Today: Remembering Milton Olive III

On this day in 1966, Milton Olive III became the first Black soldier awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War. He spent his early youth on Chicago’s South Side and then moved to Lexington, Miss., where he stayed with his grandparents. In 1964, he attended one of the Mississippi Freedom Schools, and he joined the work in Freedom Summer, registering Black voters. He joined the military on his 18th birthday after became an Army paratrooper. He served with the Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade. On Oct. 22, 1965, helicopters dropped the 3rd Platoon of Company B into a jungle near Saigon. They engaged and pursued Viet Cong. A grenade was thrown into the middle of them. Olive grabbed the grenade and fell on it, absorbing the blast with his body. “It was the most incredible display of selfless bravery I ever witnessed,” the platoon commander said. Then-President Lyndon Johnson presented the medal to Olive's father and stepmother. Since then, he's been honored with a park and a junior college named for him. (Mississippi Today 04/21/23) 1966: First Black soldier gets Congressional Medal - Mississippi Today