Medal of Honor recipient Col. Walter Joseph Marm Jr. (US Army, retired), will speak at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and share his experiences in the Vietnam War.

Marm was presented the Medal of Honor on Dec. 19, 1966, for his heroic actions leading a platoon into combat against the North Vietnamese army during the Battle of Ia Drang in Vietnam in 1965. 

The Battle of Ia Drang was the first major engagement of the Vietnam War and the Army’s first large-scale helicopter assault. His commander, Lt. Col. Harold “Hal” Moore, and war correspondent Joseph Galloway detailed this battle in their 1992 book, “We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young,” calling it “the battle that changed the war in Vietnam.”  In 2002, the book was adapted into a movie titled, "We Were Soldiers."