Sergeant First Class Andrew H. Waldrop, Jr., was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross because of his extraordinary heroism while he was serving as an advisor to a Vietnamese artillery battery on 18 November 1969. That afternoon, he and three other advisors were driving two jeeps to Phan Thief in order to obtain supplies for their battery. As the soldiers rounded a sharp curve on Highway QL1 in their jeeps, they encountered approximately thirty North Vietnamese soldiers moving in columns along both sides of the road. Sergeant Waldrop, who was riding shotgun in the lead jeep, began firing immediately on the enemy troops with his canister-loaded M-79 grenade launcher. Noticing that two of the enemy were closing in on the second jeep and preparing to fire on it, Sergeant Waldrop spun round in his vehicle as it passed the two soldiers and killed both of them with one well placed round with his weapon. By now the surprised enemy troops had taken up defensive positions on both sides of the road and were retaliating on the moving jeeps with automatic weapons fire. Although hit by enemy fire in the lower abdomen and right side, Sergeant Waldrop continued firing on the enemy troops with devastating accuracy. As the two vehicles sped through the middle of the enemy positions, the driver of Sergeant Waldropís jeep was critically wounded by enemy fire. Sergeant Waldrop quickly put down his weapon and took control of the jeep, holding the wounded driver in with one hand and driving the speeding jeep out of the kill zone with the other hand. His heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service.

SFC. Waldrop joined the Legion of Valor in 1975 and is a life member.