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Posthumous Medal of Honor winner honored in Virginia Beach
By DAVE FORSTER, The Virginian-Pilot
© May 20, 2007
VIRGINIA BEACH - Mike Heisley grew up with Humbert "
Rocky"
Versace, so he knew what the Viet Cong had gotten themselves into when they took his buddy prisoner in 1963.
"I was not surprised that we would never see
Rocky again, because I knew that he would never bend," Heisley said.
The Army captain's actions during his 23 months in captivity - relayed by a fellow prisoner of war who lived to tell the story - are the stuff of legend. On Saturday, friends and veterans gathered at Bishop Sullivan Catholic High School,
Versace's alma mater, to honor his legacy and keep it alive.
They recognized the Medal of Honor he received posthumously for his deeds as a POW. They announced a scholarship in his name. They marveled at the character of a man who wouldn't quit arguing with his captors to save his life, who sang patriotic songs from his isolated cage to uplift his men, even if it meant another beating.
They tried to understand "why he did what he did," said John Gurr, who graduated with
Versace from West Point in 1959.
Before his capture,
Versace served as an intelligence adviser near the U Minh Forest, a Viet Cong stronghold. He carried hard candy for children when he made his rounds in the villages.
"They would run toward his jeep when he appeared, calling out "Dai Uy Candy - Captain Candy," wrote retired Marine Col. Don Price, whose account of his time with
Versace was read at Saturday's ceremony.
Versace so loved the children there that he planned to join the priesthood after his second tour and return to the country to work in an orphanage.
His daily visits included a school, a midwife facility, a clinic and the local Catholic church. On the way back he stopped at a jail to check on the welfare of enemy soldiers, Price said.
Versace was wounded in an ambush and captured with two other members of a special-forces team in October 1963, two weeks before the end of his second tour.
Versace quickly earned a reputation for challenging his captors and demanding better treatment of his men. He spoke French and Vietnamese and argued with them in three languages.
"Five months later the Viet Cong propagandists classified him as a stubborn incorrigible," Gurr said.
Versace, the ranking officer among the captives, was isolated from his countrymen, who felt that
Versace's defiance deflected abuse from them.
"I'm an officer in the United States Army,"
Versace was known to say during attempts at indoctrination. "You can make me come here, and you can make me sit here and listen, but frankly I don't believe a word you're saying, and you can go to hell."
Near the end of his captivity, villagers reported seeing a prisoner, later identified as
Versace, whom the Viet Cong paraded as an example of a humiliated American soldier. The villagers said the soldier spoke to them in their language, disputed his captors' rhetoric and smiled as he was beaten, Gurr said.
Versace was executed in 1965.
"There are no indications that
Rocky Versace ever broke," Gurr said.
At Bishop Sullivan, where
Versace attended his senior year when it was still Norfolk Catholic High School, students now have two large display cases that will remind them of his deeds.
The collection includes a yearbook from 1955, the pages turned to
Versace's photo and his senior quote:
"In arguing too, the parson owned his skill, For even though vanquished he could argue still."
Reach Dave Forster at (757) 222-5563 or
dave.forster@pilotonline.com.
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