Medal of Honor Monday: Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Roy M. Wheat

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Roy Mitchell Wheat had only been in charge of a security team in Vietnam for two short months when he lost his life. His selfless actions, which involved throwing himself onto a landmine to keep his fellow Marines from being injured, led to a posthumous Medal of Honor.

Wheat was born on July 24, 1947, in Moselle, Mississippi. He was the first of four sons for J.C. and Stella Wheat, who worked as a heavy equipment operator and a seamstress, respectively.

The area in which Wheat grew up was rural, so he learned how to shoot guns early in his life and enjoyed hunting. He attended schools in Ellisville, Mississippi, but left high school after his sophomore year in 1965. He moved in with his aunt in Hattiesburg to work at a Winn-Dixie supermarket to earn money before enlisting in the Marine Corps in September 1966, as the Vietnam War was ramping up.

Wheat trained as an infantryman. About six months after he enlisted, he arrived in Vietnam and was assigned to duty as a rifleman with Company K of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division.

During his first five months in-country, Wheat's unit took part in numerous combat operations. He suffered a head wound from mortar shrapnel in April 1967 and had to be sent to recover on a hospital ship for a few days. That May, he suffered from a bout of dizziness from that same injury and briefly considered requesting a medical discharge, according to historical documents in a collection at the University of Southern Mississippi. However, Wheat quickly pushed that idea aside.

By June 1967, Wheat had been promoted to lance corporal and was chosen to lead a security team tasked with checking for booby traps ahead of other troops. Wheat was injured a second time on July 30 by a hand grenade that exploded near him, lodging shrapnel into his right thigh that doctors weren't able to remove.

Wheat returned to his unit on Aug. 8. Three days later, he made the ultimate sacrifice for his fellow Marines.

On Aug. 11, 1967 - two weeks after Wheat turned 20 - he and two other Marines, Lance Cpl. Bernard Cannon and Pfc. Vernon Sorenson, were providing security for a Navy construction battalion crane and its crew along a road in the Dien Ban district of Quang Nam Province.

After the trio set up their security positions in a treeline adjacent to the work site, Wheat scouted the area behind them to check for possible insurgents. Upon his return, he got within 10 feet of the security position when he unintentionally stepped on a concealed landmine. It was the type of explosive that fired a grenade-like mine into the air before exploding and showering deadly shrapnel over a large distance, historians said.

According to Wheat's Medal of Honor citation, all three Marines immediately heard a hissing sound indicative of a burning time fuse. Wheat quickly shouted a warning to Cannon and Sorenson before throwing himself on top of the mine, absorbing the explosion with his body.

Within just a few seconds, Wheat showed extraordinary valor by giving his life to save his fellow Marines from injury or death. For that selflessness, he was bestowed a posthumous Medal of Honor, which his family received during a ceremony at Marine Barracks Washington, D.C., on Sept. 23, 1968. Cannon and Sorenson, whose lives Wheat saved, attended the ceremony and met with Wheat's family.

"Roy's death was hard on my parents," the fallen Marine's brother, Dale Wheat, told the Hattiesburg American newspaper in 2002. "They never got over it. I don't think any of us ever got over it."

Wheat is buried in Eastabuchie Baptist Church Cemetery in Eastabuchie, Mississippi. A memorial was established there in 1974 to honor him.

According to the University of Southern Mississippi, Wheat was the only person from Mississippi to receive the Medal of Honor for actions during the Vietnam War.

He has certainly not been forgotten. A street was named for Wheat on Marine Corps Air Station Yuma in 1979, as was a dining facility at Meridian Naval Air Station in Mississippi in 1985. Wheat's medals, including the Medal of Honor, are on display in a memorial at that location. In 1994, a Hattiesburg post office was renamed in his honor.

Finally, the cargo ship USNS LCPL Roy M. Wheat - originally built in the Soviet Union and bought by the Navy in 1997 - was put into service in October 2003 and used by the Military Sealift Command. It remained in service until 2021.