During fighting in the village of My Canh, Vietnam, 1st Lt. James Alton Gardner led his platoon in an attack to relieve a company of the 1st Battalion that had been pinned down for several hours by a numerically superior enemy force occupying strongly fortified, mutually supporting, and expertly concealed bunker positions covered by automatic weapons, machine guns, and mortars. After air strikes and artillery had little effect, his platoon moved under heavy fire to encircle and destroy the enemy. Leading the assault and disregarding his own safety, Gardner charged across an open rice paddy through intense fire, destroyed two bunkers with grenades, then reached a third bunker along a rice paddy dike and killed an enemy gunner at a distance of six feet before the gunner could stop him. After the main enemy position was seized, he reorganized the platoon and continued the attack until it was pinned down again by a machine gun in another fortified bunker. Gardner immediately gathered grenades and charged that position while firing his rifle, dropped a grenade into the bunker, then moved toward another source of fire after coming under attack again. Gravely wounded as he neared the next bunker, he made a final effort to reach it and destroyed the bunker and its defenders with a grenade before falling dead on its rim. His actions inspired his platoon to resume the attack and completely rout the enemy, reflecting the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.