A Maui native and former Navy SEAL tomorrow will receive a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with valor for a top secret POW rescue mission that went awry nearly 36 years ago off the coast of North Vietnam and remained untold for nearly that long.

Retired Lt. Philip L. "Moki" Martin, 65, will receive the recognition at the Naval Special Warfare Command headquarters in Coronado, Calif.

The 1960 Maui High School graduate was seriously injured while riding a bicycle in 1982, and was medically discharged from active service. According to his biography, Martin lives in Coronado with his wife, Cindy.

The June 1972 U.S. Pacific Command mission, beset by miscalculations and setbacks, led to two separate overnights floating in the Gulf of Tonkin for Martin, the death of a SEAL on the second night, and injury to two others.

The extreme challenges faced by special operations forces then, as now, point to the inherent danger of their profession.

Navy SEAL units around the world stood down for a safety review last week following the deaths of two Virginia-based SEALs during recent parachute training in Arizona.

Hawai'i has its own Sea, Air, Land commandos, SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team One based at Pearl City Peninsula.

What's clear is the bravery of the men involved in such units.

On June 5, 1972, Martin was nearly knocked unconscious jumping into the sea from a pitching helicopter at night in 15- to 20-knot winds to rendezvous with a waiting submarine.

At one point, the chopper dipped so low that water splashed into the cabin, nearly swamping the aircraft.

According to an account of the rescue mission in the U.S. Naval Institute publication Proceedings, Martin later estimated he was 50 to 60 feet from the water when he went out the helicopter door — too high to safely make the jump. The chopper also was reported to have been flying too fast.

Lt. Melvin "Spence" Dry, the officer in charge of Alpha Platoon, SEAL Team One, was killed on impact. Another team member suffered a broken rib and was semi-conscious.

Martin's commendation citation says that "despite losing consciousness, he located the survivors and kept them alive through another eight-hour night."

The then-chief warrant officer's "courageous actions, bold leadership and loyal devotion to duty reflected great credit upon himself and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service," the citation says.

Dry was the last SEAL killed during the Vietnam War.

According to Proceedings, Dry's parents — his father, Melvin H. Dry, had been a Navy captain — were told their son's death came in a "training mission," the government's cover story for the secret mission.

The article said that with the exception of an "end-of-tour" Navy commendation medal awarded to one lieutenant, no member of Dry's team was decorated or otherwise recognized for their actions.

After the Proceedings article detailed the secret mission in 2005, though, the skipper of the submarine Martin and the others were trying to rendezvous with collected Naval messages and submitted awards for Martin and Dry.

The Navy authorized the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal for Martin and a posthumous Bronze Star with valor for Dry on Oct. 26, 2007.

The original mission was code-named Operation Thunderhead, and its goal was to assist American POWs who planned to escape from the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison, steal a boat and flee via the Red River to the Gulf of Tonkin.

On June 3, 1972, Martin, an experienced combat veteran with several tours in Vietnam, launched from the submarine USS Grayback with three others in a SEAL Delivery Vehicle to reconnoiter an island near the mouth of the Red River.

The Navy said the operation was the first combat use of a mini wet-submersible.

Due to strong currents, though, the SEAL Delivery Vehicle ran out of battery power. The team decided to swim and tow the vehicle out to sea and away from the North Vietnam coast, where it was eventually scuttled.

After spending seven hours in the water, the mission personnel were picked up by helicopter and flown to the cruiser USS Long Beach.

Dry made an impassioned argument to return to the submarine Grayback to try the mission again, the Navy said, and on the night of June 5, a helicopter set off with the men in search of the sub's infrared flashing beacon.

It was dark and windy, visibility was limited, and at one point, the helicopter strayed over the "surf line" and into North Vietnam.

"I remember seeing (Dry's) face in the dim red helo light," the Proceedings article quoted Martin as saying. "His last words to me were, 'We've got to get back to Grayback.' "

"I was third in the drop," Martin added. "I exited and counted — one thousand, two thousand, three thousand ... followed by 'God dammit' — and then I hit the water." He knew at that point the altitude had been too high.

The flashing lights they had seen were emergency flares and strobes used by a second SEAL Delivery Vehicle that had launched from the submarine and foundered. The men were rescued at dawn.

In 2001, the Naval Special Warfare Command honored Martin by dedicating the new Advanced SEAL Delivery System maintenance building at Pearl City Peninsula to him.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.