LOWELL — During a combat mission in Vietnam nearly 60 years ago to rescue an ambushed patrol, then-Staff Sgt. Dors “Gene” Musgray did something that changed his life and the lives of the men serving in his unit — he stood up.
Then he charged across some 50 meters of boot-sucking rice paddies and through interlocking fields of fire to take out a bunkered enemy who had pinned down the company and caused many casualties.
“I wasn’t thinking,” Musgray said during an October interview in his home. “It needed to be done to save my troops. Either you get up and do something, or you die there. I just went. There was no back door.”
Musgray, who was wounded in the assault, then returned to assist his soldiers, reorganized his unit and led them forward to complete the mission.
Awarded honors for heroic actions
For his valor during the Battle of Ap Bac II on May 2, 1967, Musgray earned a Purple Heart and a Silver Star. He previously earned a Purple Heart for valor in a March mission and a Silver Star in an April mission.
The Purple Heart is a combat decoration awarded to those wounded or killed in military action, and is one of the nation’s oldest awards, established by Gen. George Washington at Newburgh, New York, in 1782.
The Silver Star is awarded for gallantry in action against an enemy of the United States. The award was authorized by an act of Congress in 1918. Receiving two of both medals is an exceptionally significant record of combat valor.
Musgray also received a Bronze Star for meritorious achievement and bravery in ground operations against hostile forces in Vietnam from October 1970 to August 1971.
Military to civilian service
The highly decorated senior noncommissioned officer retired from active military service in 1988 after nearly 27 years. For the next 28 years he continued serving the public in the Massachusetts criminal justice system until his civilian retirement in 2016.
Even in retirement, Musgray gave back. He volunteered as a mentor/coordinator for the Veterans’ Treatment Court at Lawrence District Court.
He and his wife, Uta, who died this August, moved from Westford to Lowell’s Pawtucketville neighborhood in 1991.
Former mayor, City Councilor and Pawtucketville resident Daniel Rourke worked with Musgray in the Lawrence court system, and said he hadn’t known that the retired sergeant major was a hero.
“He never spoke of it,” Rourke said. “It’s something he never talked about.”
Medal of Honor application
But others connected to the military understood the significance of Musgray’s action on that fateful morning, and advocated to upgrade his second Silver Star, awarded during the Battle of Ap Bac II, to the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military honor.
Jason Thomas, a manager for Veterans Programs at the Massachusetts Trial Court who worked with Musgray, reached out to Ellie Morales, an assistant clinical professor of law, and director of the Veterans Legal Clinic at Wake Forest University School of Law in North Carolina.
After graduating from Wake Forest Law, Class of 2010, Morales joined the Army Judge Advocate General at Fort Hood, Texas. She then volunteered to serve in Kabul, Afghanistan, where she advised Army leadership on rules of engagement.
Like Musgray, Morales is a Bronze Star Award recipient, but says her greatest honor is to serve those who have also served. She calls Sgt. Maj. Musgray “a hero.”
“He is an extraordinary man who did extraordinary things in battle,” she said by phone from her campus office.
Every semester, Morales’ law students assist veterans for free under her law license and direct supervision. Several years ago, they took on Musgray’s Medal of Honor upgrade application, which included years of legwork, research, interviews, documentation and grit.
“It was a huge team effort and lot of components to the package,” she said.
Application is pending review at highest levels of government
The final submission, which is hundreds of pages long, was endorsed by Congressman Pat Harrigan, a former Green Beret, who is the representative for North Carolina’s 10th Congressional District.
“We’ve done our due diligence for years,” Morales said. “And we submitted the package in the spring of 2025 to the Senior Awards and Decorations Branch of the Army Human Resources Command.”
The Medal of Honor upgrade process still has a long way to go through many levels of command review and approval. The Senior Awards and Decorations Branch recommends to the secretary of the Army whether to upgrade Musgray’s Silver Star to the Medal of Honor, to a Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest valor award, or keep it at the Silver Star level.
From there, it moves to the Department of War, and ultimately to the secretary of war.
Although Title 10 U.S. Code 1130 allows the preparing and submitting of a late request for award consideration, the statute says that Congress must pass a law waiving the time limit.
Once that time-limit waiver is passed by the Congress, the president makes the final award determination.
Musgray says he was ‘lucky’
Back at his home in Pawtucketville, Musgray is surrounded by the reminders of his service to the nation. There’s the Military Police helmet he wore during one of his tours; a picture of him shaking hands with former World War II Gen. Omar Bradley; his medals, ribbons, patches and flags; a citation and key to the city; and numerous trophies and plaques.
Now in his early 80s, Musgray has plenty of time to reflect on his improbable life journey — from his birthplace in Tennessee, to that vicious but heroic battle in the Mekong Delta, to overseas postings in Germany, where he met his wife, to their home in Lowell.
“Being in the military was my whole life,” he said. “I didn’t know any other job. And I was good at it. I’ve been pretty lucky.”
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