Eugene Lang
Born in Bakonytamasi, Hungary, following the Second World War, Eugene Lang’s early years set a lasting foundation for his future service in the United States Army. The older of two boys, Eugene and his family lived on a farm in the quaint little town.
While his father worked in the city and commuted home by motorcycle on the weekend, Eugene described his family’s home saying “We had many animals - dogs, horses, cows, pigs, chickens and all the animals that you can imagine. It was a small house with no indoor plumbing, a barn, pig pens, out-house and all other things you needed to survive. I enjoyed that life. It was a thrill driving a team of horses, but I had to be tied to the seat of the wagon. I was young and if the horses pulled their heads forward I would go flying of the wagon. Driving a team of oxen I just had to know how to use a whip.”
Around the age of 5, Lang’s family moved into the city of Gyor. Because of Communist rule at the time, Lang’s father paid a family to live at their house so the property would not be confiscated. In the city, Lang’s outdoor living was replaced by an apartment that the family shared with another couple and their children. As Lang would later describe it, “We had a living room and a bedroom. A kitchen had a working bath tub, and the commode was in another room. Apartments were difficult to get and the building we lived in was still in one piece” - a rarity because many of the city’s buildings were destroyed by bombs during the war.
During that time, Lang, his brother and mother would make trips to Budapest where they would stay with one of my father's brothers' family. Tragically, during one such trip Lang’s mother passed away during the night, likely a result of an illness she had suffered from time in a concentration camp.
Lang later lamented that he and his brother were not allowed to go to the funeral and after the funeral the boys returned Gyor with a series of nannies taking care of the boys.
As Eugene described it, “Everything was quiet until I was in the middle of the fourth grade in 1956. I was 9 years old at the time. The Hungarians wanted the Russians out. I remember going to the local prison and forcing them to open the gates. We went inside to see for ourselves that there were no prisoners. As we entered the gates the gallows were in front of us with three ropes hanging over the top. After leaving the prison, the men tore down some statues. We thought the Russians were leaving but in the middle of the night they came back with the Army. There was a tank on every corner and troops on every street.”
Communist rule made conditions harsh and food was especially difficult to get. Lang’s parents would get in line at 3:00 a.m. hoping to be able to buy food, most of the time with no luck. His uncle had a contract, so he was able to get meat. To help others, Lang and his brother became runners. They would take remove the books from their school backpacks and place meat or other goods in the bags and cover it with their books. The boys were told where to take the bags, and if they were stopped, they were instructed to say “that we were going to our friend's house to study.” Land said he and his brother, “ were lucky. With all the runs we made, we were never stopped. If we had been discovered, our parents would have been arrested.“
As conditions grew worse, Lang’s parents decided it was time to leave. The family packed their book bags with some clothes and his uncle stayed behind in case they were captured and needed a place to return to. A taxi was hired to take them to the border. Lang recalled that, ”after each mile or so, there was a tank with solders and AK47s. I was nine years old at the time. Looking down the cannon of a tank and a barrel of an AK can be scary. Eventually we made it to the safe house. We stayed there till night, when someone came to get us. We were told to stay quiet and further instructions would be given to us. We left with a man we didn't know. He took us through the back alleys for a short time. He stopped and made some kind of sound which was returned by an identical sound. My father gave him money. This continued till we got to the woods.” Picked up by another guide, the family was given “another set of rules. If they fired a flare into the air, we were to hit the ground. If they fired a machine gun, we were again to hit the ground. We were to keep quiet at all times. He also knew where the Russians laid the land mines that day. We started going through the field. My brother and I were both scared. We kept going till we saw an Austrian flag in the ground. At this point our guide would not go any further. He pointed to a light that we were to head toward. He said stay in the woods for another half hour then turn left, and go to the road. When we got to the road I was able hear every step we took. Now I was even more scared. We kept going until we reached a guard house and my father asked for political asylum. From there we were sent to a school house auditorium where there were more Hungarian refugees.”
After initially being told that the family would need to stay in Austria for up to a year before being able to seek asylum in the United States, the Lang’s were able to come to New York two weeks later because Eugene’s father had a sister who was already living in the Bronx. After arriving in the U.S., Eugene’s father went to work for the City and Eugene and his brother enrolled in school.
Upon turning 18, Eugene became an American citizen, but because of health issues a few years earlier he was told he was not likely to be drafted. He enrolled in college to study electrical engineering before getting a job with the New York Telephone Company. However, at his second meeting with the Draft Board, Eugene was drafted and sent to Fort Jackson for basic training.
From there, PFC Lang was sent to Ft. Dix, New Jersey, and trained on the 81 MM mortar and the Colt 45 pistol. There he met my life-long buddy, James Hicks. The two young men went through the training together before being transferred to Augsburg, Germany. Assigned to the 24th Division, both men were there from December 1967 until March of 1968.
As Lang described it, “That is when the Army felt that anyone with over a year of service remaining should be transferred to a warmer climate.” Lang and his compatriots were given a two week leave. Lang later reflected that, “when I knocked on my father's door in The Bronx, he was surprised to see me.” Lang said, “I told him I would be home for two weeks, then report to Ft. Lewis in Seattle, Washington, and be introduced to an M16, since I had never seen one, and then a two-day jungle training. What a waste.”
On March 30, 1968 Lang shipped out for Vietnam, arriving in country on April 1, 1968, in Cam Ranh Bay. Even five decades later, Lang still remembers “the horrible smell when they opened the aircraft door.” There he was assigned to the 1st Air Cavalry Division.
The first stop was at An Khe, where the men were given their M16s, and received further training. Lang later reflected that “We had to learn how to repel out of a helicopter, and then we joined our company at Khe Sahn, for operation Pegasus. When we arrived, we were assigned to the mortar platoon and immediately issued three 81MM mortar rounds and a pack board, which weighed around 40 lbs. We carried the ammunition all day.” When the company decided to set up for the night, we left the rounds with the gun and went on to the perimeter to dig our fox holes. Lang and his fellow Company members patrolled around Khe Shan, where they encountered a number of major battles. Thinking back on the experience, Lang said “I remember one night it was so dark I was not able to see my hands in front of my face. I sat in my fox hole with my finger on the trigger and the selector switch on my M16 on automatic. We were attacked that night on the other side of the perimeter. They got within three feet of the fox holes. We were lucky that the third man managed to trip the trip flare which gave them away. After a heavy fire fight, the NVA withdrew from the conflict. They left their dead and one wounded man behind. The wounded man was shot through the buttocks. He spoke better English than I did.”
Lang’s company later moved to fire base called LZ Snapper. All the extra men from the mortar platoon were sent down to assist the line platoons, and Lang was set up with three other men in a bunker. “We each had a thousand rounds for our M16 and each of us had a case of hand grenades. We were ready for a major attack. On an average day we received 100+ incoming artillery round from what I believe was the Ho Chi Min Trail.”
On May 9, 1968, Lang was ordered to leave the bunker and go to the top of the hill. “I had to go about two hundred feet. Each time I moved, there were more incoming rounds. When I was almost at the top I was attacked by a big black dog that belonged to a platoon from another company.” At first Lang started swinging the butt of my rifle, but that didn't stop the dog. At that point, as he raised his rifle and was going to shoot the dog men from the other company saw what was going on and called the dog off.
Lang said he “was on the hill less than five minutes when more incoming rounds came in. I was too far from a foxhole, so I hit the ground and started to crawl. Then I felt something hit me. I continued crawling until I got to a hole and told my buddy that I thought I was hit. He pulled me in and started yelling for the medic.”
The medic patched Lang up and put him on his back to carry him down the hill. Unfortunately for Lang, who should come after him but the same black dog. Fortunately for him, this time the guys grabbed the dog and stopped it. Lang was transported by helicopter to a Marine base at Dong Ha.
Lang later shared, “He [the doctor] asked me how well I could take pain. Before I was able to respond he started digging. He removed most of the shrapnel and told me to hold out my hand, gave me the shrapnel and walked away. I called to him and said how about the hole in my leg that was the size of a fifty-cent piece. He turned to the medic told him to bandage me up.”
Lang was returned to the field, where the field medic changed my bandages several times because I was oozing pus – a condition that would continue for a month. Lang’s company then went on to operate by the DMZ in the sand. Lang described the experience as “not a pleasant experience.”
“We happened to set up by a trail that the NVA used to bring their men across to South Vietnam. We had many firefights. We were finally allowed to move due to the horrible smell of the deceased. We moved into the rice paddies,” said Lang. As time went on, Lang’s company received a new lieutenant who requested to be in charge of the mortar platoon, since he was the senior lieutenant.
“The captain didn't like this,” Lang said. “Next thing I know we were told we are going on a squad-size ambush. There would be nine of us, including the medic. Now I was really scared. Members of the mortar platoon had never been on an ambush, as I was told by the other men in the platoon. Since we didn't have a machine gun, our fire power was the 81 MM mortar.” Lang’s platoon managed to borrow an M60 machine gun and a few thousand rounds from one of the line platoons.
Recalling the incident years later, Lang said, “When the Captain found out, he made us give it back. Many months later I found out why the machine gun was taken away from us. One of our line platoons was overrun. The NVA captured their medic and took away their M60. They did kill the medic with the M60. Now the Captain’s request for a new medic was no problem. But to request a new M60 he had to write a letter and explain how the M60 was lost. He was not happy about this.”
“So there we were - eight men plus the medic going out on the ambush. We were scared,” Lang said. “Most of us were fairly new in country and had never been on an ambush. Once it became dark, we fixed bayonets and moved out to the ambush. The guys who stayed back said either there will be nine dead men or nine heroes that night. When we reached our ambush site, Hicks and I were told to cover the rear, and take the medic with us. We found a mound and set up for the night. In front of us about 20 feet out was elephant grass. We both turned our M16 on full automatic and laid out our hand grenades. We were scared and ready for anything. All night long the medic kept saying that he smelled the enemy coming. We were deciding if we should open up on the grass in front of us or throw hand grenades, but that would have given our position away. We just laid on the mound with our finger on the trigger, ready to fire.”
“By now both of us could smell that horrible odor. Not till the next morning did we realize that we were laying on a dead body that the locals managed to throw some dirt on. That was our first ambush but not the last.” It would take another 44 years before Lang would be awarded the Purple Heart for his wounds suffered on that fateful day.
After the war, Lang returned home, re-enrolled in college and resumed his work with the Phone Company. Because of unpopularity with the war effort, Lang hid his status as a Vietnam veteran for the next few decades - with the exception of a mild skirmish with an anti-war protester on his college campus. Only in 1990, following the U.S. war in Iraq, did Lang begin to pursue his Purple Heart medal. He collected affidavits from fellow soldiers and applied for the award with the Army. Despite slow progress with the Army, Lang continued to push to try and receive the award he had earned while in combat. Eventually, a friend connected him with Col. Donald Singer, a Peekskill lawyer and retired Army Colonel who also served as a brigadier general in the Army National Guard.
With Singer’s help, and thanks to news coverage from former Journal News reporter Richard Liebson, Lang’s case caught the attention of staff for U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer. Through Singer’s advocacy to the the Army Board for Correction of Military Records, and Schumer personal request to Army Secretary John McHugh to examine the case, Lang was presented with the Purple Heart for his service and sacrifice during his time in Vietnam on August 30, 2012.
Watch Eugene Lang tell his story in his own words here: