Rogers refused medical attention and instead worked to get the defensive perimeter set back up.
Rogers was again wounded during that foray, but he continued fighting, killing several enemy soldiers and driving the rest back. Despite being hit by an exploding round, he led some of those men in a ground battle against enemy soldiers who’d breached the howitzer’s position. Rogers ran through a hail of exploding shells to rally his dazed crewmen into firing their howitzers back at the much larger enemy. Finally, Rogers’ battalion could attack, and he made sure he was right at the forefront of the action. Soon enough, their soldiers breached the defensive perimeter of the base. 1, they bombarded FSB Rita with heavy mortars, rockets and rocket-propelled grenade fire. The NVA didn’t follow such rules, though. That evening, Rogers noticed a lot of activity across the border, but the rules of engagement said he couldn’t fire into Cambodia, so he waited. It was close to the Cambodian border and the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a supply route that the North Vietnamese Army used to shuttle supplies and troops into South Vietnam. Rogers’ artillery unit was positioned at Fire Support Base Rita in southern Vietnam. He spent the next two years on the battlefront. Rogers was put in command of the 1st Battalion, 5th Artillery, 1st Infantry Division, and sent to Vietnam in July 1967. After that, he earned his first battalion command at Fort Lewis in Washington. After graduating in 1964, he was sent to Germany - his second stint in the country - to train an artillery unit. Rogers worked his way up the ranks and was sent to the Army Command and General Staff College when he was a major. His first few years as a soldier were spent serving in artillery commands while the service was being desegregated. Rogers commissioned into the Army through ROTC after he graduated in June of 1951. He graduated in 1947 and attended West Virginia State College (now University), where he earned a degree in mathematics. He was consistently on the honor roll, played quarterback for the football team and was elected the student body president. Rogers, who attended the all-Black Dubois High School during the segregation era, excelled as a student. Rogers’ dad was a coal miner and World War I veteran, which could be what nurtured his desire to serve. 6, 1929, and grew up with his brother and three sisters outside of the coal-mining town of Claremont, West Virginia.
But he’s perhaps most well-known for his leadership during an intense battle in Vietnam, which earned him the Medal of Honor.
As a Black man, he worked for gender and race equality while in the service. Charles Calvin Rogers served through all of it. WASHINGTON: From the 1950’s to the 1980’s, a lot changed in America and abroad, and Army Maj.