The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the

BRONZE STAR MEDAL with Combat "V" Posthumously to

            PRIVATE FIRST CLASS RICHARD F. NUGENT

                 UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS

For service as set forth in the following

    CITATION:

                   "For heroic achievement in connection with operations

against the enemy while serving with Company F, Second Battalion, First Marines, in the Republic of Vietnam on 28 February 1966, During Operation NEW YORK in the Thua Thien Province, Company F was engaged in open terrain by heavy machine un fire from an entrenched Viet Cong battalion. Realizing the seriousness of his company's situation, Private Nugent and two other men from his machine gun team attempted an assault across seventy meters of open terrain under intense enemy fire in order to destroy the enemy machine gun position. Although Private Nugent and another Marine were mortally wounded by the enemy fire concentrated at the three charging Marines, they distracted the enemy fire long enough to enable the rest of the company to advance to positions which enabled them to destroy the enemy machine gun. His courageous, aggressive assault initiated the company's forward movement that terminated in a devastating frontal assault which overran the Viet Cong positions and was in keeping with the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life in the cause of freedom."

                                         

                                             FOR THE PRESIDENT

V