Soldier of Fortune Magazine The Journal of Professional Adventurers
by Jose Campos
They knew the enemy was coming. On that day in March 1971, Army 1st Lt. Brian Miles Thacker and his seven-man team braced for the inevitable. But when the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) launched their assault, it was not a question of whether the firebase would fall – it was a question of the men’s survival.
A Doomed Stand
Perched in the mountainous border region of South Vietnam, Firebase 6 was a crucial artillery site supporting South Vietnamese forces. Thacker and his men, part of Battery A, 1st Battalion, 92nd Field Artillery Regiment, were responsible for coordinating deadly barrages against the enemy lurking in the valley below. But when the attack came, the knew it wasn’t a fight they could win.
“We knew early on that we weren’t going to be able to hold the firebase,” Thacker said years later. “We didn’t have enough people or the right weaponry to fight off the attack.”
The situation only grew worse.
“Our little oval that we called the firebase just kept shrinking and shrinking throughout the day,” Thacker later said in an interview for the Library of Congress.
Still, the men fought. For four harrowing hours, Thacker remained exposed, directing artillery and airstrikes with deadly precision. The firebase, once a formidable stronghold, was being swallowed—piece by bloody piece—by the advancing enemy. The South Vietnamese perimeter crumbled. Three Americans fell.
Helicopters swooped in for resupply – and were shot down. The surviving crew members joined the team on the firebase, fighting valiantly.
Into the Jungle
In the chaos, Thacker received chilling news: the NVA was regrouping for a final, overwhelming assault. There was only one choice. He ordered his men to escape, forcing them to undertake a perilous 1.5-mile journey through enemy-infested jungle. He, however, remained behind with a single mission: cover his men.
With a South Vietnamese machine gunner by his side, Thacker held the line as long as he could. But when the enemy surged forward, he made an unthinkable decision. If he could not stop them, he would destroy them. He called for artillery fire—on himself.
“The only coordinates I could give the firing battery that were valid were the coordinates of my own position,” he later recalled.
Explosions ripped through Firebase 6 as Thacker fled into the jungle. Alone, disoriented, he stumbled through the darkness until he found cover in a bamboo thicket. But his nightmare was far from over.
Trapped in Hiding
The jungle became his prison. An NVA anti-aircraft team set up mere feet from his hiding place. For eight grueling days, he lay motionless, starving, dehydrated, and on the brink of collapse. American gunships strafed the area, but he could do nothing except listen—listen to enemy troops murmuring, to gunfire cracking through the trees, to his own heartbeat slowing.
“I was growing weaker every day,” he later said. “When you’re in that condition, 10 meters is an eternity.”
On the eighth day, Thacker made his choice. He would die in the jungle or he would fight his way back. Inch by agonizing inch, he crawled through the undergrowth, his body ravaged by starvation. When he reached the firebase, he staggered toward the entrance—only to be greeted by stunned American troops who had presumed him dead.
The battle had ended. Firebase 6 was in U.S. hands. Thacker had survived the impossible.
The Aftermath
Thacker’s ordeal was far from over. Evacuation was impossible that day—NVA forces had intercepted U.S. communications and rained anti-aircraft fire on every attempted rescue. It wasn’t until the following morning that a medevac finally extracted him, rushing him to Pleiku Air Base and then to a hospital in Japan. His body was ravaged by dehydration and starvation, but his mission was accomplished: every man he had ordered to withdraw had made it out alive.
Thacker spent months in recovery. He never returned to his unit. Instead, he was sent home and discharged. But in October 1973, he was called to the White House. There, he received the Medal of Honor from President Richard M. Nixon.
Jose Campos covers security for Soldier of Fortune.
