The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Staff Sergeant Doyle Willis Duvall (MCSN: 1442752), United States Marine Corps, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action while serving with Company F, Second Battalion, Seventh Marines, FIRST Marine Division (Rein.), FMF, in connection with operations against insurgent communist (Viet Cong) forces in the Republic of Vietnam. On 18 December 1965, during Operation HARVEST MOON, the battalion became heavily engaged in a firefight with a well equipped and deeply entrenched Viet Cong Battalion near the village of Ky Phu. Initially, Company F was part of the main body of the Battalion column, but it assumed the advance guard’s mission when that unit was forced to deploy. Exposing himself to hostile fire, Staff Sergeant Duvall assisted his Platoon Commander in rallying and encouraging the men as they crossed 700 meters of open rice paddy area under intense automatic weapons and mortar fire. The platoon had just reached its destination when it was ordered to return because the center of the Battalion column had been penetrated by the enemy. Unhesitatingly, Staff Sergeant Duvall assisted his Platoon Commander in leading the platoon as the Marines re-crossed the exposed area. After his unit engaged the Viet Cong in close combat and annihilated them, he helped establish his platoon in the only suitable firing position, an exposed rice paddy. In spite of the vicious fire, the platoon organized a base of fire, quickly gaining the advantage and enabling two companies, which had suffered heavy casualties, to proceed to the relative safety of Company F’s lines. Staff Sergeant Duvall’s platoon then continued the attack with a frontal assault across an open rice paddy. He was wounded in the leg, but remained with his platoon until ordered to evacuate the following morning. During an assault with the Second Platoon on two fortified Viet Cong bunkers, the Platoon Commander was wounded and Staff Sergeant Duvall assumed command, firing on the enemy position until the bunkers were destroyed. He then reorganized the platoon, adjusted artillery fire and set up defensive positions for the night. In conjunction with the Second Platoon, Staff Sergeant Duvall’s unit killed seventy-nine Viet Cong, captured two wounded, two machine guns, two mortars, two radios, two rocket launchers, nine automatic rifles and numerous other rifles, small arms and ammunition. By his courage, leadership and devotion to duty, Staff Sergeant Duvall upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service.