As a teenager, Bruce Crandall loved baseball.

An All-American baseball player for Olympia High School, Crandall will tell you his batting average was three times higher than his grade point average, and that the only thing he wanted was to be drafted.

He got his wish.

"I wasn't drafted by the New York Yankees or the Chicago Cubs, I was drafted by the U.S. Army," he recalled. "I did not have to go, because I was in the National Guard, but I wanted to play professional baseball and thought I should get my service over with."

However, shortly after he was drafted, he threw a hand grenade and tore a rotator cuff, dashing his hopes of ever playing professional baseball.

Baseball's loss was the Army's gain.

After first serving as an enlisted soldier for a short time, Crandall attended Officers Candidate School.  He learned to fly fixed wing aircraft and helicopters.  In 1965, he was sent to An Khe, Vietnam, where he served as the commanding officer of Company A, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion.

For his efforts in the Battle of Ia Drang Valley, Crandall received the Medal of Honor. Forty-five-years later, Crandall, age 77, continues to serve his country.  In an attempt to address the rising number of suicides among active duty military, Crandall and 29 other living Medal of Honor recipients have joined together in a public service campaign called Medal of Honor -Speak Out! urging servicemembers to seek help before it's too late.

"All of us that hold the award are on the same wave link when it comes to our troops returning from combat," said Crandall, who resides in Washington with Arlene, his wife of 54 years.  "They need to understand that combat is not the only source of stress in our lives. Each person faces it differently.  The key for each of them is to seek the help they need rather than bottling up their problems inside. Their families need to understand their part in addressing problems of the returning vets. Most of us have done "spots" trying to get the message out that getting help is not a sign of weakness or any deficiency on their part. They would never look at their friends or fellow soldiers critically for seeking help and they should give themselves the same standard."

Crandall is no stranger to the stresses caused by the violence and destruction of war, though his story dates back about 45 years ago.

Like D-Day for World War II veterans, the date that lays engrained in Crandall's head is November 14, 1965.  On that day, Crandall's flight of 16 helicopters was lifting troops of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry into an isolated area near the Cambodian border known as Landing Zone (LZ) X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley.  Intended to be routine, the mission became the first major battle between a U.S. unit and a large North Vietnamese combat force. The battle was later dramatized in the film, We Were Soldiers.

"The enemy firing from within the landing zone wounded or killed a number of those on the assaulting aircraft, some before they could exit. Crandall's aircraft exited the battlefield with three dead and three wounded.  Due to the intense fire, the infantry commander closed the LZ to further helicopter operations. Crandall, recognizing that the American forces desperately needed ammunition and were taking heavy casualties asked for another volunteer crew to fly with his to the aid of the besieged Battalion. Captain Ed "Too Tall" Freeman stepped forward and the two helicopters returned to the fray.  In the first 14 hours of the 3-day battle, Crandall made 22 flights into the LZ in his unarmed helicopter, most of them after the ground commander had closed the LZ and medical evacuation helicopters had refused to fly missions due to the intense ground fire. On some of his passes, Crandall could see North Vietnamese soldiers just beyond his rotor blades. He kept coming back into the heavy enemy fire because he knew there was only a "magic hour" to get badly wounded soldiers off the battlefield and into medical treatment. During the day and into the night Crandall and his wingman evacuated more than 70 wounded and delivered the ammunition and supplies that kept the Americans from being overrun," said an excerpt from Crandall's Medal of Honor biography.

Almost as miraculous as his flights into the war zone that November day, was the way that Crandall dealt with his wartime experiences. He recalled one incident that was highlighted in the book, We Were Soldiers Once...and Young, by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.) and Joseph L.  Galloway.

"When we hit the ground at Plei Me we were met by medics and the Infantry troops still waiting to be lifted into X-Ray.  They removed the dead and wounded from my bird-and this act is engraved in my mind deeper than any other experience in my two tours in Vietnam.  A huge black enlisted man, clad only in shorts and boots, hands bigger than dinner plates, reached into my helicopter to pick up one of the dead white soldiers.  He had tears streaming down his face and he tenderly cradled that dead soldier to his chest as he walked slowly from the aircraft to the medical station.  I never knew if the man he picked up was his buddy or not.  I suspect not.  His grief was for a fallen comrade and for the agony that violent death brings to those who witness it," Crandall said in the book.

The servicemember impressed Crandall because he was showing the love, compassion, and camaraderie soldiers feel towards each other in combat, he said.

Crandall served two tours of duty in Vietnam. In January 1968, he was badly wounded during another rescue attempt.  He returned home after more than 900 combat missions in Vietnam, and spent months in Madigan Army Medical Center where he said he received top notch medical care.  He continued to serve in the Army until his retirement as a lieutenant colonel in 1977. (He was promoted belatedly, to colonel, in April 2010).

On February 26, 2007, Crandall was the last of the servicemembers (Lt. Joe Marme 1966; and Capt. Ed Freeman, 2001) from the battle of Ia Drang to receive the Medal of Honor.

Although Crandall and Ed Freeman's names were submitted together in 1999, Crandall withdrew his name to ensure that Freeman would get the medal, he said.

"I was worried that they would only give one Medal of Honor for that battle, and I thought Ed Freeman deserved it," Crandall said. "I was the commander, it was my duty. Ed was the only person that volunteered to fly with me. He was the bravest man I have ever known."

So how does Crandall deal with the death and destruction he saw in Vietnam?  He never looked at things as being life or death situations, and he kept his sense of humor, he said.