MY HERO: I Lost a Brother but Gained a Bunch of New Ones

This Memorial Day, the brother of a Medal of Honor recipient reflects on how some good emerged from a Vietnam tragedy

Douglas Rogers,

AARP Veteran Report

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Published May 25, 2023

a collage of members of a military family

Photo Illustration: AVR Staff; (Source: Casemate Publishers)

One Saturday morning in late November 1968, 12-year-old Joe Crescenz answered a knock on the door of the family home in northwest Philadelphia.

Joe’s mother Mary Ann was frying eggs in the kitchen, his father Charles was shaving upstairs. His father shouted down, “Who is it?” When Joe answered — “It’s a man from the Army” — the frying pan crashed to the floor.

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His mother knew what the knock at the door meant.

Cpl. Michael Crescenz, 19, the second of six sons of Mary Ann and Charles, had been killed in a gun battle on Nui Chom Mountain in Vietnam on November 20, 1968. Michael had been in-country for only two months. His older brother, Charlie, a Marine combat vet, had just returned from a tour.

“Our lives changed forever that day,” Joe, now 67 and still living in Pennsylvania, told AARP Veteran Report. “My mother walked on eggshells after that. She never fully recovered.”

And yet, incredibly, for all the grief, heartache and loss, Joe believes that a lot of good came out of the tragedy.

These and other stories are recounted in a powerful new book, No Greater Love: The Story of Michael Crescenz, Philadelphia’s Only Medal of Honor Recipient of the Vietnam War, by John A. Siegfried and Kevin Ferris (Casemate, 2022).

It was with another knock on the door — 14 months later, in 1970 — that an Army officer informed the Crescenz family that they had been invited to the White House for a ceremony to award Michael a posthumous Medal of Honor.

Slowly, the full story of what Michael did in Vietnam that day began to be unfold. “All those months after his death, we had no idea what he had done,” recalled Joe.

With Michael’s unit pinned down by enemy fire and with two point men dead, he had grabbed a machine gun and charged 100 meters up the hill, taking out two enemy bunkers. When intense machine gun fire erupted from a camouflaged bunker, he charged that one too.

Michael was within five meters of the bunker when he was mortally wounded. But according to the citation, “As a direct result of his heroic actions, his company was able to maneuver freely with minimal danger and to complete its mission, defeating the enemy.”

Joe said, “He was always helping others, as our parents and our faith instructed us.”

Years later, members of his brother’s Army unit got in touch with Joe, and he formed lifelong friendships with them. Many of them had no idea Michael had been awarded the Medal of Honor.

Joe, whose research and connections to Michael’s old unit helped make the book happen, provided a foreword.

“A lot has happened since then,” he writes. “Your five brothers grew up, got married, had families and got to live full lives. Mom, Dad, Charlie and Pete are gone, but you already knew that. Philly, our West Oak Lane neighborhood, our St. Athanasius Parish are all so different.

“Two things that have not changed are how much I miss you and how proud I am to have you for my brother. As painful as it was to lose you, the brother I idolized, a lot of good has come of it. I may have lost one brother, but I have gained a whole bunch of new ones.

“The men that you saved on that final day of your life have gone on to have children and grandchildren of their own. These men are my brothers now. ... You have inspired more people in more ways than you could have ever imagined.”

Joe formed strong bonds with Bill “Doc” Stafford, the medic in his brother’s unit, and Lt. Col. Sam Wetzel, the battalion commander, who recommended Michael for the Medal of Honor.

In 2010, the Vietnam veterans association in Philadelphia began the process of getting the Philadelphia VA Medical Center renamed the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

That happened in 2015, and now an eight-foot bronze statue honoring Michael is part of the Philadelphia Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

When Joe initiated the process of getting his brother’s body exhumed from Holy Sepulchre Cemetery outside Philadelphia and moved to Arlington National Cemetery, where it is today, more of Michael’s old unit got in touch.

“I had the contacts and the information, but it was his fellow veterans who did this, who told his story, his brothers-in-arms, friendships forged in fire,” Joe said. “They are the heroes.”

No Greater Love: The Story of Michael Crescenz, Philadelphia’s Only Medal of Honor Recipient of the Vietnam War, by John A. Siegfried and Kevin Ferris is published by Casemate.

You can subscribe here to AARP Veteran Report, a free e-newsletter published every two weeks. If you have feedback or a story idea then please contact us here.

Do you have a veteran hero whose story might be a MY HERO story in AARP Veteran Report? If so, please contact our editors here.

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Douglas Rogers is an author, travel writer and journalist with more than 20 years of experience writing for the world’s leading magazines and newspapers. Born and raised in Zimbabwe, he has lived in Johannesburg, London, New York and Washington D.C.

MY HERO: I Lost a Brother but Gained a Bunch of New Ones

This Memorial Day, the brother of a Medal of Honor recipient reflects on how some good emerged from a Vietnam tragedy

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