(In photo above, Myron Harrington uses a radio during the assault on Dong Ba tower during the Battle of Huế in 1968.)
The Relic Room lost a friend, and the whole country lost a hero – a great American – on Feb. 19, when Col. Myron Harrington, USMC-Ret., passed away at the age of 86.
He died 57 years to the month after then-Capt. Harrington – the brand-new commanding officer of Delta Company, First Battalion, Fifth Marines – and his men distinguished themselves during the Battle of Huế, possibly the fiercest battle of the war in Vietnam, during the Tet Offensive.
The captain himself received the Navy Cross for his leadership in February 1968. Here’s what his citation said:
“Continuously moving from one position to another, he pinpointed enemy emplacements and skillfully directed the fire of his men. After silencing four hostile positions, he requested supporting arms fire and skillfully adjusted 60-mm. mortar fire to within twenty-five meters of the forward elements of his company, while simultaneously adjusting artillery fire. Disregarding his own safety, Captain Harrington then fearlessly maneuvered to the point of heaviest contact and, rallying his men, boldly led a determined assault against the enemy soldiers…. Largely due to his resolute determination and intrepid fighting spirit, his men overran the hostile positions and routed the North Vietnamese soldiers, accounting for twenty-five enemy soldiers confirmed killed.”
The Relic Room was honored to have Col. Harrington as our Lunch and Learn guest speaker on two occasions, in 2022 and 2023. He shared his experience over a full career of service, including those horrific days during Tet. Here is a video of his second appearance.
We were also pleased for a time to have his combat fatigues from that time, displayed as part of the extensive exhibit that fills the Cistern Gallery, “A War With No Front Lines: South Carolina and the Vietnam War, 1965-1973.” The photo below this article shows Harrington with his wife and daughter in front of the uniform, before the Relic Room had to return it to the Charleston Museum.
His heroism was not something the colonel went around boasting about. Retired Marine Col. Thomas Gordon, the commandant of the Citadel (Harrington was a 1960 graduate of the military college), told the online publication Task & Purpose:
“The colonel asked me to plan his final arrangements, and I’ve been busy doing that. He was a lifelong member of St. Phillips, which is an old congregation in downtown Charleston, and as we were having this conversation with parishioners there, some of the people didn’t know Colonel Harrington was a Marine. I mean, here he is, one of the top three decorated alumnus here at the Citadel and in Charleston, right? And people didn’t even know he was in the Marine Corps, just because of his humble nature.”
But we know, and we will always honor him for his humility as well as his heroism.
“I asked him several times about his awards and he almost wouldn’t talk about them,” said Fritz Hamer, the Relic Room’s former curator of history. “He would skirt over them. He focused on leading his men, especially at the Citadel, to retake it, and, you know, regretting the loss of several of his men. And that’s about all I could get out of that interview.”
But if you ask his men or his commanders, they’ll tell you how extraordinary he was.
Harrington once told of an order he received from Maj. Bob Thompson during the Battle of Huế. “He looked at me, and he said, ‘Tomorrow, Delta Company will take the tower.’ He didn’t say, ‘well, try to take it,’ or ‘I want you to go and see what you can do.’ He said, ‘you’ll take the tower tomorrow.’ And I said, ‘aye, aye, sir.’”
Harrington and Delta Company took the tower. Later, Thompson told an interviewer about a conversation he had the next day. “I was talking to his gunnery sergeant the next morning. He called me over to the side, and he says, ‘you know, my captain was magnificent last night.’”
And so he was.
Harrington with his wife and daughter next to his Vietnam uniform after speaking in 2023.
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