173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team - Legacy

Legacy

The 173rd's service, particularly in Vietnam, has been featured several times in popular culture. The most prominent of these is the 2006 single released by the country music duo Big & Rich, entitled "8 November". The song was based on the story of Niles Harris, a member of the 173rd, during Operation Hump. On 1 July 2006, a documentary inspired by the song and based on the brigade's actions during the operation premiered on the GAC Channel.

Illinois Route 173, which runs for 66 miles along the Illinois/Wisconsin border was designated the 173rd Airborne Brigade Highway in 2008.

Captain Willard, a fictional character portrayed by Martin Sheen in the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, was a member of the 173rd assigned to Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group. He was depicted as being in "the 505th battalion", although no such unit was ever part of the 173rd. Throughout the movie, he wears the Vietnam-era, mustard yellow, "subdued" shoulder sleeve insignia worn by 173rd paratroopers on their jungle fatigues during the Vietnam War. In the 1987 movie Lethal Weapon, the patch worn by Danny Glover's fictional character Roger Murtaugh during a retrospective of his time in Vietnam was that of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. In the 1998 movie The Siege, fictional Major General William Devereaux, played by Bruce Willis, states that he was in the 173rd Airborne Brigade at the same time that character Anthony Hubbard was in the 82nd Airborne Division.

Numerous servicemen from the 173rd, mostly from the Vietnam era, gained notability after their military careers ended. These include Congressmen Duncan Hunter and Charlie Norwood, Archbishop of Baltimore Edwin Frederick O'Brien, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert M. Kimmitt, business owner Barney Visser, activist Stan Goff, and Sergeant Major of the Army Gene C. McKinney.

Sixteen soldiers have been awarded the Medal of Honor for service with the 173rd Airborne Brigade and its subordinate units. Lloyd G. McCarter and Ray E. Eubanks earned the medal while fighting with the 503rd Infantry in World War II, while 13 other soldiers earned medals fighting under the 173rd in Vietnam; John A. Barnes III, Michael R. Blanchfield, Glenn H. English Jr., Lawrence Joel, Terry T. Kawamura, Carlos J. Lozada, Don L. Michael, Charles B. Morris, Milton L. Olive III, Larry S. Pierce, Laszlo Rabel, Alfred Rascon, and Charles J. Watters.

Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta received the Medal of Honor for heroic actions as a rifle team leader in Company B, 2–503 INF (Airborne) when his squad was caught in a near-ambush the night of 25 October 2007 during Operation Rock Avalanche in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan. He was the first living Medal of Honor recipient since the Vietnam War.