The Spy Who Loved Us_ The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game ( PDFDrive )

NOTES 279
An was awarded another Battle Exploit medal, Second
Class, for similar work in 1966. This was for obtaining the
battle plans and other tactical intelligence supplied for the
battle of Ia Drang. This engagement in November 1965
marked the first major battle in the American phase of the
war. Three hundred and five soldiers, primarily from the U.S.
7th Cavalry—the same unit that had been massacred at the
Battle of Little Big Horn—were killed after four days of
fighting in the Central Highlands near the Cambodian border.
An received three Battle Exploit medals, Third Class, for
advance warning on America’s plans to increase its military
presence in 1965; for his work during the Têt Offensive in
1968; and for providing secret documents detailing the
Christmas 1972 B-52 attacks against Hanoi. One source describes
these three accomplishments as the reason, collectively,
for An’s being named a Hero of the People’s Armed
Forces in 1976. This medal, Vietnam’s highest military honor,
is awarded for “exceptionally outstanding merits in combat
or in combat support.” It is equivalent to the French Legion
of Honor or the U.S. Medal of Honor.
For intelligence provided during the Ho Chi Minh campaign,
the final battle in the war, and for his “after-action” reports
and other undisclosed work—which may have
continued up to his death in 2006—An received six more
medals sometime after 1975. These include an Independence
medal (Doc Lap), Second Class; a Resolved-to-Win
Military Flag medal (Quan Ky Quyet Thang); a Resistance
medal (Khang Chien), First Class; and three Liberation Soldier
medals (Chien Sy Giai Phong), which were awarded in
the First, Second, and Third Class. The final medal on display
at An’s funeral commemorated his fifty years of service
as a member of the Communist Party.
262 “Dozens of obituaries marked An’s death.”: An’s death
also invited the rebroadcasting of errors about the man and