His actions on a day in March 1967 still have a profound impact on his colleagues.
"There's a bunch of guys walking around today who wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him," Leonard McElroy said of fighting alongside McNerney in Vietnam. He said the Soldiers of A Company were in awe of him.
"We treated him like he was our father," said McElroy, of Mission. "He treated us like we were his kids."
McNerney was born June 2, 1931, in Lowell, Mass. His family later moved to Houston, where he graduated from St. Thomas High School in 1949.
First Sgt. McNerney had already served two combat tours in 1966 when he was assigned to a company of green infantrymen at Fort Lewis, Wash.
"His job was to train us for Vietnam but he wasn't going with us," said Sam Ponsoll, from Danville, Ky.,who served with McNerney in A Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment. By pulling enough strings with the 4th Infantry Division brass, though, McNerney eventually received orders to accompany "his boys" into combat.
Men had faith in him
In March 1967, the company of fewer than 100 Soldiers was attacked by a much larger force near the Central Highlands village of Polei Doc.
McNerney dashed through a hail of gunfire and took charge after learning that the company's commander and artillery forward observer had been killed. Although wounded by a North Vietnamese grenade, McNerney wiped out a machine-gun position and called artillery fire to within 20 meters of his own position to repulse the waves of enemy soldiers threatening to overrun the U.S. lines.
All the while, McNerney continued moving throughout the company's battlefield area -- adjusting the position, checking on his Soldiers and pulling the wounded to safety.
"If he was there, we just didn't have any worries," Ponsoll said. "We knew he was going to take care of us."
McNerney also crawled outside the relative safety of the perimeter to grab enough explosives from abandoned rucksacks to clear away a landing zone for the medical evacuation helicopters.
McNerney remained with his troops until the next day, when the new company commander arrived.
Received medal from LBJ
He returned to the United States later that year. President Lyndon B. Johnson presented him with the Medal of Honor in 1968. McNerney later volunteered for a fourth tour in Vietnam before retiring from the military in 1969.
McNerney returned to Texas after Vietnam and worked for U.S. Customs at the Port of Houston until his second retirement in 1995.
His wife, Parmelia, died in 2003. The couple had no children.
A Gallant Soldier Reporting for Duty - Rest In Peace
