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Dear Congressman Dornan:

Will you please help take care of some unfinished business from the Vietnam War?

On this page is a citation proposing that two veterans of the Vietnam War who clearly distinguished themselves through gallantry beyond the call of duty be posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Captain Humberto "Rocky" Versace and SFC Kenneth M. Roraback, team members of Detachment A-23, 5th Special Forces Group, South Vietnam, distinguished themselves by showing extraordinary heroism after being captured by the Viet Cong. Capt. Versace of Norfolk, Va. and Sgt. Roraback of Baldwin, NY are American heroes whose patriotic deeds have, up until now, been lost in the Pentagon's secret POW/MIA files.

Please ask President Bill Clinton to recognize the sacrifice of these brave Americans by awarding Capt. Versace and Sgt. Roraback the Congressional Medal of Honor.

On the following pages is a synopsis of the events leading up to and surrounding the military action which qualifies Capt. Versace and Sgt. Roraback as recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The information contained in the synopsis has been gleaned from U.S. government documents, Green Berets at War by Shelby Stanton, Five Years to Freedom by Nick Rowe, To Bear Any Burden by Al Santoli, P.O.W.: Two Years with the VietCong by George E. Smith, The Viet-Cong Strategy of Terror by Douglas Pike, The Congressional Medal of Honor Library by Dell Publishing, Terror in Vietnam by Jay Mallin and personal interviews with Col. Nick Rowe and Sgt. Maj. Dan Pitzer.
Sincerely,
Ted Sampley
publisher U.S. Veteran Dispatch
chairman The Last Firebase Veterans Archives Project

Citation:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the cost of their own lives while interned as prisoners of war of the Vietnamese Communist National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) in the Republic of Vietnam during the period of 29 October 1963 to 26 September 1965.

Despite many threats from the Viet Cong that refusal to collaborate with the National Liberation Front would advance Captain Humberto "Rocky" Versace and SFC Kenneth M. Roraback's chances to be chosen for execution, Capt. Versace and Sgt. Roraback continued to resist the enemy by steadfastly adhering to the United States Military Code of Conduct.

Because of their unyielding loyalty to the United States, Capt. Versace and Sgt. Roraback were forced to endure years of beri-beri, dysentery, tropical fungus diseases, loneliness and frustration while prisoners of the National Liberation Front.

Rather than negotiate with the Viet Cong for early release or better treatment, Capt. Versace and Sgt. Roraback continued to fight for the interests of the United States by vehemently arguing with their captors against the objectives of communism and in favor of democracy and freedom. Capt. Versace and Sgt. Roraback earned the deepest respect from their fellow prisoners by frustrating all attempts of Viet Cong interrogators to break their unconquerable spirits.

Their personal values and exceptional spirit of dedication to Duty, Honor and Country in the face of certain death reflects the highest credit upon Capt. Versace, Sgt. Roraback, the American people, the United States and its democratic way of life.

Synopsis:
The start of terrorist activities in 1957 signaled the beginning of a new North Vietnamese communist campaign of bloody terror against the non-communist government of South Vietnam.

By 1960, North Vietnamese-sponsored communist insurgents in South Vietnam, known to the South Vietnamese as Viet Cong, had created a powerful political-paramilitary organization called the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. The National Liberation Front's stated objective was to "liberate the South from U.S. imperialists and their lackeys." It was ruled by a secret Central Committee that used murder, which is manifest in terror, as a highly effective political weapon.

The National Liberation Front's plan to "liberate" South Vietnam was brutally simple - win control of the South by exterminating the South Vietnamese government's presence and authority, which in rural areas was represented by hamlet and village chiefs, other local authorities and school teachers, etc.

As the Viet Cong viewed it, if they murdered an unpopular official, they would win the gratitude of the local people. If they murdered a popular official, they had eliminated an important enemy.

President John F. Kennedy had become deeply concerned over the insurgency and increasing terrorist attacks against the South Vietnamese. On September 21, 1961, he announced a program to provide additional military and economic aid to South Vietnam. President Kennedy activated the 5th Special Forces Group, 1st Special Forces at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and authorized Special Forces troops to wear the distinctive headgear that became the symbol of Special Forces - the Green Beret.

The U.S. Army Special Forces (USSF), Vietnam (Provisional) was formed in Saigon in 1962 to advise and assist the anti-Communist South Vietnamese government in the development of paramilitary forces among Vietnam's ethnic and religious minority groups. The Special Forces mission came to be known as the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) program.

The USSF Provisional/CIDG network, which was originally designed to prevent Montagnard tribesmen who lived in the strategic Central Highlands from succumbing to Viet Cong control, soon evolved into combat operations from fortified, strategically located camps all over South Vietnam.

The isolated locations of the camps, often built in the midst of known heavy enemy presence, made the camps vulnerable to attack. Each camp, which was controlled by a 12-man USSF A-Team, had its own locally recruited "strike force". The mission of the Special Forces soldier was "hard, dirty and bloody." During the first year of 5th Special Forces Group existence in Vietnam, its camps were practically left alone, forced to operate with little or no air and artillery support.

In 1963, the total USSF personnel strength was 674. All but 98 were assigned Temporary Duty (TDY) from 1st Special Forces Group on Okinawa and the 5th and 7th Special Forces Groups at Ft. Bragg.

By the end of October 1963, the network also had been assigned the responsibility of border surveillance. Two of the Provisional/CIDG camps were at Hiep Hoa (Detachment A-21) and Tan Phu (Detachment A-23), South Vietnam.

   Before daybreak on October 29, 1963, Green Berets Capt. "Rocky" Versace, 1Lt. "Nick" Rowe, and Sgt. Daniel Pitzer were accompanying two CIDG strike force companies (approximately 130 men) on an operation in an area webbed with canals. The companies had left on foot from Tan Phu for the village of Le Coeur to roust a small Viet Cong unit believed to be establishing a command post there.

When the CIDG companies neared the Le Coeur, First Company was placed in a blocking position in hopes of ambushing any enemy that might try to escape from the village.

At daybreak, the Americans and the CIDG strikers of Third Company began an assault across a rice paddy toward Le Coeur. They were soon spotted by a sentry who alerted the village by firing his weapon. Black-suited Viet Cong began running away, carrying their weapons and gear.

The Viet Cong retreated to a more distant sanctuary to the northwest, instead of the forest, where First company was waiting in ambush. The CIDG of Third Company moved ahead, secured the village and prepared to wait for First Company to join them.

Third Company, with Capt. Versace, Lt. Rowe, and Sgt. Pitzer, began to pursue the fleeing Viet Cong. At about 10am, after passing several canals, Third Company found itself cut off from First Company and in the middle of an ambush set by a much larger Viet Cong force.

Fierce fighting erupted and continued until 6pm, with the CIDG forces inflicting heavy casualties upon the Viet Cong. The fight began to change against the CIDG when First Company was wiped out while attempting to relieve the beleaguered Third Company. Soon, Third Company found itself outnumbered and under heavy attack with no reinforcements or air and artillery support.

After overrunning the CIDG, the Viet Cong surrounded and captured Capt. Versace, Lt. Rowe and Sgt. Pitzer. The Americans were bound, loaded into sampans (small boats) and moved on the canals to a Viet Cong prisoner of war camp deep in the U Minh forest.

The camp at Hiep Hoa was located in the Plain of Reeds between Saigon and the Cambodian border. In late October 1963, several Viet Cong surrendered at the camp, claiming that they wished to defect. Nearly a month later, on November 24, Hiep Hoa was overrun by an estimated 400-500 Viet Cong just after midnight.

Viet Cong sympathizers in the camp had killed the guards and manned a machine gun position at the beginning of the attack. The Viet Cong climbed the camp walls and shouted in Vietnamese, "Don't shoot! All we want is the Americans and the weapons!"

Lt. John Colbe, the executive officer, evaded capture. Capt. Doug Horne, the Detachment Commander, had left earlier with a 36 man CIDG force. The Viet Cong captured four of the Americans there. It was the first Special Forces camp to be overrun during the Vietnam War.

Those captured at Hiep Hoa were Sgts. Issac "Ike" Camacho, Kenneth M. Roraback (the radio operator), George E. "Smitty" Smith and Claude D. McClure. Their early days of captivity were spent in the Plain of Reeds, southwest of Hiep Hoa, and later in the U Minh forest. They were held there in a separate camp from Capt. Versace, Lt. Rowe and Sgt. Pitzer.

The American prisoners were placed in bamboo cages "four feet wide, six feet long, just big enough to sit up in." For the first year, they were held in isolation, not allowed to communicate with each other. Life for the American prisoners became an every day struggle for survival. Their communist interrogators effectively used food, medicine and sleep deprivation as psychological and physical torture to intimidate and break the prisoner's will to resist. Prisoners would be severely beaten at the slightest infraction of camp rules.

"Our main punishment was the night. I've seen mosquitos so thick on my ankles that I thought I had black socks on. A guard would say, 'Under the lenient policy of the National Liberation Front, we're going to wash your mosquito net . . . and we want your pajamas too.' So overnight, they would leave us naked and in leg irons," Sgt. Pitzer later said in Al Santoli's book, To Bear Any Burden.

The Americans also endured years of beri-beri, dysentery, tropical fungus diseases, loneliness and frustration. They were subjected to a grueling and constant barrage of indoctrination: "Sign a statement declaring the United States imperialist aggressors and we will let you go home." The communist interrogators would threaten, "If you don't repent your crimes, you can stay here forever. This war can end tomorrow, but you can be here for the rest of your life."

The National Liberation Front policy of terrorizing and torturing American prisoners by the intentional withholding of food and medicine was barbaric and premeditated. The percentage of U.S. prisoners of war who died during the Vietnam War in National Liberation Front POW camps was double, if not triple, that of Union prisoners in the infamous Andersonville POW camp during the Civil War. Because so many U.S. prisoners died there, the U.S. government hung the Commander of the Interior of Andersonville, Confederate Captain Henry Wirz. Captain Humberto "Rocky" Versace.

Capt. Rocky Versace had been torn between the Army and the priesthood. When he won an appointment to West Point, he decided God wanted him to be a soldier. He was to enter Maryknoll (an order of Missionaries) as a candidate for the priesthood, when he left Vietnam. It was evident from the beginning that Capt. Versace, who spoke fluent French and Vietnamese, was going to be a problem for the Viet Cong.

Although Capt. Versace was known to love the Vietnamese people, he could not accept the Marxist-Leninist and Ho Chi Minh philosophy of the Viet Cong or their violent and bloody revolution against democracy, individual freedom, the free enterprise system and the civilian population of South Vietnam. He spent long hours pointing out the hypocrisy of the communists and assailing their viewpoints.

"I'm an officer in the United States Army. You can force me to come here, you can make me sit and listen, but I don't believe a damn word of what you say," Lt. Rowe heard Capt. Versace declare to the interrogator.

Eventually, Capt. Versace's captors permanently isolated him from other American prisoners and began an intense "reeducation" campaign. Orders were issued from the National Liberation Front Central Committee to either break Capt. Versace or execute him.

He was tortured and forced to sit in leg irons and listen to long lectures about the evils of capitalism. He was told that the National Liberation Front would never release "unrepentant Americans" and that if he ever wanted to go home he would have to denounce the "Wall St. capitalists" and declare the U.S. government's effort in South Vietnam "imperialistic, unjust and illegal."

Sgt. Pitzer said that because Capt. Versace believed so strongly in the Geneva Convention, (international rules for treatment of prisoners of war) and the Code of Conduct (a definitive code specifying the responsibilities of U.S. military personnel while in combat or captivity), "the communists went after him with a vengeance."

Capt. Versace's interrogators became enraged when he continued to abide by the Code of Conduct, which forbids American servicemen to collaborate with the enemy or make oral or written statements against the United States.

"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," Sgt. Pitzer said in To Bear Any Burden.

On Feb. 19, 1964, Lt. Rowe, while still shackled in his cramped bamboo cage, overheard Capt. Versace arguing vehemently with a Viet Cong interrogator who was accusing Capt. Versace of being "reactionary" and "unrepentant."

"I'm an officer in the United States Army. You can force me to come here, you can make me sit and listen, but I don't believe a damn word of what you say," Lt. Rowe heard Capt. Versace declare to the interrogator.

Lt. Rowe wrote in his book, Five Years to Freedom, that Capt. Versace's response that day to the interrogator's threat made "my back straighten and my face grow warm with a feeling of pride."

Several days later, a Viet Cong interrogator who the American prisoners had nicknamed "Plato," told Lt. Rowe that because of Capt. Versace's "bad attitude toward the Front," he could never be released. The interrogator threatened Lt. Rowe with the same fate if he did not start cooperating.

On October 18, 1964, the South Vietnamese government executed terrorist Nguyen Van Troi after convicting him of a 1963 attempt to assassinate U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge by planting dynamite under a bridge they were scheduled to cross during a visit to Saigon. Troi was also found guilty of previous terrorist acts which included tossing hand grenades into restaurants in Saigon filled with civilians.

The National Liberation Front Central Committee warned that American prisoners of war would be executed in retaliation for the execution of Troi.

On the evening of April 8, 1964, Lt. Rowe heard a commotion coming from the vicinity of Capt. Versace's cage, which was out of Lt. Rowe's eyesight.

The next morning, Lt. Rowe was allowed out of leg irons and the cage long enough to walk to the camp kitchen to pick up a small ration of rice. As he walked past the area of Capt. Versace's cage, he saw a "pile of rags and crushed, twisted pieces of aluminum" that had been Capt. Versace's eating pan and cup. The rags, Lt. Rowe wrote, were what was left of Capt. Versace's gray POW pajamas. There was blood on the clothing and his cage had been wrecked. Lt. Rowe believed the communists had given Capt. Versace a terrible beating and that he was possibly dead.

That evening, Plato visited Lt. Rowe's cage. He told Lt. Rowe the National Liberation Front had been forced to take drastic action against Capt. Versace because he continued to be "opposed to the Front."

On Jan. 24, 1965, while being moved by boat to another camp, Lt. Rowe caught a glimpse of a haggard Capt. Versace chained near guards on the bank of a river. Lt. Rowe was shocked at how bad Capt. Versace looked, but elated that he was still alive. Capt. Versace's steel-grey hair had turned completely white. Lt. Rowe wrote:
      ..The Alien force, applied with hate,
      could not break him, failed to bend him;
      Though solitary imprisonment gave him no friends,
      he drew upon his inner self to create a force so strong that
      those who sought to destroy his will, met an army
      his to command..

SFC Kenneth M. Roraback

From the beginning of Sgt. Roraback's capture, he let his Viet Cong captors know that he believed in the Military Code of Conduct and had no intention of violating it while he still had the will to resist. From that point on, his interrogators set out with a pathological desire to break Sgt. Roraback.

Sgt. Pitzer said that the Viet Cong basically gave up on attempting to indoctrinate Sgt. Roraback after a visit to the POW camp by Australian communist Wilfred Burchett.

Burchett, who claimed to be a journalist, had a history dating back to the Korean War of actually helping communist interrogators in their attempts to brainwash American prisoners of war. After interrogating Sgt. Roraback, Burchett told the National Liberation Front that Sgt. Roraback was a "noncooperative and unrepentant prisoner, and should be considered as a reactionary." Soon after, Sgt. Roraback started receiving even harsher treatment.

Sgt. Smith, in his book, POW: Two Years with the Viet Cong, said that Sgt. Roraback "generally" refused to cooperate with his interrogators. He said Sgt. Roraback even went so far as trying to indoctrinate the interrogators, answering their attacks with "Well, the way things are back in the States-the democratic concept of government and all that-we just couldn't accept anything you say as being true."

Sgt. Smith said that after one indoctrination session involving Sgt. Roraback, the interrogator stated point-blank that "the Central Committee has decided that two American prisoners will be shot."

"They repeatedly told us not to talk to Cook, but Roraback continued to talk and talk and talk in long conversations," Sgt. Smith wrote. Smith said he warned Sgt. Roraback that the communists might be planning to execute him.

Sgt. Smith said the guards came for Sgt. Roraback the next evening. He said the prisoners heard a couple of shots the next morning and that he believed they had shot Sgt. Roraback.

On Sep. 26, 1965, Viet Cong interrogators gathered their American prisoners and forced them to listen to a National Liberation Front radio broadcast transmitted in English. According to Lt. Rowe, the American prisoners went into immediate depression when they heard the radio report of the execution of Capt. Versace and Sgt. Roraback.

The radio said the two prisoners had been executed by order of the high command of the National Liberation Front. The communists said that Capt. Versace and Sgt. Roraback were "unrepentant reactionaries who had been punished for their crimes."

Newsweek reported Oct. 11, 1965 that the executions of Capt. Versace and Sgt. Roraback were in retaliation for the South Vietnamese execution of terrorists. Newsweek said that on June 24, 1965 another American prisoner of war, Army Sgt. Harold Bennett, had been executed by the Viet Cong. The U.S. State Department immediately branded the execution of the American prisoners of war an "act of wanton murder" in violation of the Geneva convention as it pertains to the holding of prisoners of war.

In a November 1967 propaganda move designed to show their "humane and lenient" treatment of U.S. POWs, the National Liberation Front ordered two black prisoners released. The two prisoners, Sgts. James E. Jackson and Edward R. Johnson, were being held with Lt. Rowe and Sgt. Pitzer. Sgt. Jackson was suffering simultaneously from malaria, beri-beri, hepatitis and amoebic dysentery.

However, the Viet Cong soon realized that their show and tell demonstration was in jeopardy because they had mistreated Sgt. Jackson so badly that he was near death. To prevent Sgt. Jackson from dying before being turned over to the Americans, the Viet Cong released Sgt. Pitzer, a medic, to care for him.

After the release of Sgts. Jackson, Pitzer and Johnson, Lt. Rowe was left alone in the camp. The Viet Cong declared Lt. Rowe "unrepentant" and a "reactionary" because of his refusal to accept the communist ideology and his continued escape attempts. The Central Committee of the National Liberation Front sentenced him to death.

Lt. Rowe was scheduled to be executed in late December 1968. While being moved, he took advantage of the sudden appearance of a flight of American helicopters, struck down his lone guard, and ran into a clearing where he was spotted and rescued by the helicopters. Lt. Rowe had been promoted to Major during his five years of captivity.

Sgt. Pitzer said during his first four years in captivity, there was a total of eight U.S. prisoners, including himself, Lt. Rowe and Sgts. Jackson and Johnson held in his camp, not all at one time. Out of the eight, Capt. Orien Walker and Sgts. Leonard Tadios and Joseph Park died of starvation and Capt. Versace was executed.

Lt. Rowe escaped. Fifty percent of the prisoners held in that camp never came home from Vietnam. He remained in the Army and was promoted to Colonel. Rowe and Pitzer, who had been promoted to Sergeant Major, shared their survival techniques through the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape course at Fort Bragg's John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center.

In 1987, Col. Rowe was assigned to the Philippines, where he assisted in training anti-communists. On April 21, 1989, a communist assassin shot Col. Rowe in his car, killing him instantly.

On March 9, 1995, retired Sgt. Maj. Pitzer died in the Duke Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina after a long illness.

In July 1965, Sgts. Camacho and Smith's chains were removed for use on two new American prisoners: Marine Capt. Donald Cook and Army Pvt. Charles Crafts. Capt. Cook had been captured after being wounded in the leg during a battle on New Year's Eve 1964. Pvt. Crafts was a radio operator who had been captured on Dec. 29, 1964 with another American, Sgt. Harold G. Bennett. They had been held in a prison further north. Pvt. Crafts said that on the long march south, Sgt. Bennett began to refuse food and after several weeks he became so weak he could not walk. He said they had to leave him behind.

Several days later, a third American prisoner, Army Capt. John Robert Schumann was brought into the camp. He had been captured on June 16, 1965 after his unit was ambushed.

Sgt. Camacho escaped under the cover of a violent night storm on July 9, 1965. For four days he used his survival skills to avoid Viet Cong patrols and made his way to Minh Thanh, a South Vietnamese outpost. Sgt. Camacho was the first American serviceman to escape from the Viet Cong in the Second Indochina War.

After Sgt. Camacho escaped and the National Liberation Front had announced the executions of Capt. Versace and Sgt. Roraback, Sgts. McClure and Smith began collaborating with the National Liberation Front. Their Viet Cong interrogators became convinced that Sgts. McClure and Smith had become "progressives." The National Liberation Front released Sgts. Smith and McClure from Cambodia in November 1965 after the two had signed a promise that they would join the anti-war movement upon returning to the United States.

When Sgts. Smith and McClure were finally repatriated, the U.S. Army shipped them to Okinawa where they were charged with collaborating with the communists and forced out of the Army.

The National Liberation Front granted Sgt. Crafts early release about a year later.

Capts. Cook and Schumann, who the National Liberation Front considered "unrepentant" and "reactionaries," disappeared. The North Vietnamese government said the two had died of illness while in captivity.

During his years of captivity, Capt. Cook set an example that was considered legendary in his refusal to betray the Military Code of Conduct. He jeopardized his own health and well-being by sharing his meager supply of food and scare medicine with other prisoners who were more sick.

On one occasion, a Viet Cong interrogator put a pistol to Capt. Cook's head as a threat to force him to cooperate. Capt. Cook responded by calmly reciting the nomenclature of the parts of the pistol that was placed to his head. He gave them nothing.

For his gallantry above and beyond the call of duty, the United States Marine Corps posthumously awarded Capt. Cook the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Of the eight U.S. prisoners associated with the Roraback camp, Sgt. Camacho escaped, Sgts. Smith and McClure and Pvt. Crafts were granted early release. Sgts. Roraback and Bennett were executed and Capts. Cook and Schumann allegedly died of illness. Fifty percent of the U.S. prisoners held in the Roraback camp did not come home from the Vietnam War.