John Robert Santoro
Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment
Attached to Alpha Company, 3-12 Infantry
4th Infantry Division
Age: 22
Date of Birth: 5/19/1946
From: Long Island, New York
Marital Status: Single
Specialist Fourth Class, E-4, Selective Service
Military Occupation Specialty: 91B – Medical NCO
Enlistment Date – 10/26/1967
Length of Service – Less than one year (293 days)
His tour began on May 25, 1968
Casualty was on April 15, 1968 (121 days in Vietnam)
Casualty Code – A1-H-7
Ground Casualty
Hostile – Died outright, Multiple fragmentation wounds
Place of casualty – Kontum Province, Dak To District
Approximately seven kilometers southwest of Ben Het.
Robert J Santoro was killed in action on August 14th, 1968 when the defensive position his unit was occupying was hit by a massive barrage of North Vietnamese Army recoilless rifle and mortar fire. Two platoons and the command element of Alpha Company, 3-12 Infantry had occupied a position southwest of Firebase 29 midafternoon on the 14th. At approximately 6:15 PM, the small American perimeter began receiving incoming fire from the southwest. The roughly 50 men, unable to dig deep foxholes with overhead cover, were caught exposed.
Nearly a dozen men were wounded in the initial moments of the attack. Santoro sprang into action, moving from one wounded man to the next administering first aid and moving men to safer locations. Soon, he too was wounded by shrapnel from an incoming round. Undaunted, he continued to move through the incoming fire and render aid to additional men. Approximately 30 minutes after the enemy barrage began, as he was attempting to treat another wounded soldier, he was struck in the head by fragments from an exploding round and killed. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star. By the time the barrage was over, 14 men were killed in action and at least eight more wounded.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall
Panel 48W Line 15
Awards, decorations and honors
SP4 Robert J. Santoro’s decorations.
Top row (Badges) – Combat Medic Badge
Middle row – left to right (Individual Awards) – Silver Star, Purple Heart, Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal
Bottom row (Unit Awards) – Presidential Unit Citation, Republic of Vietnam RVN Gallantry Cross Unit Citation
SP4 Santoro was also authorized to wear the M-14 Rifle Sharpshooter and M-16 Rifle Expert qualification badges.
Biography
Robert Santoro was born in New York City on May 19th, 1946. He was the eldest son of Salvatore and Dorothy Santoro. He had three brothers, Stephen, William and Charles. His brother Stephen, born in 1954, passed away at the age of four from acute leukemia. He graduated from East Meadow High School (Class of ’63). He had enrolled in Brooklyn College of Pharmacy after high school, but had traveled to Alberta, Canada, where his mother was from. While in Canada, he made the decision to volunteer for the draft, and crossed the border back into the United States, where he was inducted into the U.S. Army in Butte, Montana on October 26th, 1967.
Because of his connection to Canada, he is often listed as a Canadian casualty of the Vietnam War, although he was an American citizen since birth.
Services
The remains of SP4 Santoro were escorted from the Oakland Army Base to the Davis Funeral Home in Smithtown, New York by Sergeant Charles E. Valdes. On August 31st, Santoro was buried with full military honors at the S. Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx, New York. An honor guard from the East Meadows Veterans of Foreign Wars was also present.
Additional information
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Wall of Faces – https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/45559/ROBERT-J-SANTORO