file has never been closed. If this one stayed with you, watch what happened when America sent 56 men into North Vietnam to empty a prison camp: [Son Tay video link] SOURCES: • Medal of Honor citation, Robert L. Howard — cmohs.org • Robert Scherdin POW/MIA record — pownetwork.org • U.S. Army history, MACV-SOG — army.mil • Special Operations Association (SOG casualty records) Public-domain footage via the U.S. National Archives.