CAPTAIN RICHARD L. JAEHNE, was awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism while a second lieutenant with Company K, Third Battalion, Seventh Marines, First Marine Division in Vietnam. On 28 August 1969, while moving through an open rice paddy during a company-sized search and clear operation in the Que Son-Hiep Duc Valley in Quang Nam Province, Lieutenant Jaehne’s platoon came under intense mortar, automatic-weapons, and small-arms fire from a well-entrenched North Vietnamese Army force. Quickly assessing the situation, he deployed his platoon into firing positions and launched an aggressive counterattack. During the ensuing fire fight, he repeatedly disregarded his own safety to gain vantage points from which to direct the fire of his men against one hostile position after another. When one of his squads was temporarily pinned down by fire from a heavy machine gun, he inched his way through the deep rice paddy and, in full view of the enemy gunners, destroyed the machine gun with a hand grenade, using his pistol to dispose of the last of the enemy gunners in the emplacement. Although he had sustained a painful fragmentation wound in the shoulder and a bullet wound in the hand, Lieutenant Jaehne rallied his Marines, retrieved the radio from his fallen radio operator, restored communications, and continued the attack until the enemy broke contact and withdrew, leaving behind thirteen casualties, several crew-served weapons, and numerous rifles and items of equipment. By his courage, aggressive leadership, and unflagging devotion to duty in an extremely hazardous situation, Lieutenant Jaehne upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.

Captain Jaehne joined the Legion of Valor in 1973.