The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Hospital Corpsman Third Class Ronald W. Kidder (NSN: 6866415), United States Navy, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action against insurgent communist (Viet Cong) forces while serving as a Corpsman attached to Company K, Third Battalion, First Marines, FIRST Marine Division, on 21 March 1966, during Operation TEXAS in the Republic of Vietnam. When his platoon came under intense enemy fire which resulted in nineteen casualties among the unit, Petty Officer Kidder, working alone, quickly moved among the casualties, continuously exposing himself to the enemy fire in order to reach the Marines where they had fallen in an open rice paddy. Upon becoming the target of hostile machine-gun fire while treating a wounded grenadier who lay in the exposed paddy, he seized the grenadier’s M-79 grenade launcher, fired at the enemy machine-gun position and silenced it with three rounds. With the platoon now occupying a trench line into which the enemy was delivering fire from the front and flank, Petty Officer Kidder unhesitatingly entered the trench and repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire while pulling casualties into the safety of fighting holes found in the side of the trench. Hearing a call for help from a Marine in the exposed rice paddy, he returned to the paddy and carried the wounded Marine fifty meters, under fire, to a position where he could safely administer aid. By his courageous performance of duty under intense enemy fire, exceptional professional skill and daring actions throughout, Petty Officer Kidder upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.