Robert James Yered was a United States coast guardsman who was awarded the Silver Star Medal for his actions during the Vietnam War.

[2][3][4][5][6] According to the Milford Daily News, his local paper, Yered enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard at seventeen years old.

[2] He rose to the highest enlisted rank, master chief petty officer, prior to his retirement after 24 years of service.

Yered's 82-foot Point-class cutter was moored in a river port at Cát Lái, Vietnam, on February 18, 1968, when the base was attacked by mortars and rockets.

After he retired from the U.S. Coast Guard Yered was a groundskeeper at a high school in Massachusetts.