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07-08-2002, 06:02 PM
Medal of Honor (http://search1.washtimes.com/cgi-bin/MsmGo.exe?CFGNAME=MssFind.cfg&grab_id=60316727&host_id=1&page_id=618&query=Versace)
By Ellen Sorokin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Special Report
Army Capt. Benjamin L. Salomon earned the respect of his fellow soldiers long before they found him bent over a barrel of a machine gun on a World War II battlefield in the Marianas Islands, his hand still on the trigger.
Capt. Salomon was a dentist serving as a surgeon with the 27th Infantry Division when his unit invaded Saipan. He was at his battalion's aid station on July 8, 1944, when 5,000 Japanese soldiers attacked his unit. Capt. Salomon killed several enemy soldiers as they tried to enter the aid station. Then, he ordered his fellow soldiers to evacuate the tent and carry away the wounded. "I'll hold them off until you get them to safety," he was last heard shouting. "See you later."
He replaced a dead two-man machine-gun crew and single-handedly killed 98 Japanese soldiers. He was shot 24 times before he fell and more than 50 times after that.
"We never even got a Purple Heart," his father once said years after his son's death.
Fifty-eight years later, the young dentist's acts of heroism were officially recognized when President Bush in May awarded Capt. Salomon the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military decoration for bravery or self-sacrifice above and beyond the call of duty.
"No one who knew him is with us this afternoon," Mr. Bush said during the May 1 ceremony in the White House Rose Garden. "Yet America will always know Benjamin Lewis Salomon by the citation that will be read shortly. It tells of one young man who was the match for 100, a person of true valor, who now receives the honor due to him from a grateful country."
One of many
Capt. Salomon's story is one of many cases in which veterans receive recognition for their heroic wartime efforts years after they die. Over the last decade, 41 war veterans received the medal, 29 of whom received it posthumously.
...
Honoring Capt. Versace
It took the last 38 years for several former prisoners of war to press at least four administrations to get their fellow captive Army Capt. Rocky Versace a Medal of Honor, an award that many of his supporters argue he was denied in Vietnam.
Unlike the Air Force, the Navy or the Marines, the Army has never awarded the Medal of Honor to a POW from Vietnam for actions during captivity.
"The key point here is that it was Versace's actions and not just his status that earned him our nation's highest award for valor," the Defense Department official said. "Captain Versace's heroic actions and determination to resist capture reflected extraordinary valor amid grave personal sacrifice. In spite of every effort, Capt. Versace maintained his dignity, honor and faith in God and country."
An Alexandria native, Humbert Roque "Rocky" Versace, 25, was a few days away from joining the priesthood when he was captured by the Viet Cong in October 1963 as he accompanied an operation near U Minh Forest. The South Vietnamese company was overrun by a large enemy troop engagement, and Capt. Versace went down with three rounds in the leg. He, along with two others, were taken prisoner.
For years, they were incarcerated in bamboo cages, deprived of food. After trying to escape four times, Capt. Versace was shackled. He was kept flat on his back and often gagged in a tiny dark isolation cage. Their captors often paraded the prisoners around the villages, pulling them by a rope tied around their necks.
Capt. Versace remained defiant, never breaking during torture. According to past interviews with fellow prisoners, Capt. Versace always argued with his captors, rebutting their propaganda. "He told them to go to hell in Vietnamese, French and English," one fellow prisoner told a historian before his death in 1997. "He got a lot of pressure and torture, but he held his path. There was no other way."
In 1965, Capt. Versace was executed by his captors. His remains were never found, and his family was told little about his case.
Recommendations made to President Nixon by former POWs who escaped after Capt. Versace's death were turned down because of what some supporters say was the political climate of the time. He instead was awarded the Silver Star posthumously in 1969.
Nearly three decades later, a group of family friends and West Point classmates formed "The Friends of Rocky Versace" to lobby Congress to support a medal application for Capt. Versace.
"We crawled at a snail's pace to get through the red tape," said Duane Frederic, an Ohio resident who helped research Capt. Versace's records. "The process is a good one, but the problem is it takes too long and for good reason. No one would want the Medal of Honor to go to someone who didn't deserve it. To retain the integrity of the process, no one should be rushed."
Word came from the White House last year that Capt. Versace would be awarded the medal. Mr. Bush will award his family the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony July 8.
"We never gave up, that's what it all comes down to," Mr. Frederic said. "Everybody understood that this man really deserves the Medal of Honor. And now we have closure, to know that Rocky did not necessarily suffer in vain. In the end, it's all about these soldiers who died with their boots on fighting for our freedom. We should never forget that."
Click here to read more (http://search1.washtimes.com/cgi-bin/MsmGo.exe?CFGNAME=MssFind.cfg&grab_id=60316727&host_id=1&page_id=618&query=Versace)
By Ellen Sorokin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Special Report
Army Capt. Benjamin L. Salomon earned the respect of his fellow soldiers long before they found him bent over a barrel of a machine gun on a World War II battlefield in the Marianas Islands, his hand still on the trigger.
Capt. Salomon was a dentist serving as a surgeon with the 27th Infantry Division when his unit invaded Saipan. He was at his battalion's aid station on July 8, 1944, when 5,000 Japanese soldiers attacked his unit. Capt. Salomon killed several enemy soldiers as they tried to enter the aid station. Then, he ordered his fellow soldiers to evacuate the tent and carry away the wounded. "I'll hold them off until you get them to safety," he was last heard shouting. "See you later."
He replaced a dead two-man machine-gun crew and single-handedly killed 98 Japanese soldiers. He was shot 24 times before he fell and more than 50 times after that.
"We never even got a Purple Heart," his father once said years after his son's death.
Fifty-eight years later, the young dentist's acts of heroism were officially recognized when President Bush in May awarded Capt. Salomon the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military decoration for bravery or self-sacrifice above and beyond the call of duty.
"No one who knew him is with us this afternoon," Mr. Bush said during the May 1 ceremony in the White House Rose Garden. "Yet America will always know Benjamin Lewis Salomon by the citation that will be read shortly. It tells of one young man who was the match for 100, a person of true valor, who now receives the honor due to him from a grateful country."
One of many
Capt. Salomon's story is one of many cases in which veterans receive recognition for their heroic wartime efforts years after they die. Over the last decade, 41 war veterans received the medal, 29 of whom received it posthumously.
...
Honoring Capt. Versace
It took the last 38 years for several former prisoners of war to press at least four administrations to get their fellow captive Army Capt. Rocky Versace a Medal of Honor, an award that many of his supporters argue he was denied in Vietnam.
Unlike the Air Force, the Navy or the Marines, the Army has never awarded the Medal of Honor to a POW from Vietnam for actions during captivity.
"The key point here is that it was Versace's actions and not just his status that earned him our nation's highest award for valor," the Defense Department official said. "Captain Versace's heroic actions and determination to resist capture reflected extraordinary valor amid grave personal sacrifice. In spite of every effort, Capt. Versace maintained his dignity, honor and faith in God and country."
An Alexandria native, Humbert Roque "Rocky" Versace, 25, was a few days away from joining the priesthood when he was captured by the Viet Cong in October 1963 as he accompanied an operation near U Minh Forest. The South Vietnamese company was overrun by a large enemy troop engagement, and Capt. Versace went down with three rounds in the leg. He, along with two others, were taken prisoner.
For years, they were incarcerated in bamboo cages, deprived of food. After trying to escape four times, Capt. Versace was shackled. He was kept flat on his back and often gagged in a tiny dark isolation cage. Their captors often paraded the prisoners around the villages, pulling them by a rope tied around their necks.
Capt. Versace remained defiant, never breaking during torture. According to past interviews with fellow prisoners, Capt. Versace always argued with his captors, rebutting their propaganda. "He told them to go to hell in Vietnamese, French and English," one fellow prisoner told a historian before his death in 1997. "He got a lot of pressure and torture, but he held his path. There was no other way."
In 1965, Capt. Versace was executed by his captors. His remains were never found, and his family was told little about his case.
Recommendations made to President Nixon by former POWs who escaped after Capt. Versace's death were turned down because of what some supporters say was the political climate of the time. He instead was awarded the Silver Star posthumously in 1969.
Nearly three decades later, a group of family friends and West Point classmates formed "The Friends of Rocky Versace" to lobby Congress to support a medal application for Capt. Versace.
"We crawled at a snail's pace to get through the red tape," said Duane Frederic, an Ohio resident who helped research Capt. Versace's records. "The process is a good one, but the problem is it takes too long and for good reason. No one would want the Medal of Honor to go to someone who didn't deserve it. To retain the integrity of the process, no one should be rushed."
Word came from the White House last year that Capt. Versace would be awarded the medal. Mr. Bush will award his family the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony July 8.
"We never gave up, that's what it all comes down to," Mr. Frederic said. "Everybody understood that this man really deserves the Medal of Honor. And now we have closure, to know that Rocky did not necessarily suffer in vain. In the end, it's all about these soldiers who died with their boots on fighting for our freedom. We should never forget that."
Click here to read more (http://search1.washtimes.com/cgi-bin/MsmGo.exe?CFGNAME=MssFind.cfg&grab_id=60316727&host_id=1&page_id=618&query=Versace)