News-Info-Alerts

Re: Remembrances - The Strength of the Spirit

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: July 14, 2002

"A POW's medal for mettle

By DENNIS ROGERS

Nick Rowe was afraid Rocky Versace would be forgotten. The last time I saw Rowe, in 1985 when he was teaching Fort Bragg soldiers to withstand the horrors of a prisoner-of-war camp, he suggested I write about Rocky instead of him.

"He was the real hero," Rowe said. "He was the bravest man I ever knew."

That's saying something, because Lt. Col. Nick Rowe knew something about bravery.

Rowe spent five years in a Viet Cong prison. Two Americans were with him in the isolated jungle camp, Green Beret medic Dan Pitzer and the irrepressible Capt. Humbert Roque "Rocky" Versace.

Versace, Rowe and Pitzer were captured in 1963 while advising a South Vietnamese infantry unit. Versace, wounded three times, was the senior officer, so he took the lead in resisting their VC captors. He aggressively fought for the welfare of his men and for their rights as prisoners. He refused to give more information than his name, rank, serial number and date of birth. Pitzer later said that Versace, while unquestionably brave, was naive to believe the Viet Cong would ever honor the POW provisions in the Geneva Accords. Pitzer was proven tragically correct.

Versace paid the price for his unyielding resistance and his four escape attempts. Incensed by his belligerent attitude, the VC focused their considerable wrath on the young intelligence officer to the point that Rowe and Pitzer said they were not as badly treated. To the end, he demanded that he and his men be treated humanely as prisoners of war instead of criminals.

Instead, he was executed.

In September 1965, just as the United States was waking up to the nightmare that the Vietnam War would become, Radio Hanoi announced that Versace had been executed in retaliation for the killing of suspected communist sympathizers in South Vietnam.

"The last time I heard Rocky's voice, he was in a cage singing 'God Bless America' at the top of his lungs," Rowe wrote of his friend. It was the night before Versace was executed.

Rowe killed a guard with his bare hands and escaped after five years of captivity, only to be assassinated by communist guerrillas in the Philippines in 1989. Dan Pitzer, near death from his cruel treatment while a prisoner, was one of a handful of Americans ever freed by the Viet Cong. He recovered his health and went on to complete an illustrious Army career, retiring as a sergeant major. He died from illness in 1995.

And Rocky? This past Monday, President Bush posthumously awarded Capt. Humbert Roque "Rocky" Versace the Medal of Honor. It is the first time the medal has been awarded to an Army soldier for heroism while a prisoner of war.

The award ended a 35-year campaign begun by Rowe and Pitzer, both of whom nominated Versace for the military's highest decoration for gallantry. Their cause was taken up by other Special Forces veterans who pressured the government to recognize Versace's indomitable spirit, selfless courage and ultimate sacrifice.

Versace was captured two weeks before he was to leave Vietnam and begin training as a Catholic priest.

The Vietnamese have not returned his body to his family.

Dennis Rogers can be reached at 829-4750 or drogers@newsobserver.com.
© Copyright 2002, The News & Observer"