President Barack Obama, flanked by members of Troop A, First Squadron, 11th Armored Combat Regiment,
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They risked it all for their buddies.

President Barack Obama, flanked by members of Troop A, First Squadron, 11th Armored Combat Regiment,
AP

They risked it all for their buddies.

Nearly forty years after their heroism, the men of the Blackhorse Regiment have been given one the nation's highest honors.

At the White House today, President Barack Obama gave the Presidential Unit Citation to the Vietnam-era veterans of Alpha Troop, 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry, for their actions during what came to be known as "the anonymous battle" on March 26, 1970.

"Troopers, you are not anonymous anymore," Obama told the veterans who attended today's ceremony.

Army Times has described in detail what the men did. When the 200 men of "A Troop" learned that 80 to 100 other American soldiers were pinned down by the enemy in Vietnam's Tay Ninh Province, they volunteered to go to the rescue. It required hacking their way through four kilometers of jungle. Then, they attacked the North Vietnamese — driving them off. Two members of A Troop, Obama noted, died that day. Another 20 were wounded.

"The choice, to me, was one of [the] certainty of suffering versus a lifetime of guilt," John Poindexter, who was Alpha Troop's captain that day, told Army Times. "It was a collective realization of what we were getting ourselves into, but the consequence was to see 100 men killed."

Army Times says it was Poindexter, after he learned that his men hadn't gotten their individual honors for bravery, who led the effort to get the unit citation.