Washington ( CNN ) -- President Obama will award the Medal of Honor , the military 's highest award for bravery , to Air Force Chief Master Sgt . Richard Etchberger for his valor in saving the lives of three wounded comrades at a then-secret base in Laos in 1968 , the White House announced Friday . After Etchberger saved his fellow airmen , he was shot and killed by enemy fighters . His heroics were kept a secret for years because the United States was n't supposed to have troops in Laos during the Vietnam War . President Lyndon Johnson rejected a nomination for Etchberger to receive the Medal of Honor at the time because of the political trouble it could have stirred up . Etchberger was part of a secret U.S. Air Force radar base in northern Laos , just 120 miles from Hanoi in North Vietnam . The base 's purpose was to guide U.S. bomber crews on their missions over North Vietnam and parts of Laos that were under communist control . Laos was officially neutral during the war , but its leaders were upset that North Vietnamese troops and Viet Cong guerrillas were moving through Laos to attack U.S. troops in South Vietnam . So the Lao government allowed construction of the U.S. radar site provided it was kept secret , according to Tom Keany , an Air Force B-52 squadron commander during the Vietnam War and currently a military historian with the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University . In March of 1968 North Vietnamese troops attacked the site , called Lima Site 85 , with a force of 3,000 soldiers against fewer than a couple dozen U.S. airmen and about a thousand Laotian soldiers . Eventually , American helicopters were sent in to evacuate the Air Force personnel , but by then eight Americans had been killed and several more wounded . It is considered by some the deadliest ground attack against Air Force troops in the entire Vietnam era . According the White House , Etchberger deliberately exposed himself to enemy fire `` in order to place his three surviving wounded comrades in the rescue slings permitting them to be airlifted to safety . '' It took an act of Congress in 2008 for Etchberger to be reconsidered for a Medal of Honor so long after the war had ended . In most cases , the medal recommendation must be made within two years of the act of heroism for which it is to be awarded . Rep. Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota helped push for the reconsideration . Etchberger was a native of Bismarck , North Dakota . `` Chief Etchberger was denied the Medal of Honor because he was serving his country on the wrong side of a geographic barrier , '' Pomeroy said in written statement . `` Heroism knows no boundary . While it 's regrettable that this medal is coming forty years after Mr. Etchberger 's death , I am honored to be part of the effort that recognized this true hero . '' The ceremony for Etchberger , which will include his three sons , is scheduled for September 21 at the White House .
NEW : The United States did not want to admit it had troops in nominally neutral Laos . Chief Master Sgt . John L. DePuy, the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam at that time said he was told by his superiors there were no plans for a permanent American presence on the ground. He died after saving three comrades in Laos .