Howard Lee, Medal of Honor recipient who led long-odds defense, dies at 85

Hurtling toward his fate, flying in a piston-engined helicopter above the jungles of central Vietnam, the 33-year-old Marine captain bowed his head in prayer. "If it's your will, I die tonight, fine," Howard Lee later recalled saying. "But if not, then just give me the courage to do what I have to do."

As the commander of a Marine company based at Dong Ha, a U.S. military base near the Vietnamese demilitarized zone, Lee had volunteered to rescue a beleaguered platoon that had embarked on a reconnaissance mission earlier that day, Aug. 8, 1966.

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Lee continued fighting despite being wounded by a grenade that left 15 pieces of shrapnel in his body and partly blinded him in one eye. He was later awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military decoration, and after retiring from the Marine Corps with the rank of lieutenant colonel he traded swords for plowshares, embarking on a horticultural career in which he rose to oversee landscaping for the city of Virginia Beach.

He was 85 when he died at his home there on March 23. His son Edward Lee confirmed the death but did not give a cause.

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