Gary Wayne Gross served as an Army Specialist Four with Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam. A 1965 graduate of Jackson Center High School and a 1967 graduate of Miami-Jacobs Junior College of Business in Dayton, he entered service in October 1967 and arrived in Vietnam in March 1968. During a combat operation on November 29, 1968, several men in his unit were wounded by a mine explosion and came under heavy Viet Cong sniper fire; Gross exposed himself to enemy fire to help evacuate wounded comrades to safety, then returned to his vehicle, secured ammunition, and distributed it to fellow soldiers, actions credited with saving several lives and helping thwart the assault. For this heroism he was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal with "V" Device, and he also received the Purple Heart, Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Vietnam Campaign Ribbon, Combat Infantryman Badge, Sharpshooter Badge with rifle and automatic rifle bars, and the Marksman Badge with machine gun bar. He had previously been wounded twice in combat, receiving a Purple Heart on September 8 for injuries suffered on June 1 while on patrol duty, and he was injured again on September 5 while members of the 25th Infantry Division were setting up an outpost near Tay Ninh. Gross was killed in action on December 16, 1968, at age 21 in Hậu Nghĩa, South Vietnam, after a jeep detonated a mine on Highway 7A north of the junction of Highway 1; he was inducted into the Ohio Military Hall of Fame on May 3, 2019.