To save more than 70 wounded soldiers during the Battle of Ia Drang, a pilot flew 22 missions into a landing zone under such intense fire that he had to switch helicopters three times. Colonel Bruce Crandall, the Medal of Honor recipient whose valor was immortalized on the silver screen, died on May 31, 2026, at the age of 93.

On November 14, 1965, the air at Landing Zone X-Ray was thick with the scent of burning vegetation and the deafening rhythm of Huey rotors. As the commander of Company A, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, Crandall faced a choice that would define his life. When the landing zone became so volatile with enemy fire that further medical evacuation flights were ordered to cease, Crandall refused to abandon the men on the ground. He volunteered to continue the missions, leading a flight of two helicopters to provide ammunition and extract the mounting casualties. Over the course of that day, he flew 22 separate missions into the meat grinder of the battle, eventually exhausting two helicopters that were disabled by enemy fire and moving to a third to finish the job.

The technical precision Crandall displayed at Ia Drang was a skill set he had been refining since his commissioning as an officer in 1954. After graduating from Engineer Officer Candidate School at Fort Belvoir, he spent years as a pilot and instructor conducting topographic mapping missions across Libya, Panama, and Costa Rica. According to the U.S. Army, these missions required a level of focus that mirrored his early life in Olympia, Washington. As the son of a Navy serviceman and a welder, Crandall had originally envisioned a future defined by the crack of a bat rather than the thump of a rotor. He was a high school All-American baseball player who dreamed of being drafted by the New York Yankees, eventually attending the University of Washington on a baseball scholarship before the Army draft redirected his path. Even as he flew through enemy fire in 1965, he remained the athlete who had once dominated the fields of his youth.

His transition from an All-American athlete to the gritty "Snake" persona of the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion was marked by a relentless commitment to his fellow soldiers. War correspondent Joseph Galloway described him as the bravest, craziest, and funniest helicopter pilot he had ever met in 43 years of reporting. This reputation was built over 900 combat missions during two tours in Vietnam. In 1966, he received the Aviation and Space Writers Association's first Helicopter Heroism Award for a rescue mission, further cementing his status as a pilot who would go where others could not. His combat career only concluded in January 1968 when his helicopter was shot down during a rescue attempt, an event that resulted in a broken back.

The long journey from the smoke of Ia Drang to the quiet of the White House took more than four decades. Following his retirement from the Army in 1977 as a Lieutenant Colonel, Crandall applied his leadership to civilian life, serving as the City Manager of Dunsmuir, California, and the Public Works Manager of Mesa, Arizona. He once joked that his military career made him extremely well qualified to handle "horse sh*t," a skill he claimed was essential for dealing with both superior officers and city administration. His story reached a new generation in 2002 through the film We Were Soldiers, which featured actor Greg Kinnear in the role of the pilot. This cultural resurgence helped pave the way for his 2007 Medal of Honor. As noted by The American Presidency Project, President George W. Bush presented the award 41 years after the battle, a ceremony that coincided with Crandall's promotion to Colonel.

Crandall never viewed his actions as extraordinary, insisting that he and his crew "just did our job." He maintained a deep sense of responsibility for the men on the ground, treating their safety as his primary mission regardless of the personal cost. While he was honored in 2003 when his former high school named its baseball field "Crandall Field," he remained a man who valued the lives he saved over the accolades he received. He will be remembered as the pilot who refused to stay away when the fire was hottest, a leader who understood that his greatest achievement was not the medals on his chest, but the seventy men who made it home because he kept flying.