Loren D. Hagen

Hagen joined the Army from his birth city of Fargo, North Dakota in 1968, and by August 7, 1971 was serving as a first lieutenant in command of special Recon Team (RT) Kansas, a mixed unit of U.S. Army Special Forces and Montagnard commandos from Task Force One Advisory Element (TF1AE), also known as Command & Control North (CCN) with MACV-SOG (name changed in March 1971 to "TAG" Training Advisory Group, U.S. Army).

Hagan's special reconnaissance team had landed and secured their position for the overnight mission almost within sight of the Hanoi High Command's most critical new venture of late 1971, the first six-inch fuel pipeline laid across the Vietnamese DMZ, which was essential a few months in the future when entire tank battalions rolled through the area for the Vietnam War's largest offensive. The North Vietnamese Army (NVA) 304th Division was already massing there, plus a regiment of the 308th Division, in preparation for the 1972 Easter Offensive.

His father was transferred to Decatur, Illinois, his sophomore year of high school. He attended MacArthur High School in Decatur, where he was student council president and graduated in 1964. After high school he returned to Minnesota and enrolled at North Dakota State University, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering, industrial science and math. After college, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He attended Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and then was trained at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and became a member of the 5th Special Forces, Green Berets.

Loren Douglas Hagen (February 25, 1946 – August 7, 1971) was a United States Army Special Forces officer and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions during the Vietnam War as Recon Team (RT) leader of a small special reconnaissance unit "RT Kansas", manned by USASF Green Berets and highly trained Montagnard commandos from Task Force One Advisory Element aka Command & Control North, a division of Studies and Observations Group in the Vietnam War. Hagen was the last member of the U.S. Army to earn a Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War.

Hagen was born February 25, 1946, in Fargo, North Dakota, son of Loren H. Hagen (1919–2002) and Eunice H. Harris Hagen (1921–2008). The family lived in Moorhead, Minnesota, where he worked summers as a farm laborer and as a lifeguard. He is an Eagle Scout and was credited with saving the life of a swimmer at the Moorhead swimming pool in 1968. He had two brothers: Michael and Jeffrey.