Jesse L. Hancock

Service & Sacrifice

Sergeant First Class Jesse L. Hancock served with Detachment B-52, Project Delta, 5th Special Forces Group. He was assigned to Recon Team CAPITOL during Operation 2-66.

SFC Hancock had only recently arrived in the unit. The An Lao Valley operation was his first deployment with Project Delta, and his first time on the ground in a combat patrol with the elite reconnaissance teams.

On January 29, 1966, RT CAPITOL came under devastating enemy fire in the An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province. SFC Hancock was among the four members of the six-man team killed that day when they were engaged by a superior Viet Cong force. The valley had been under total enemy control since 1958, and Project Delta would later record this as one of their worst disasters of the war.