Staff Sergeant Lloyd F. Mousseau was the assistant team
leader or "One-One" of Leroy Wright's twelve-man recon team. The
team
became surrounded by a force of hundreds of North Vietnamese Army soldiers
on a covert mission in Cambodia on May 2, 1968. A fierce battle
lasting several hours ensued. Mousseau was critically wounded early
in the action but continued to fight despite a massive head wound.
His actions during critical moments in the battle were instrumental
in the survival of the team.
You may read of his heroic and skillful actions on that day by reading any
of the three published biographies of Roy Benavidez. (See the bibliography
on Six Hours In Hell).
Lloyd "Frenchy" Mousseau died beside MSgt.
Roy Benavidez on the floor of a medevac helicopter just minutes from the
hospital in Saigon. Benavidez recalled Mousseau's last
minutes in his book The Three Wars of Roy Benavidez;
"Minutes away from the doctors in Saigon, I
felt his fingers dig into my palm, his arm twitching and jumping as if an
electric current was pouring through his body into mine. I.....saw
his eye widen, staring full into my face, and pain and fear radiating from
him like a heat wave. He blinked once, the grip loosened, and his
face softened as his eyelid drooped. It was like a brightly lit
candle guttering and going out."
Lloyd Mousseau was posthumously awarded
the Distinguished Service Cross for his part is this action.
He had
been awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and other awards for valor in
previous combat actions. In the year 2002 the United States Army
present a replacement set of all of his decorations, badges, and unit
patches to his daughter Kathy, who was three years old when he died and
never knew the details valor.
Kathy
Mousseau Meuller