Special Forces MIA awarded Silver Star.(UPDATE)(Staff Sergeant Roger Hallberg)

The search that began more than 41 years ago to find a Special Forces sergeant missing in the jungles of Vietnam led to the presentation of his Silver Star Medal to his mother April 19.

Staff Sergeant Roger Hallberg was the point man March 24, 1967, on a mission deep behind enemy lines, when a force estimated to be in the hundreds ambushed him and the men of SF Detachment A-302. Hallberg, who led a counterattack while the main element pulled back, was never heard from again, but his actions that day saved the lives of other Americans and the indigenous force that he was working with. He was later listed as missing in action.

Major General Thomas R. Csrnko, commander of the U.S. Army Special Forces Command, presented Hallberg's medal to his mother, Doris Cobb Hallberg, on a pier at Yerba Buena Island, Calif., next to the U.S. Coast Guard cutter George Cobb, which is named for her father. In 1896, Cobb rescued three sailors off California's Point Bonita, where he was a lighthouse keeper. For his heroism, Cobb was awarded the Silver Lifesaving Medal, the Coast Guard's equivalent of the Silver Star. Csrnko described the family as "amazing," and said that Cobb and Hallberg "are cut from the same cloth."

Anne Hallberg Holt, sister of the missing Soldier, said that even though it was a "sad situation" that linked the heroism of her grandfather and her brother, she is proud of the accomplishments of both men. But while the awarding of the nation's third-highest medal for valor "brings some resolution" to what happened to her brother, she said, it does not bring closure.

Retired Captain James P. Monaghan followed Csrnko. Monaghan served with Hallberg in Vietnam. During his speech, Monaghan described a combat rookie's typical reaction to an ambush and that Hallberg was not that type of person.

"When the U.S. is at war, we can manufacture and purchase the best and most expensive weaponry in the world," said Monaghan. "But you can never purchase (Hallberg's) courage."

Hallberg's family first received word of his status in 1967 while they were living in Venezuela. The head of the family, Lewis Hallberg, was stationed there while working for Chevron Oil. It was there that the search for information regarding Hallberg's incident began.