INDIANAPOLIS (CNN/CNN Newsource/WKRC) – The Indiana Rangers said they’re seeking overdue recognition for their service during the Vietnam War.

Surviving members of an Indiana National Guard unit that served in the Vietnam War are seeking long-awaited recognition for the group’s service.

(WISH/CNN/CNN Newsource)

Company D, 151st Infantry, was deployed to Vietnam in late 1968. The unit received airborne and ranger training and became known as the Indiana Rangers. The soldiers were the only National Guard combat unit deployed to Vietnam as one intact group.

During their year-long tour, members of the unit earned more than 500 medals, including 175 Bronze Stars and 110 Purple Hearts. Despite those honors, the Rangers say the unit has never received recognition as a collective group.

Now, that could change.

The office of U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz has notified the Rangers that paperwork for the Valorous Unit Award has been submitted. The award is one level below the Presidential Unit Citation.

“We lost six people during the conflict of ’69 and today I’ve been the treasurer for about 35-40 years I guess, and now we’ve lost 124 deceased,” one Ranger told WISH.

Spartz told the Rangers she is also working to secure a Presidential Unit Citation for the unit.

MADISON CO., Ind. (WISH) — Surviving members of a highly decorated Vietnam War unit on Monday said group recognition for their service is long overdue.

Company D, 151st Infantry, was an Indiana National Guard unit that deployed to Vietnam at the end of 1968. It was the only National Guard combat unit to deploy as an intact Guard unit during the entire conflict. Unusually for a Guard unit, it had received Airborne and Ranger training. D Company became known as the Indiana Rangers.

Donnie Holland, a member of the unit, said they deployed in five-man teams deep in the jungle, sometimes behind enemy lines. They intercepted supplies and Viet Cong coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail into South Vietnam.

According to the unit’s official history, its soldiers earned more than 500 individual medals during their year-long tour of duty, including 19 Silver Stars, 175 Bronze Stars and 110 Purple Hearts. This was the highest individual medal total within a one-year period of any Army infantry unit. Missing from the Indiana Rangers’ accolades, though, is any recognition of the unit as a whole. Although the state of Indiana welcomed them home, the Indiana Rangers said there is no record of any official military unit award.

It’s an oversight Holland and other surviving Indiana Rangers said they’re trying to fix. He said he and the others are campaigning for a presidential unit citation, the highest unit award. Holland said unit recognition is important in part because it would commemorate the contributions of support personnel who did not see combat but provided critical services such as maintaining the radios they used to call for fire support or extraction.

“We would not have been as successful as we were out in the field if we didn’t have the support we had in the rear,” he said. “Those guys in the rear deserve that recognition the same as us because they helped us stay alive.”

The Vietnam War took a toll on D Company. Of the more than 200 Indiana Rangers deployed to Vietnam, six were killed: Skip Baranowski, Kenneth Cummings, Peter Fegatelli, George Kleiber, Charles Larkins and Robert Smith. Larkins and Smith were the first two Indiana Rangers to die during the tour of duty.

Gary Bussell said the unit was especially close-knit because so many of its men knew each other from back home in Indiana. He said Larkins and Smith exemplified this.

“Smith and Larkins were from the same neighborhood, and they both stood up at each other’s wedding as best man,” he said. “A lot of this is for these guys. Those boys didn’t get to get past 23. I remember times back home, 20 years later, I’d be having a bad day and I just say, don’t worry about it. Larkins and Smith would’ve liked to have had your bad day 20 years later. You knew what car he drove, you knew his wife, you might know his kids’ names. And that was new to Vietnam because most fellows were put in as individual replacements.”

A break appeared to come last week, when Holland and several other Indiana Rangers were invited to the annual Congressional Picnic by Congresswoman Victoria Spartz. Holland said they were able to meet with all of the members of Indiana’s Congressional delegation, which includes one of only two remaining Vietnam War veterans in Congress, Jim Baird. They also were able to meet briefly with President Donald Trump.

During a midday meeting with several surviving Indiana Rangers, staff from Spartz’s office said they have submitted the paperwork for a valorous unit award, the military’s second-highest unit honor. After stopping by to meet with the D Company veterans, Spartz said she is pursuing both a valorous unit award and a presidential unit citation. She said she is working with the Pentagon to find out which is the most appropriate.

“I think we’re on the right track. We have a lot of good ideas of what we need to do. But I think now, we’re in the right place,” she said. “I think the paperwork needs to come from the National Guard and they will try to do, and we just got some stuff they probably need. And they’ll send it to the Department of War and the Pentagon, and hopefully we can get what, you know truly, this is past due.”

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A former governor of Indiana and university president will serve as the interim president of Purdue University starting in July.

Mitch Daniels was appointed as the interim president of the university during a public session of the Purdue University Board of Trustees on Monday. Daniels previously served as the 12th president of Purdue University and as the 49th governor of Indiana.

Daniels, who is the university’s president emeritus and the chair of the board of the Purdue Research Foundation, will succeed Mung Chiang in the position. Chiang will become the president of Northwestern University in Evanston in July.

“We are extremely grateful to President Emeritus Daniels for his willingness to continue his long and successful service to Purdue University in a role with which he is very familiar,” Gary Lehman, the chair of the Purdue University Board of Trustees, said in a news release from the university. “We look forward to working with Mitch and the executive team in leading Purdue to even greater heights as it continues to impact lives through its land-grant mission and the persistent pursuit of excellence in higher education.”

Officials stated that Daniels will serve as interim president until the university identifies a successor for Chiang. The release said a national search is expected to be launched in the coming weeks.

“President Chiang has led Purdue forward in a host of important ways, and it’s essential that the momentum he has generated be maintained,” Daniels said. “If the board believes that recalling me to active duty temporarily can help in this respect, no one as devoted to this institution as I am could say anything but yes.”

Daniels’ appointment will be effective on July 1, according to university officials.