News-Info-Alerts

Re: Remembering An American Hero

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: November 26, 2002

"Remembering an American hero

HAL BOCK, AP Sports Writer  

The bracelet is made of stainless steel, the kind of metal that does not wear out. It wraps around the right wrist of Memphis Grizzlies general manager Dick Versace in memory of his brother, a silent tribute to an American hero.

The engraving is simple:

"Capt. Humbert R. Versace, 29 October 63."

That's the date the Viet Cong captured Rocky Versace. It's a date burned into his brother's brain, a date that lives in his heart.

Dick Versace has worn a POW-MIA wristband for 39 years now, a lifetime spent coaching basketball in high school, college and the NBA. His portfolio includes a fistful of 20-win seasons, three league championships and an NIT title.

Through it all, there were memories of Rocky.

Vietnam was a small blip on the American landscape in 1963, the troops stationed there euphemistically described as advisers. Rocky Versace was in his second tour of duty, two weeks away from discharge. On an operation to root out what was believed to be a 40-man platoon, Versace and his strike force instead ran into an 900-man battalion. They were overrun, and three Americans, including Versace, were captured, dragged off and placed in cages.

The enemy had no idea just what they had on they hands.

"He was the toughest guy in the neighborhood," Dick Versace said. "He had a ferocity of commitment that was unequaled. In a fight, he would not back off. He would not give up. My mother had a firepail of water in the kitchen to break up fights. He won them all."

Versace remembered how devout his big brother was to his Catholic faith, how concerned he was that he might inadvertently commit a sin.

"He got it screwed up," Versace said. "He believed if you didn't say, 'Excuse me' when you hiccuped, it was a sin. He'd say it 2,000 times. I remember him doing it for an hour -- 'hiccup, excuse me, hiccup, excuse me.' That's how adamant he was."

Rocky Versace was a West Point graduate and dedicated to the academy's motto of "Duty, Honor, Country." In the 23 months after he was captured, the Viet Cong would find out just how dedicated.

Dick Versace was in college at the University of Wisconsin when his mother called with news that Rocky, wounded three times, was missing. Then came the news that his brother had been captured.

"I thought the worst, because of the kind of individual he was," he said. "I knew if they tried to break him, it would not happen. I knew if they tried to brainwash him, they'd be brainwashed.

"Me, I'd try to wheel and deal and get out. Rocky tried to escape three times. He crawled seven miles once. They recaptured him every time. That was their mistake."

Dick Versace was right. His brother would not break. Subjected to unspeakable torture by his captors, his will seemed to grow stronger, according to those who were imprisoned with him. Separated from the others, he found ways to communicate. They could hear him engaged in daily arguments with his captors, demanding better treatment for the prisoners. He was beaten for his trouble.

His captivity became the stuff of legend as word spread through the countryside about this defiant American. Gaunt and shackled, he was paraded through villages by his captors, beaten repeatedly. He ignored his condition to shout at them in French and Vietnamese, figuring they would understand one or the other.

They locked him in leg irons, left his wounds untreated in mosquito-ridden conditions, starved him, put him in a bamboo cage the size of a coffin, and still Rocky Versace would not break. The last time the other prisoners heard him, he was singing "God Bless America" at the top of his lungs.

Rocky Versace was executed on Sept. 26, 1965. No remains were ever found. He was 27.

"Until the day she died, my mother felt he would walk out of that jungle," Dick Versace said. "That was the kind of guy he was. He was indomitable."

Last summer, Rocky Versace was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. In this week of Thanksgiving, it would be appropriate to pause and think about this American hero and the stainless steel bracelet that basketball lifer Dick Versace still wears on his right wrist. "