Irby Dyer III

Service & Sacrifice

Irby Dyer III was born on June 12, 1943, in Sweetwater, Texas, and grew up in Midland. He enlisted in the United States Army and served with the Special Forces as a medic assigned to Detachment B-52, Project Delta, 5th Special Forces Group.

On December 2, 1966, a long-range reconnaissance patrol led by MSG Russell P. Bott and SFC Willie E. Stark was in desperate trouble approximately one and a half miles inside Laos, west of the Demilitarized Zone. The team had been discovered by elements of the 325B NVA Division, and a two-day running battle had left them nearly out of ammunition with multiple wounded.

A UH-1D Iroquois from the 281st Assault Helicopter Company was dispatched from Khe Sanh to attempt extraction. SGT Dyer volunteered to go aboard as the medic to treat the wounded when they reached the team. The helicopter was one of seven aircraft in the recovery attempt.

As the Iroquois approached the landing zone at low altitude, it came under intense automatic weapons fire. A rocket-propelled grenade or heavy automatic weapons fire struck the aircraft, causing it to lose control. The helicopter descended in a nose-down position and crashed, killing all five men aboard. SGT Dyer was 23 years old.

When a team returned to the crash site ten days later, the remains had been horribly mutilated by the enemy. Subsequent U.S. bombing further destroyed the site. Identifiable remains of three crew members were recovered, but those of SGT Dyer and one crew member were not. He remains unaccounted for.