New Sand Springs Public Safety Facility to be named in honor of war hero Billie A. Hall
/A new Public Safety facility is in the works in Sand Springs and the Sand Springs City Council unanimously approved the naming of the facility as the Billie A. Hall Public Safety Facility in a regular meeting Monday evening.
Staff Sergeant Billie Allen Hall was born on September 21, 1939 and killed in action on March 9, 1966 in Vietnam when Camp A Shau was assaulted with mortars and small arms fire by two North Vietnamese regiments. Hall was a medic in a company of 143 men sent to relieve the battered camp. Hall ran through the center of the firefight multiple times to assist in dragging the wounded to safety and treating them.
Hall lost both legs to a mortar strike but refused medical attention and morphine, instead focusing on helping others. He did not allow himself to be moved until he had finished treating other casualties and continued coordinating medical efforts until blood loss caused him to collapse into a coma and eventually die.
Hall is honored on Panel 5E, Line 132 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. and is buried in Section 51, Site 946 in Arlington National Cemetery. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 1967 and inducted into the Sand Springs Education Foundation Hall of Fame in 2008. In 2007 the American Legion Post 17 in Sand Springs unanimously voted to rename the Post in his honor. Legion volunteers are continually working to have Hall awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
The new facility will be constructed in the 400 block of West Morrow Road in the Sheffield Crossing development. It will be approximately 40,000 square feet and will house Police, Fire, Municipal Court, Jail, Emergency Operations Center and 911 Communications operations.