Robert David Law

Law's citation records choices the plaque only sketches. On February 22, 1969, his six-man long-range reconnaissance team was short of ammunition and troubled by an irritating gas of unknown origin when it made contact with a small enemy patrol. Law moved to an exposed flanking position and directed suppressive fire. When a grenade landed among the team, he chose not to dive into a nearby stream and threw himself on it instead. President Nixon presented the Medal of Honor to his parents on August 6, 1970, and he is buried at Mount Olivet.

What the plaque says

Robert David Law _Specialist Four, United States Army_ Robert David Law was born on September 15, 1944, to Robert M. and Martha E. (Morris) Law in Fort Worth. He attended Fort Worth Technical High School, graduating in 1964, and was a member of Southcliff Baptist Church. Law enlisted in the U.S. Army at Dallas on October 17, 1967. He completed his Basic Combat Training and Infantry Advanced Individual Training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and was advanced in rank to Private First Class. He graduated from Airborne School at Fort Benning, Georgia, in summer 1968, and received orders to join F Company (Ranger), 52nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division in combat in the Republic of (South) Vietnam. From 1968-69, Law served as a scout observer and was promoted in rank to E-4 as a Specialist Four (SP4). Under a February 1969 reorganization, his unit became I Company (Ranger), 75th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division. SP4 Law had been in Vietnam for eight months when he volunteered for a mission to gather intelligence near the Cambodian border, northeast of the 1st Infantry Division base camp at Lai Khe. Law paced a patrol of six rangers beginning on February 20, 1969. Within an hour of their insertion by helicopter, the patrol was in a gunfight. Law sprayed rifle fire into the woods to cover the patrol's retreat for the night. The next day, the rangers monitored enemy troops near a log bridge over a stream. On the morning of February 22, three Viet Cong soldiers spotted the rangers and opened fire. During the exchange, a grenade rolled close to three of the rangers. Law threw himself on the grenade to save his comrades and was killed instantly. When notified about her son's death, his mother remarked that his letters home indicated that "He knew what he was fighting for." In August 1970 at the White House in Washington, D.C., President Richard M. Nixon presented SP4 Law's family with a posthumous Medal of Honor for his selfless and decisive actions. (2020)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Worth Stockyards — 2.1 mi
  The brick-street cattle market where Armour and Swift built packing plants in 1902, now a National Register district with a Coliseum, a museum and a longhorn drive twice a day.
• Tarrant County Courthouse — 2.7 mi
  A pink-granite courthouse of 1895 on the bluff where the Army set up Fort Worth in 1849, in a county named for the man who led the 1841 attack on the Native villages of Village Creek.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 4.3 mi
  Louis Kahn's cycloid-vaulted museum of 1972, built from Kay Kimbell's bequest and joined in 2013 by Renzo Piano's pavilion for the exhibitions the Kahn galleries could not hold.
• National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame — 4.7 mi
  A hall of fame begun in Hereford in 1975 to honor rodeo women, widened in 1977 to Western heritage, and housed in Fort Worth's Cultural District since 2002.

More markers nearby

• Tim Cole — steps away
• Mount Olivet Cemetery — steps away
• Amon Carter Riverside High School and Riverside ISD — 1.0 mi
• Dr. Riley Andrew Ransom — 1.2 mi