There were four Medal of Honor recipients from the Rio Grande Valley, but one of them did not make it home.

Sgt. Freddy Gonzalez died fighting in the Vietnam War.

On Memorial Day, the Museum of South Texas History showed archives, letters and audio from Sgt. Gonzalez. May 25 would have been his 79th birthday.

"I went to school here. Freddy was one of my friends. We played football together. He was always a person that got upset if he didn't make the tackle or whatever, and he said he was going to leave to be in the service," Air Force veteran Ruben Guadarrama said.

Sgt. Gonzalez received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Vietnam War. He ended his first deployment in 1967.

He came home and decided to go back.

"I asked him, I said it's over. He said no it's not over. He says I'm going, I said what are you doing going back, what for? He says I left some friends behind," Guadarrama said. "He went back with any kind of reservation. You don't see it in the letters. He went back without any kind of regret."

Sgt. Gonzalez was in South Vietnam during the TET offensive, which started in January 1968.

"I think that night, we had 750 killed. In the morning, when everything was over with, I walked over to his area and he had moved out, but that's the last time I saw him," 5th Marine Regiment Pedro Lopez said.

Sgt. Gonzalez was ordered to move into an area that was under attack.

His citation says he destroyed several enemy positions and ran through hostile fire. He died from the wounds he sustained in the fight.

"Once you're over there, you get attached to each other, and that's the first thing they tell you, don't get attached because then something happens, it's going to be hard and that's what happened to me," 26th Marine Regiment Carmen Gaitan said.

Dolia Gonzalez, the mother of Sgt. Gonzalez, was given his Congressional Medal of Honor after his death on October 31, 1969.

Watch the video above for the full story.