Soldier who stood firm against Viet Cong captors inspired fellow POWs, earned Medal of Honor

Soldier who stood firm against Viet Cong captors inspired fellow POWs, earned Medal of Honor
Stars and Stripes
By Chris Carroll
Published: October 28, 2013

EDITOR'S NOTE: With this story, Stars and Stripes begins a look back at the Vietnam War and the cultural changes that surrounded it. With contributions from the men and women who were there, we will examine how the war was prosecuted, how it changed our military and foreign policy thinking, and how America viewed itself then and now.

“VIET VICTORY NEAR,” blared a headline across the top of Stars and Stripes’ front page.

Farther down the page, a smaller article titled “3 Aides Seized in Vietnam Battle” told a far less celebratory tale. Three soldiers serving as advisers to Vietnamese government troops south of Saigon were feared to have been captured a few days earlier by the Viet Cong during a failed raid.

The date of the edition was Nov. 1, 1963.

For the men taken captive, years of torment lay ahead. At home, the nation would descend into increasing turmoil as U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War deepened.

Two of the soldiers snatched would return to the United States, but the body of the third, Capt. Humbert “Rocky” Versace, still lies in an unmarked grave somewhere in the Mekong River Delta. Versace’s heroic and ultimately fatal resistance to his Communist captors resulted in the posthumous awarding of the Medal of Honor to him in 2002.

It wasn’t the first Medal of Honor awarded to a Vietnam veteran; that honor went to Army Special Forces Capt. Roger Donlon, who in 1964 ignored serious wounds while leading the defense of a Special Forces camp from an enemy attack and rescuing several fellow soldiers.

But Versace’s medal covers the earliest time period of any Medal of Honor awarded for service in Vietnam, having been awarded for cumulative acts that began in late 1963 and continued until his death at age 28 on Sept 26, 1965.
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