Bush Awards Posthumous Medal of Honor

AP ^ | 7/8/02 | Will Lester

[ppaul]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush presented a posthumous Medal of Honor Monday to Army Capt. Rocky Versace, a Green Beret who defied his Viet Cong captors and was executed in 1965. "He was fluent in English, French and Vietnamese and would tell his guards to go to hell in all three," Bush told a group of about 200 in the East Room of the White House. The audience included Versace's friends and family members, including three brothers.

The president gave the framed medal to the captain's brother Steve, who was applauded as he held it over his head and turned slowly to display it to the crowd.

Versace would have been 65 last Tuesday. He grew up in Alexandria, Va., and went to high school in Washington, White House officials said. He graduated from West Point and served as an intelligence adviser in the Mekong Delta.

In October 1963, two weeks before his tour in Vietnam was to end, Versace set out with several companies of South Vietnamese troops in a planned attack on a Viet Cong command post.

They were ambushed by a much larger Viet Cong force. Versace was wounded, but kept providing cover fire so the troops with him could withdraw.

Versace and two other officers were captured and marched to a prison camp in the jungle. Given little to eat and held in mosquito-ridden conditions, he tried to escape four times and refused to cooperate with his captors. Eventually he was separated from the other prisoners, Bush said.

"The last time they heard his voice, he was singing 'God Bless America' at the top of his lungs," Bush said.

Versace was executed Sept. 26, 1965. "Today we award Rocky Versace the first Medal of Honor given to an Army POW for actions taken during captivity in Southeast Asia," Bush said.

WASHINGTON, DC, 8-JUL-2002: President George W. Bush (R) watches the brother of Humbert "Rocky" Versace, Stephen Versace (L), display Rocky Versace's Medal of Honor in the East Room of the White House July 8, 2002 in Washington, DC. Versace, an Army captain from Alexandria, VA, executed by his Viet Cong captors in 1965, was posthumously awarded by President Bush the Medal of Honor for the extraordinary resistance he displayed under cruel conditions.

[ppaul]

"Today we award Rocky Versace the first Medal of Honor given to an Army POW for actions taken during captivity in Southeast Asia," Bush said. Glad to see President Bush do this. It's more of an honor than if Slick Willie had been the president. If Clinton waited, I'm glad. I give him credit for not besmirching the solemnity and dignity of the honor.

Too bad it took so long.

"The last time they heard his voice, he was singing 'God Bless America' at the top of his lungs," Bush said.

But there are whack-jobs out there who don't want our children singing that "establishment of religion" song in our schools.

[Bogey78O]

I find it amazing so many can say with a straight face these men were executed in a way that was undeniably a war crime then turn around and berate the US for possible atrocities in Korea 50 yrs ago.

[EternalVigilance]

Rocky Versace defied them...Bill Clinton and his communist-sympathizing friends like Senator Tom Harkin embraced them.

Quite a contrast.

I'm sure Rocky's commie tormenters did or will follow his orders explicitly and go to hell...no doubt there is a nice hot spot there for fellow travelers as well.

[First_Salute]

Hate America First, by Gore Vidal:

I was in Guatemala when the CIA was preparing its attack on the Arbenz government [in 1954]. Arbenz, who was a democratically elected president, mildly socialist. His state had no revenues; its biggest income maker was United Fruit Company. So Arbenz put the tiniest of taxes on bananas, and Henry Cabot Lodge got up in the Senate and said the Communists have taken over Guatemala and we must act. He got to Eisenhower, who sent in the CIA, and they overthrew the government. We installed a military dictator, and there's been nothing but bloodshed ever since.

This event was the watershed for nearly every subsequent protest by the leftist liberals in the Americas (including the U.S.) and was pointed to over and over as the great evil of American patriotism; it has been thrown around every program of socialist interest on college campuses ever since; it is popular among the left-winger-weenies as the calling card or ID card of the politically correct's assertion that the United States of America is the enemy to be hated.

I may strongly disagree with even more such "businesses practices" than has Mr. Vidal, but his ill will toward Americans trying to defend themselves against the ultra-coercions of the nationalizing socialism(s) which he and his followers have favored, has constantly overlooked that very horror, such as this, which we still struggle against --- what the leftists have manifested; see: The U.S. case against the court (ICC) is bogus on its face., Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 2, 2002, by editorial staff (posted by wallcrawlr). My reply there:

Why is there no mention of the truly large atrocities committed by the extreme left-wing in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune?

Will Castro and the communists of Cuba be arrested?

Will the communists of Southeast Asia be arrested?

Will the communists of Asia be arrested?

Heart of darkness: Cambodia's Killing Fields

 August 8, 2001 [CNN online]

By CNN's Joe Havely

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- The fields of Choeung Ek on the outskirts of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, carry a dark secret.

Across the baked earth scraps of cloth and human bone poke through the soil and are slowly bleached white by the harsh tropical sun.

In the center stands a glass-walled shrine containing more than 8,000 skulls -- the remains of just a few of those who died here.

These are the Killing Fields of Cambodia.

Here, just a few kilometers from the center of Phnom Penh, tens of thousands of people met their deaths -- entire families wiped out.

Many of those killed were intellectuals or trained professionals -- people considered counter-revolutionaries by the Khmer Rouge leadership bent on turning Cambodia into a [communist, socialist, leftist, fascist] peasant's paradise. (In " [ ] " --- mine, F_S)

Towards the end of its rule, as the regime became increasingly paranoid and turned on itself, many once senior Khmer Rouge cadres also met their end at Choeung Ek.

Men, women and children -- some just a few months old -- were killed here, often in the most violent and brutal ways.

With bullets in short supply, the condemned were forced to kneel before an open grave then stabbed through the head with a sharpened bamboo stake ...

Reign of terror

The fields of Choeung Ek contain more than 100 mass graves

In the corner of the field stands a tree ...

Against its trunk the heads of babies were smashed by young men brainwashed into believing their actions would free Cambodia from colonial imperialism ...

Reuters contributed to this report.

[ppaul]

:

Ping.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

.

[ppaul]

FYI

[MistyCA]

Thank you for the ping!!!! :))))))

[MistyCA]

Thanks!

[John R. (Bob) Locke]

I agree. 'Bout time.

[MeekOneGOP]

Thanks for posting this. I saw part of this on FOX News Channel yesterday!

[Snow Bunny]

Hi ppaul, thank you for the thread and the ping !!!!

[stainlessbanner]

Truly a patriot! God Bless him.

Thanks for sharing the story ppaul - I'm glad he was formally recognized.

[clintonh8r]

Thanks for the ping.

Semper fi!

[Vetnet]

Thanks PPAUL! What an inspiring American hero.

Wish I could have met him...

[stand watie]

ABOUT TIME too!

free dixie NOW,sw

[vikingchick]

bump to the top

[Consort]

[higgmeister]

Five year, “Never Give Up”, bump