A Medal of Honor Recipient Who Saved His Squad Finally Rests Among Soldiers

Hundreds of people gathered under the summer heat at Calverton National Cemetery on Long Island, New York, on July 3 to watch soldiers carry Pfc. Garfield M. Langhorn to his final resting place for the second time.

He had already been buried once, in 1969, in a small cemetery a few blocks from the house he grew up in. This time, at his family’s request and after a court order cleared the way, he was laid to rest in Section 23 of the national cemetery, along a road that has carried his name since long before his casket ever crossed it: PFC Garfield Langhorn Road.

Langhorn was 20 years old when he died. He is the only Vietnam War Medal of Honor recipient from Suffolk County, and for nearly six decades, his grave sat apart from the community of soldiers his family always felt he belonged with.

What He Did

Langhorn served as a radio operator with Troop C, 7th Squadron (Airmobile), 17th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Aviation Brigade. On Jan. 15, 1969, his unit was sent to recover the crew of a downed American helicopter in Pleiku Province, South Vietnam. When they reached the crash site, they found the crew already dead. As the unit began pulling back with the bodies, North Vietnamese forces attacked.

During the fighting, an enemy grenade landed near several wounded soldiers who had no way to move. Langhorn threw himself on top of it. He was killed instantly. The soldiers around him survived. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration, roughly a year later.

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Why It Took 57 Years

Langhorn’s family buried him at Riverhead Cemetery in 1969, close to home, so his father could tend the grave himself. It was an act of love, and for decades, it was enough. But over the years, a movement grew among local veterans and community members to have him moved to Calverton National Cemetery, where he would rest permanently among the soldiers his sacrifice had always tied him to.

Retired Army officer Timothy Dahlen spent months working to make that happen, with the support of Langhorn’s surviving sisters, Yvonne Reid, Anna Mack and April Armstead. A legal process was required to authorize the disinterment and move, and a court order cleared the way just weeks before the July 3 ceremony.

“He started this journey a soldier. Now, he’s going to be back with soldiers,” Dahlen said of the reinterment effort.

The CeremonyThe graveside service began at 10:30 a.m. July 3 with full U.S. Army military honors. Family, friends, veterans organizations and elected officials attended, alongside members of the PFC Garfield M. Langhorn Chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America, Suffolk County. The service included the playing of “Taps,” presentation of a presidential memorial certificate and remarks from Dahlen and local officials. The Rev. Cynthia Liggon, senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Riverhead where Langhorn worshiped and served as an usher as a young man, offered the prayer.

Tuthill-Mangano Funeral Home in Riverhead handled the disinterment and the ceremony at no charge.

Chapter president Richard Kitson credited fellow Vietnam veteran Clarence Simpson, a longtime member of the Suffolk chapter, with working for three decades to keep Langhorn’s memory active in the community — the groundwork, ultimately, that made the reinterment effort possible.

A Legacy That Was Never Really Forgotten

Even before the reinterment, Langhorn’s name was already threaded through Riverhead. The town’s post office was renamed the Private First Class Garfield M. Langhorn Post Office Building in his honor in 2010. A bronze bust of him stands at Riverhead Town Hall. A memorial exists at the Pulaski Street School library, and Riverhead High School maintains a Veterans Wall of Honor bearing his name. In 2022, Riverhead Town designated the second Friday in October as Pfc. Garfield M. Langhorn Day.

Where He Rests Now

Calverton National Cemetery, part of the National Cemetery Administration, now holds Langhorn’s remains permanently in Section 23. The National Cemetery Administration’s own records note that the transfer took place in July 2026 at his family’s request, closing a chapter that community members had worked toward for years.

Gold Star Mother Mary Langhorn, who traveled from Virginia in past years to attend Memorial Day ceremonies honoring her son at Calverton, did not live to see the reinterment. The ceremony this July stood, in part, as the completion of a journey she and the Riverhead community had been walking together for a long time — moving a soldier home to the place where soldiers are kept.