Henry J. Gallant

Service & Sacrifice

Henry Joseph Gallant was born on September 30, 1929, and entered the United States Army from Tampa, Florida. He served with the Special Forces and was assigned to Detachment B-52, Project Delta, 5th Special Forces Group, as an advisor to South Vietnamese reconnaissance units.

MSG Gallant was among the earliest members of Project Delta, serving during the unit's formative period when it was still developing the operational techniques that would make it one of the most effective reconnaissance units of the war.

On July 13, 1965, MSG Gallant and SFC Fred Taylor were serving as Special Forces advisors to a South Vietnamese unit on a reconnaissance mission in Dien Bien Province. During the patrol, the team was engaged by a hostile force. In the fighting, MSG Gallant was wounded, though the severity of his injuries was not immediately clear.

The two Americans became separated from the bulk of their ARVN unit. They were last seen moving southwest into the surrounding jungle, with Taylor, the uninjured man, assisting the wounded Gallant as they attempted to evade the enemy. Extensive air and ground searches were conducted over the following ten days but failed to locate either soldier.

MSG Gallant was declared Missing in Action. He was 35 years old. He remains unaccounted for. His name is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial and on the USASOC Memorial Wall at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.