DETROIT – His fellow soldiers called him John Wayne, but he says he was simply completing his mission.
A local war hero is finally getting our country's top honor.
Charles Kettles, 86, said he remembers every detail of his time spent serving in Vietnam like it was yesterday.
"Yes, the pilots later renamed it Chump Valley," Kettles said. "Chump Valley, because they said only a chump would go in there."
For the retired lieutenant colonel from Ypsilanti, one particular day stands out in particular.
"The mission lasted from about 0930 in the morning until late in the evening," he said. "Some 160 troops were in service ... That's the helicopter I flew normally, but it was in maintenance the day of the 15th of May. So it was saved. We went through 19 helicopters between the two units that day."
On May 15, 1967, Kettles served as a helicopter commander and saved more than 40 soldiers left behind during an ambush.
"The reason they got left behind is they had been putting a last-ditch defensive effort protecting the troops that were loaded," Kettles said. "And they didn't get up to the helicopters before we had departed.
They came under intense enemy fire. In the middle of the firefight, Kettles volunteered to lead a helicopter flight back into the battlefield to help rescue injured soldiers, leading a flight of six evacuation helicopters, and flew them all back to safety.
"They were terribly outnumbered," Kettles said. "Each time we took out troops. We even took out the dead. At the end of the day, there were only 44 remaining. Four of them were people from my own platoon. They had taken a moat around from the mass to the helicopter. It burned in place."
Kettles said he steered his chopper -- riddled with bullet holes -- through enemy fire, even as fighters aimed at the windshield and shrapnel tore through the cockpit.
"But shrapnel went up through the cock pit and, as I later learned, struck those who had just loaded on the board with me," he said.
Without considering his own safety, Kettles returned to the landing zone to rescue any remaining troops.
"I took the control back over to my co-pilot and the crew chief said, 'They are all on board,'" Kettles said. "So I told them to take it out."
Kettles told his brigade commander he didn't want any recognition.
"Frankly, if nothing had ever happened, the Distinguished Service Cross or the Medal of Honor, when I walked away from the helicopter at the end of that day, I was satisfied that I had led the mission properly," Kettles said.
But now, nearly 50 years later, President Barack Obama gave Kettles the Medal of Honor at a ceremony at the White House.
Kettles said nearly all nine of his children and 10 grandchildren made the trip to Washington for the ceremony. He said they were more excited about the award than he was.