CPL Michael Joseph Crescenz, Philadelphia, PA on www.VirtualWall.org The Virtual Wall® Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall (original) (raw)

26 Nov 2002

The following article is taken from The Philadelphia Daily News, special supplement entitled 'SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTY,' October 26, 1987.

Crescenz was the only Philadelphian to win the Medal of Honor in Viet Nam. The decoration - the highest U. S. Military award - was posthumously bestowed on the 1966 Cardinal Dougherty High School graduate for his actions on November 20, 1968. The 19-year-old corporal was serving as a rifleman with Company A of the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, 196th Infantry Brigade, Americal Division, in the Hiep Duc Valley, near Chu Lai, Quang Tin Province. A large, well-entrenched North Vietnamese Army force had pinned down the lead squad of his unit. Crescenz left a fairly safe position, grabbed a machine gun and charged two bunkers, killing the two men in each bunker. He then ran through heavy fire to a third bunker and killed the two men there. He was shot and killed as he approached a fourth bunker, but because of his actions the company eventually defeated the enemy unit. Crescenz had worked as a shipper for a parts distributor before enlisting in the Army in February 1968. He was shipped to Viet Nam in September 1968. He was survived by his parents and five brothers.

This article is taken from The Philadelphia Inquirer of November 26, 1968:

### VETERAN GRIEVES FOR BROTHER, 19, DEAD IN WAR

It was Monday evening, shortly after the wire machines, with a certain frantic economy, had tapped out the fact that Army PFC Michael J. Crescenz had died violently in Viet Nam. His brother, Charles, a Marine who had endured 13 months of the same kind of front line hell Michael had succumbed to, was talking about his dead brother. He was sitting in the living room of his parents' home at 7443 Thouron Ave. in West Oak Lane. His father, Charles M., was in another room. His mother was nearby, to be consulted when his memory failed.

KNEW IT WAS TOUGH

Charles, discharged from the Marine Corps in September, is 21. His brother, who didn't live long enough to get the discharge certificate, was 19. "I knew it was going to be tough when he went over," Charles said. "But this is one of those things you keep hoping won't happen." "You know, he was going to get married when he got out." Michael has four other brothers-Peter, 17; Joseph, 12; Stephen, 8, and Christopher, 7. Charles thought it was merciful that most of them are young as they are. "I think," he said, "that they are too young to realize."

TRAINED AT FORT BRAGG

PFC Crescenz, killed November 20 in a firefight midway between Saigon and Da Nang, joined the Army last February. He took his basic training at Fort Bragg, NC and was sent to Viet Nam two months ago. He graduated in 1966 from Cardinal Dougherty High School, where he played varsity baseball. Following graduation, he worked at the L. B. Smith C., a truck distributor. "He learned welding at the L. B. Smith Co. and I think he planned to go into that field when he got out," Charles recalled. "It was as much of a shock to me as it was to my parents," Charles said, after a pause. "I kept hoping he would be as fortunate as I was."

From a native Philadelphian and Marine, Jim McIlhenney christianamacks@comcast.net