Congressional Medal of Honor Recommendation For Captain Humbert Roque Versace

CPT Versace was executed by the Viet Cong on or about 26 September 1963; SFC Pitzer was released on humanitarian grounds with two other American POWs on 11 November 1967; and 1LT Rowe escaped from VC captivity on 31 December 1968. Rowe provided the most extensive written record of the captivity experience of all three captives.

On 18 November 1969 (then) MAJ Rowe initiated a recommendation for posthumous award of the Medal of Honor for CPT Versace’s bravery while in captivity. His DA Form 638 (Recommendation for Award) included an eyewitness statement from (then) MSG Pitzer. Over the years, Pitzer’s statement was removed from the DA Form 638 submission package by person(s) for unknown reasons, and the entire MOH submission package was either lost or misfiled by either Department of Defense’s Prisoner and Missing Personnel Office (DPMO), National Records Center in St. Louis, or the Army’s Awards Branch in Alexandria, Virginia. The only record remaining of the original submission (minus MSG Pitzer’s eyewitness statement) is on a microfilm record contained on reel #273 from the POW/MIA document collection at the Library of Congress. The quotations attributed to SFC Pitzer are from his oral history entitled "POW," contained in Al Santoli’s To Bear Any Burden.

In October, 1963, Captain Humbert Roque (Rocky) Versace was an U.S. Army MAAG intelligence advisor assigned to support ARVN forces operating in An Xuyen Province in the Mekong Delta Region of South Vietnam. In (then) MAJ Rowe’s memoir of his captivity experience, Five Years to Freedom, he provides this portrait of CPT Versace’s physical description and personality assessment:

"Rocky was a trimly built, twenty-six year-old West Point graduate who had volunteered for a six-month extension after completing one year as an adviser. His slightly outthrust jaw and penetrating eyes were indications of his personality, but his close-cut, black-flecked, steel-gray hair looked as if it belonged on someone much older." "Rocky’s grin was one of the nicest things about him. . ." ""Once he understood why something was done, he would accept it. That is, if he agreed with the reasoning. I had, in the short time I’d known him, noticed a dynamic, outspoken frankness. He had an eagerness, and disregard for danger . . ." "It was a matter of liking Rocky a hell of a lot or disliking him intensely. He was too positive a personality to allow any other reactions and his unreserved observations could be quite abrasive."

Captain Versace had been awarded the Combat Infantryman’s Badge while advising ARVN units in combat against the Viet Cong. "The battles were typical of that period: Vietcong nighttime assaults; chance daylight encounters with an elusive enemy and the seeming impossibility of pinning him down; bloody ambushes; lack of adequate air support and artillery even though our pilots were flying the wings off of the available T-28’s; the frustration that went with the "old war" before the arrival of jets, artillery support, and American combat units. This was the war known to the American advisers, to the isolated U.S. Special Forces detachments in their efforts to combat the Vietcong in their own territory. This was Vietnam, 1963."

Captain Versace made a liaison visit to the Special Forces Team A-23 camp at Tan Phu to exchange intelligence reports on enemy activities in the area. "It was an isolated fortress manned by [a twelve man] American Special Forces A-Detachment, their Vietnamese Special Forces (LLDB) counterpart team, and four companies - about 380 men on an average day - of the Civilian Irregular Defense Group. These were the Vietnamese and Cambodians from the area who had been recruited, equipped, and trained to resist the Viet Cong in their home villages."

On 28 October 1963, Captain Versace met with the Thoi Binh district chief and learned that a "small enemy force moved into the small hamlet of Le Coeur, [located about eight kilometers northwest of Tan Phu] and was establishing a command post there. The possibility that it would be used to direct attacks against us existed and we were going to hit the village, driving out or killing the VC. We would be taking two of our striker companies and one of the militia companies from Thoi Binh."

"Le Coeur was located in a Vietcong-dominated area on one of the main canals leading into the dreaded U Minh Forest. We had never ventured into that area before and the close proximity of the legendary forest sanctuary of the Vietcong made this a cinch for a damn good fire fight."

A hastily planned operation was scheduled to leave from Tan Phu before dawn on 29 October 1963. "The basic plan was to hit the hamlet with one company, while the other two formed an ambush between the hamlet and the forest. If the VC escaped the assault and ran for the forest, they would be cut up by the ambush. The two companies would also have sufficient strength to fight off VC reinforcements coming from the forest. The problem of fire support was crucial, since the objective and ambush site were well out of range of our [Tan Phu] camp mortars, and the 155’s [at Thoi Binh] were less effective for close support."

"Rocky announced that he would be going and drew surprised glances from the [A] team. MAAG advisers weren’t allowed to accompany Special Forces operations, and Al [pseudonym for Special Forces Captain Philip N. Arsenault, A-23 Detachment Commander] brought this to Rocky’s attention. The probability of making contact with Charlie and provoking action, coupled with the chance of picking up good intelligence in the previously untouched village, were enough reason for Rocky. We talked it over for a while, with Rocky insisting that the district chief’s initiation of the operation and militia participation made it a joint operation and he was going as an adviser to the militia. There was no way around his determination and it was decided that Rocky and I would go with [Vietnamese Special Forces] Lieutenant [Lam Quang] Tinh and the assault company."

BY (THEN) 1LT JAMES NICHOLAS ROWE

"Now we were going out to hit Le Coeur the [Thoi Binh] district chief had reported that an irregular platoon of VC were setting up a Command Post there to direct operations against our camp [Tan Phu] and the district capital. We were supposed to be looking for an irregular platoon but I’m pretty certain the district chief knew there was more than that waiting for us out there. And it turned out to be four main force battalions.

"We had a good plan and a good bunch of troops and when we hit the hamlet on the edge of the U Minh, the Viet Cong bugged and ran just as we thought they would . . . but instead of running toward the U Minh Forest where we had an ambush waiting for them, they ran away from it.

"There was no doubt that we had surprised them. We caught them completely unaware but they reacted in just the opposite way than we had anticipated. Instead of falling into our ambush they set us up for theirs.

"One other thing happened that should have been a tipoff that we were in over our heads on this little "routine" operation -- and I kick myself in the posterior for not alerting to it at the time: When we swept the hamlet after we ran them out, we found a Mossin-Nagant cartridge. It never occurred to me at the time, but guerrillas at that time had only captured American weapons and that Russian K-44 round meant that we had not been chasing an irregular Viet Cong unit but either a well-trained, well-armed regional or main force unit.

"We started back to camp and about two klicks down the canal, we looked out on canal nine and saw this whole line of black clad figures trying to cut us off. They fixed us from 900 meters with automatic weapons fire and the rounds were going all over the place, inaccurate as hell from that distance. But it was just effective enough to fix us in place and pin us . . . Right about then it got hairy. The 60 mm mortars sounded like a popcorn machine. We were fairly safe because they didn’t have our exact range but then a group of our Vietnamese strikers broke off and ran for the bank of a rice paddy . . . and they knew the range to that point.

"As soon as I saw our guys break for that bank, there was almost dead silence and I could almost picture it in my mind . . . watching the VC range those tubes. And then it came. There was one flight of about 12 rounds and it was almost a complete wipeout of our people who had run for that bank.

"We moved out rapidly then and got into a tree line and set up our perimeter. And once we got into that perimeter, they hit us with a blocking force from one side, a pressure force from another side and the assault from the third side across an open rice paddy.

"I never saw so many VC in my life. They must have had at least three platoons coming across that paddy and they just kept coming. As long as our strikers had ammunition, it was like a turkey shoot.

"Then they began to work us over with 57s and 81 mortars and we were taking casualties pretty heavily. And out there almost beckoning to us was that one big open rice paddy that wasn’t being defended and I thought ‘what the hell, let’s use it.’ But then we realized it was what they wanted us to do. They had it ambushed at two tree lines on the other side . . . a classical three-sided attack with an ambushed escape route.

"We dug in and tried to stop them from overrunning us.

"At this moment two of our planes passed nearby, a T-28 and a Caribou, and we thought we had it made but the pilot of the T-28, who had more VC in his sights at that moment than he had ever seen before, radioed that he couldn’t engage without authorization from Saigon . . . and he flew on.

"We had about 120 men and we were dealing out heavy casualties to the Cong, doing the job we were in Vietnam to do, and we weren’t all that disturbed at first. But then we began to run low on ammunition and we realized just how many damned VC were out there.

"I had an M1, a blued serial-numbered M1C, battle-sighted for 300 yards, and I was doing good work with it across those paddies. I went through two bandoliers of ammo and you had to hit something everytime you fired in that mass of bodies coming at us. We had Buddhist Cambods with tattoos on their chest that were supposed to protect them from harm and those guys were walking around in our perimeter like it was pay day in Tan Phu. Rounds were coming in all over the place, mortars, 57s, small arms fire, and these guys were walking around checking ammo, making status reports, laughing, and joking and stacking up Charlie like cord wood 10 to 15 meters in front of our positions.

"They were bloodying Charly’s (sic) nose, something awful. They had never been in a shootout like this before . . . and they were winning, and it felt good. And in the back of all our minds was the thought that First Company, which had preceded us back to camp after we had hit the hamlet, would be back to give us a hand.

"It was when we got the report that First Company had been ambushed and wasn’t going to make it that we got cold lumps in our stomachs. We knew that the game was up. We weren’t going anywhere.

"We had reached the point of no return with the Charlies still coming and we had killed so many of them that we were almost out of ammunition so Dan Pitzer, the [A-23] team medical supervisor, Rocky [Versace] and I told the troops to pull out and withdraw and that we would cover and leap frog back.

"Well, boy, that ‘withdraw’ was the wrong thing to say because our troops came past us at Mach 3 and accelerating. Dan had the M79, Rocky had a carbine and I had the M1 and we were picking the VC off as they came through . . . when suddenly an assault squad came through the trees and we thought we had had it right there.

"Dan caught the first bunch with the M79. When the first guy got it in the chest, he all but disappeared and the sight stopped the squad cold. They had never seen the M79 before and the shock of the weapon’s power gave us time to get out of there.

"I found our guys in a big ditch and everyone had thrown away their weapons and were ready to surrender. One of the NVSF that we called Pee Hole Bandit (Sgt. Trung) was ready to throw himself on a grenade he had ready.

"We got them up and into a cane field, moving them out, pushing them, covering for them . . . then the sound of a BAR -- there isn’t another sound like it in the world -- came crashing in on us. Rocky went down with three rounds in the leg.

"If he hadn’t fallen, he would have been killed by a grenade that went off on the other side of him. The blast of it caught me in the face and chest as I was stepping over to help him.

"I went over backwards and I thought I was dead. There was just one big ringing noise and I couldn’t see and couldn’t hear and everything was numb. No pain. Just numbness. I tried to get up and the whole world did a 360 and I went down on my knees to get straight. Rocky put his arms around my neck and I tried to drag him off the trail so we could lay dog (sic) until they went past us.

"You could hear them screaming and yelling and trailing (sic) like crazy. We broke reeds back across out trail. Rock wanted to charge out with the seven rounds he had left in his carbine and get that many more shots off at the VC. That was all he could think of.

"Finally I showed him that his wounds were pumping like a fire hydrant and that he would bleed to death before he could pull the trigger if he didn’t let me get a bandage on him. I got the first compress on his leg and was starting to put the second one on . . . when all of a sudden the reeds broke open and I head someone yelling "Do tay len!" Hands up! And there was a Mossin-Nagant and a U.S. carbine pointing down at us.

"They pulled me up after I got the second compress on Rocky -- I just stayed there bandaging away while they prodded me -- and they tied my arms with a big VC flag that I had in my pocket. One of our strikers had given it to me back in the village. They booted me down the path and when we passed the ditch our people had been in, I saw our wounded and dead. The VC were stripping the bodies of uniforms."

After being stripped of their boots, weapons, and personal possessions, CPT Versace, 1LT Rowe, and SFC Pitzer were bound and led barefoot into jungle captivity by their Viet Cong captors, somewhere in the vast darkness of the U Minh Forest.

Upon arrival on the VC jungle prison camp, Captain Versace assumed command as senior prisoner to represent his fellow Americans, and immediately was labeled as a trouble maker by his captors for insisting that the VC honor the Geneva Convention’s protections for captured POWs. The Viet Cong didn’t acknowledge any protections guaranteed to POWs as required by the Geneva Convention, and considered the three Americans to be "war criminals."

Soon CPT Versace was separated from Rowe and Pitzer and put in a bamboo isolation cage six feet long, two feet wide, and three feet high. "He was kept in irons, flat on his back, it was dark and hot [from thatch on the roof and outside bamboo walls], and they only let him out to use that latrine and to eat. What they were trying to do was to break him. They even offered better food and they would let him out if he would cooperate, but he would not. They wanted to get him to (1) quit arguing with them (2) and accept their propaganda. The Vietnamese gave him the word that they knew he was an S-2 Advisor."

SFC Pitzer commented in his Oral History "POW," that: "Rocky was strong in some ways and naive in others. He believed in the Geneva Convention [rules for treatment of prisoners of war]. He believed in the Code of Conduct [U.S. military code of honor]. He never believed that the Vietnamese would ignore the Geneva Convention. But Nick and I could tell right away that it was no protection. So our intention was to dummy up and take the punches as they came."

The Defense Prisoner and Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) states that: ". . . CPT Versace demonstrated exceptional leadership by communicating positively to his fellow prisoners. He lifted morale when he passed messages by singing them into the popular songs of the day. When he used his Vietnamese language skills to protest improper treatment to the guards, CPT Versace was again put into leg irons and gagged. Unyielding, he steadfastly continued to berate the guards for their inhuman treatment. The communist guards simply elected harsher treatment by placing him in an isolation box, to put him out of earshot and to keep him away from the other US POWs for the remainder of his stay in camp. However CPT Versace continued to leave notes in the latrine for his fellow inmates, and continued to sing even louder."

Captain Versace wouldn’t give his captors any information other than the big four of name, rank, service number, and date of birth, as required by the Geneva Convention and the U.S. Code of Conduct. "Rocky played it straight and they killed him."

"Rocky walked his own path. All of us did but for that guy, duty, honor, country was a way of life. He was the finest example of an officer I have known. To him it was a matter of liberty or death, the big four and nothing more. There was no other way for him. Once, Rocky told our captors that as long as he was true to God and true to himself, what was waiting for him after this life was far better than anything that could happen now. So he told them that they might as well kill him then and there if the price of his life was getting more from him than name, rank, and serial number.

"I’m satisfied that he would have it no other way. I know that he valued that one moment of honor more than he would have a lifetime of compromises."

Pitzer observed that: "The VC realized Rocky was a captain, Nick a lieutenant, and I a sergeant, so they singled him out as ranking man. Rocky stood toe to toe with them. He told them to go to hell in Vietnamese, French, and English. He got a lot of pressure and torture, but he held his path. As a West Point grad, it was Duty, Honor, Country. There was no other way. He was brutally murdered because of it."

DPMO records reveal that: "Still suffering from debilitating injuries in the prison camp dispensary three weeks later, CPT Versace took advantage of the first opportunity to escape when he attempted to drag himself on his hands and knees out of the camp through dense swamp and forbidding vegetation to freedom. Crawling at a very slow pace, the guards quickly discovered him outside the camp and recaptured him. After recapture CPT Versace was returned to leg irons and his wounds were left untreated. He was placed on a starvation diet of rice and salt. During this time period Viet Cong guards told other U.S. POWs in the camp that despite beatings, CPT Versace refused to give in. On one occasion a guard attempted to coerce him to cooperate by twisting the wounded and infected leg, to no avail. They described Versace as an ‘uncooperative’ prisoner."

Another eyewitness to CPT Versace’s escape attempts was Phung Van Tuong, former cadre at the camp where Versace, Rowe, and Pitzer were held. Tuong rallied to the Saigon government in 1967, and is quoted in "Ex-Vietcong Aide Tells of American P.O.W.’s," by Bernard Weinraub, which appeared in the New York Times, November 14, 1967: "Captain Versacre (sic) tried to escape four times, Lieutenant Row (sic) tried about three times. They were beaten and had their feet manacled after each escape. Their rice ration was also cut."

In February, 1964 the VC cadre forced the American prisoners to attend a political school, which was a combination of 2,000 years of Vietnamese history of repelling foreign invaders from the Chinese all the way to the Americans and their Saigon "puppet" government, and intense political indoctrination from the VC perspective. The VC concept was to repeat the same themes over and over, so that after months of hearing the same lessons, prisoners would become "re-educated" to accept the communist view of their inevitable victory over the Americans and the Saigon government, no matter how long it took to achieve, or the cost in VC and NVA casualties. Rowe recalled that it took two guards to force Captain Versace to attend, since he would not go on his own. ". . . I remember Rocky saying ‘you can make me come to this class, but I am an officer in the United States Army. You can make me listen, you can force me to sit here, but I don’t believe a word of what you are saying."

Rowe recalled that ". . . [Dan and I] adopted a sit-and-listen attitude between bouts of body-wrenching dysentery, feeling the more we said, the worse off we’d be.

"Rocky, on the other hand, was engaging all comers. I could hear Mr. Moui’s voice climb an octave from its already high pitch as Rock would contradict something Muoi had said. Major Hai spoke fluent French, and I could picture Rocky’s complete absorption in debating each of these men in a different language as a method of occupying his mind. Ba would completely lose his composure, yelling "No! No! No!" when Rocky maneuvered him into a contradiction, using Ba’s lack of familiarity with English to trip him up. After a while, the cadre stayed primarily with French and English to prevent the guards from understanding Rocky’s counterarguments which might have adversely influenced the indoctrinations they were receiving."

Eventually, the central committee of the National Liberation Front judged Captain Versace to be a reactionary, which meant that he was unworthy of the Viet Cong’s so-called "lenient and humanitarian" treatment. He was removed from camp and taken to zone headquarters. DPMO states" ". . . the last time that any of his fellow prisoners heard from him, CPT Versace was singing "God Bless America" at the top of his voice from his isolation box. On 29 September 1965 the National Liberation Front announced that they had executed CPT Versace, reportedly in reprisal for actions of the South Vietnamese Government."

"The second example was a guard who spoke no English, he was Vietnamese, and he was in a camp. Rocky was put in solitary [confinement], and this guard was one of the ones who was in the camp trying to indoctrinate Rocky, and I saw the guard later on when he came over to my camp after Rocky was executed, and based on his sessions with Rocky when he tried to convince Rocky that they were right, he knew two English words--bull----. But these were the only two words that that (sic) guard knew, and that was Rocky’s answer to everything that guard told him."

SFC Pitzer was released along with two other American POWs on 11 November 1967, in a humanitarian gesture by the National Liberation Front to support their propaganda efforts in the United States. Pitzer died in 1995.

Out of eight American prisoners held in captivity with Rowe (but not all at the same time), three died of starvation and disease; Versace was executed; three were released because they were in immediate danger of dying from starvation and disease; and Rowe was able to escape to freedom on 31 December 1968. The survival rate was 50%. Had the three prisoners not been released, and Rowe not escaped, the survival rate would have been 0% because they all would have died eventually from starvation, disease, and deliberate withholding of medical treatment. None of the VC guards died from starvation or disease, just the Americans.

In the Spring of 1969, (then) MAJ Rowe addressed the Corps of Cadets at West Point: ". . . I think the thing here is Rocky set an example. He died for what he believed in. He died for his actions, but he is a man who I believe will be remembered, and I am going to see that he is remembered.

"If anybody is in a situation similar, here is a man you can look to. Perhaps not the way he went or what happened to him, but this was Rocky’s choice. He could have bent, he could have broken, he could have lived. But he chose not to, and this was primarily because he was a West Pointer. And this is of importance to all of us because we are all in the same boat. And in a very few years, you are going to be coming into contact with this conflict, and there may be those among you who will be coming into the same kind of contact that Rocky did, so remember him. I am going to see that people do because for me he was the greatest example of what an officer should be that I have ever come in contact with."

On 17 November 1969 (then) MAJ Rowe submitted a recommendation for posthumous award of the Medal of Honor to CPT Versace. It was downgraded on 19 May 1971 to posthumous award of the Silver Star Medal.

In 1971 Rowe’s captivity experience Five Years to Freedom was published.

In 1972, Rowe was quoted as saying: "Now, however, I question the sacrifice of such a man.

"Was it worth it?

"How many people in America today know or remember Rocky Versace?

"How many people even in the Army remember him?

"They’ve forgotten Rocky Versace. And it is important that he be remembered. We don’t have that many Rocky Versaces and we need them.

"It is a tragedy that he is virtually forgotten."

Nick Rowe isn’t alive to lead the effort to get reconsideration of the Medal of Honor for Rocky Versace. In 1989, COL James Nicholas Rowe was chief of the ground forces division of the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group in Manila, Philippine Islands. His office was responsible for coordinating the use of US security assistance with the Philippine military. On 21 April 1989, a team of experienced assassins from the New People’s Army of the Communist Party of the Philippines killed Colonel Rowe in his chauffeur driven embassy staff car as he was being driven to work in Quezon City.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM: Whatever reasons at the time of Operation Homecoming, the U.S. Army never recognized the heroism of any of their hard-core POW resisters with award of the Medal of Honor, while the other services did.

Vietnam was a different kind of war from World War II and Korea, and so was the POW experience in several aspects. There were fewer prisoners (estimated at about 1,200 military, civilians, and foreign nationals known to have been captured) for two reasons. There were no mass surrenders of American forces such as those ordered for the defenders at Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines at the beginning of WWII. Nor were entire American combat units enveloped and overwhelmed, as happened during the forced withdrawal to the Pusan perimeter at the beginning of the Korean war. American prisoners were captured in Southeast Asia individually when soldiers were wounded or became trapped and couldn’t be rescued, or, as crew members of aircraft and helicopters that were shot down deep in enemy territory.

Vietnam was America’s longest undeclared war, and as a consequence, American prisoners endured captivity longer under inhumane conditions longer than in any previous conflict. (The longest held Army POW, Special Forces COL Floyd J. Thompson was held captive for two weeks short of nine years.) North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam treated all of their prisoners as "war criminals," and denied them any protections afforded to POWs by the Geneva Convention. Unless the communists allowed a prisoner’s name to be known to the media, those captured vanished without a trace, only to be known about if seen by another prison who did return.

Vietnam was the first conflict where the Code of Conduct guided soldiers in how to resist communist indoctrination. As in Korea, Vietnam POWs were subjected to intensive indoctrination sessions, designed by their communist captors to "re-educate" them over time to collaborate with the enemy, mainly for propaganda purposes, but also to stir up disunity within prisoner ranks.

There were four hard-line POW resisters who were awarded the MOH during the Vietnam war. Two died in captivity from torture/starvation and received posthumous awards of the MOH. Marine Colonel (then Captain) Donald Cook was captured by the Viet Cong and kept in captivity not too far away from CPT Versace. Air Force Captain Lance P. Sijan was captured in North Vietnam, and died from torture at the hands of the NVA. CPT Versace’s resolute resistance is equal to these two brave Americans who also died while in captivity.

Two hard-line POW resisters held captive by the NVA and released during Operation Homecoming in 1973 who were awarded he MOH: Air Force Colonel George E. Day, and Navy Vice Admiral (then Captain) James bond Stockdale.

NOTE: Three other POWs received MOHs, but their citations were for their individual acts of courage before being captured. Two returned from Hanoi during Operation Homecoming in 1973: Air Force Colonel (then Major) Leo K. Thorsness, and Army Special Forces Master Sergeant (then SSG) Jon R. Caviani. The family of Army Sergeant (then PFC) William D. Port received his posthumous MOH, awarded for shielding fellow 1st Air Cavalry Division soldiers from a grenade blast. Port was left for dead on the battlefield, was captured by NVA soldiers, but never received any medical treatment for his wounds. He lived another 10 months as a POW, and died in agony from starvation and medical neglect of his original wounds.

The other services had no reservations about recognizing their hard-line POW resisters with award of the MOH. As a result, the Air Force has two, the Navy and Marines each have one, and the Army has no hard-line POW resisters for the history books. By default, the Army as an institution is depriving itself of recognizing courageous soldiers who willingly died rather than tarnish the Code of Conduct. There are at least a half-dozen Army "unsung heroes" mentioned in Honor Bound: The History of American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973 who are deserving of recognition at the MOH and DSC level. Dr. Stuart Rochester, co-author of Honor Bound has endorsed the effort to revisit the MOH for CPT Versace.

Most recipients of the MOH exhibited bravery for actions against the enemy that were measured in minutes or hours. Life for a POW, especially for the jungle captives in South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, was being at war against the enemy on a 24 hour basis for every day of captivity. Every day was a struggle to live on a starvation diet of rice and salt, while resisting the on-going war of indoctrination conducted by the communist cadre, who used physical torture and withheld medical treatment and mosquito nets from the prisoners as leverage to get them to sign statements disloyal to the American government.

CPT Versace was the toughest hard-line resister among the Army jungle captives. He absolutely would not cooperate with the captives, and was executed by the VC when they determined that it was useless trying to break his resistance to indoctrination. If Versace was in any other service, his heroism would have been honored with the MOH when it was originally submitted by (then) MAJ Rowe in 1969. It is only because COL Rowe was assassinated by the Philippine communist New Peoples Army on 21 April 1989 that he isn’t leading the effort to get the Secretary of the Army to take another look at honoring CPT Versace with our nation’s highest award for valor.

CPT Versace’s outstanding leadership closely parallels that of Marine CPT Donald Cook. Both were held captive in the jungle by the Viet Cong. Both immediately took on the responsibility for being senior prisoner, and established a chain of command and crude communications system using a message drop at the latrine. Both refused to negotiate for their own release or better treatment. Both refused to "stray even the slightest form the Code of Conduct," which earned both men the deepest respect from their fellow prisoners and also grudging respect from their captors. Both frustrated attempts by their VC captors to break their indomitable spirit, and both passed on the same resolve to their fellow prisoners. Both realized that their continued resistance to the communists would result in their certain death, which they willingly accepted rather than disgrace the Code of Conduct and their country’s honor.

What was different in the captivity experiences between Cook and Versace were:

Because CPT Versace was held in strict isolation and in leg irons from the beginning of his captivity, there was no one to share his food with. He did not receive any medicine for three BAR bullet wounds to his left leg and shattered knee that he incurred during combat. Irate guards would torture him by pulling on his infected left leg which caused CPT Versace to scream out from the intense pain.

CPT Versace made four escape attempts according to one of his former VC cadre, Phung Van Tuong. With his bad left leg and without his glasses that had been taken from him, it would have been very difficult for him to make a successful escape, but he had the spirit to try, even though he was crawling on his hands and knees.

Right from the beginning, CPT Versace was judged to be a reactionary, by his communist indoctrinators. He was able to argue point by point in fluent Vietnamese, French, and English in every indoctrination session. Other prisoners could hear CPT Versace yelling at the cadre. As fellow prisoner Nick Rowe said, "they couldn’t break Rocky. They couldn’t even bend him." When the VC couldn’t break him, they executed him to set an example to other American prisoners what would happen to those who resisted indoctrination sessions.

Here the comparisons are centered around both men’s indomitable spirit of resistance, determination to escape, and upholding the Code of Conduct until death. CPT Sijan was shot down in North Vietnam and evaded capture for six weeks. When captured, he escaped but was recaptured after several hours. Transferred to the Hanoi prison system, he endured death when his body couldn’t recover from the severe physical torture inflicted upon him. He wanted to live to try another escape, but death intervened.

CPT Versace’s indomitable spirit of resistance ended when he was executed by the Viet Cong. His personal valor, leadership, faith in God, Country, and fellow American prisoners inspired them to survive under extreme conditions of brutal jungle captivity. "The last time any of his fellow prisoners heard from him, CPT Versace was singing God Bless America at the top of his voice from his isolation box." He truly lived West Point ideals of Duty, Honor, Country, and is worthy of our nation’s highest award for valor, the Congressional Medal of Honor.

PROPOSED CITATION

The President of the United States of America in the name of The Congress takes pride in presenting the Medal of Honor posthumously to:

UNITED STATES ARMY

CITATION:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while a prisoner of war during the period of 29 October 1963 to 26 September 1965 in the Republic of Vietnam. While accompanying a Civilian Irregular Defense Group patrol engaged in combat operations in Thoi Binh District, An Xuyen Province, Republic of Vietnam on 29 October 1963, Captain Versace and the CIDG assault force were caught in an ambush from intense mortar, automatic weapons, and small arms fire from elements of a reinforced enemy Main Force battalion. As the battle raged, Captain Versace fought valiantly and encouraged his CIDG patrol to return fire against overwhelming enemy forces. He provided covering fire from an exposed position to enable friendly forces to withdraw from the killing zone when it was apparent that their position would be overrun, and was severely wounded in the knee and back from automatic weapons fire and shrapnel. He stubbornly resisted capture with the last full measure of his strength and ammunition. Taken prisoner by the Viet Cong, he demonstrated exceptional leadership and resolute adherence to the tenants of the Code of Conduct from the time he entered into a prisoner of war status. Captain Versace assumed command of his fellow American prisoners, and despite being kept locked in irons in an isolation box, raised their morale by singing messages to popular songs of the day, and leaving inspiring messages at the latrine. Within three weeks of captivity, and despite the severity of his untreated wounds, he attempted the first of four escape attempts by dragging himself on his hands and knees out of the camp through dense swamp and forbidding vegetation to freedom. Crawling at a very slow pace due to his weakened condition, the guards quickly discovered him outside the camp and recaptured him. Captain Versace scorned the enemy’s exhaustive interrogation and indoctrination efforts, and inspired his fellow prisoners to resist to the best of their ability. When he used his Vietnamese language skills to protest improper treatment of the American prisoners by the guards, he was put into leg irons and gagged to keep his protestations out of earshot of the other American prisoners in the camp. The last time that any of his fellow prisoners heard from him, Captain Versace was singing God Bless America at the top of his voice from his isolation box. Unable to break his indomitable will, his faith in God, and his trust in the United States of America and his fellow prisoners, Captain Versace was executed by the Viet Cong on 26 September 1965. Captain Versace’s extraordinary heroism, self-sacrifice, and personal bravery involving conspicuous risk of life above and beyond the call of duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Army, and reflect great credit to himself and the U.S. Armed Forces.

Unless indicated otherwise, all quotations are from James Nicholas Rowe in various published documents, and his book "Five Years to Freedom."

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