RED WHITE & BLUES

04/15/2025

04/11/2025

DOD Support to the Southern Border
By Defense.gov

04/11/2025

Veteran was trained to collaborate with fellow Airmen. Having his buddy’s six was important, and still is.

03/29/2025

March 29 is Vietnam War Veterans Day, recognizing all who served and honoring the ultimate sacrifice made by more than 58,000 soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen. Here at home, we also remember the 1,331 Massachusetts residents who gave the last full measure of devotion.

03/18/2025

Medal of Honor Monday: Army Spc. 4th Class Edward DeVore Jr.

By Katie Lange

When Army Spc. 4th Class Edward Allen DeVore Jr.'s company was attacked in the jungles of Vietnam, he did everything in his power to beat the enemy back. After a squadron of soldiers were pinned down, DeVore gave his life to ensure they could get to safety. For his selfless actions, he received a posthumous Medal of Honor.

DeVore was born June 15, 1947, in Henryetta, Oklahoma, to Edward Sr. and Evelyn DeVore. When DeVore Jr. was about 4 years old, his family moved to Harbor City, California, where he and his two siblings grew up.

After graduating from Narbonne High School in 1966, DeVore joined the Army as the Vietnam War was raging. By March 17, 1968, he found himself in the heart of the fighting.

On that day, DeVore was serving as a machine gunner with B Company, 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division, during a reconnaissance mission in a swampy area of the Mekong Delta about 5 miles south of Saigon.

DeVore's platoon, acting as the company's lead element, was abruptly attacked by intense automatic weapons fire, rockets, gr***des and claymore mines from a well-concealed bunker in the swamp about 65 feet away. Quickly, one soldier was killed and three more were wounded.

Despite the obvious danger, DeVore ran through a hail of gunfire to provide cover fire with his M60 machine gun. His valiant actions allowed soldiers to move the wounded back to safety, but the company continued to be attacked as they waited for supporting artillery, airstrikes and gunships to rescue them. One particular squad was pinned down in the middle of the firefight.

DeVore disregarded his own safety and went forward to assault the enemy in an effort to save the squad. About 115 feet before reaching the enemy bunker, DeVore was hit in the shoulder and knocked down. He ignored the pain and jumped to his feet to continue his assault, despite warnings from his fellow soldiers.

As DeVore continued to fire on the enemy, he was struck and killed. However, by drawing fire on himself, the trapped squad was able to rejoin the rest of the platoon behind friendly lines.

DeVore gave his life to save his fellow soldiers.

On April 7, 1970, DeVore's family received the Medal of Honor on his behalf from President Richard M. Nixon during a White House ceremony that also honored 20 other posthumous medal recipients.

DeVore is buried at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

His name has not been forgotten. In 1974, a building at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, was named in his honor. In 2017, DeVore was inducted into the Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame. Three years later, a portion of a highway in Oklahoma was also named in his honor.

03/14/2025

Medal of Honor Monday: Air Force Col. Bernard Fisher

By Katie Lange

Air Force Col. Bernard Francis Fisher was not a rescue helicopter pilot during Vietnam. Still, during a firefight in which he saw a fellow pilot go down and need immediate rescue, he didn't hesitate to use his aircraft in that capacity. Fisher's actions saved another pilot's life that day. For his bravery, he received the Medal of Honor.

Fisher was born Jan. 11, 1927, in San Bernardino, California, to Bruce and Lydia Fisher. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Clearfield, Utah, where Fisher grew up with an older sister and two younger brothers.

In a Library of Congress Veterans History Project interview, Fisher said his love of flying arose at a young age. He built and flew model airplanes, and after a member of his church group took him up in an airplane, he said he was hooked.

"I thought that was just the greatest thing," he said.

In February 1945, Fisher, then 17, joined the Navy's aircrew training program. He served during the last year of World War IIand was discharged March 1946. He then relocated to a farm in Kuna, Idaho, where his parents had moved while he was in the service.

Shortly after returning home, Fisher met registered nurse Realla Johnson and fell in love. The pair married in 1948 and went on to have six sons.

Starting in 1947, Fisher attended Boise Junior College, now Boise State University. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Utah, where he participated in ROTC, which reinvigorated his urge to fly. He received his commission into the Air Force and entered active-duty status before he finished his degree.

Fisher began Air Force officer training in 1951 and eventually earned his wings. His first assignment was flying the F-86D Sabre before being assigned to serve in Japan in 1955. Over the next decade, he served in various places as a weapons controller, F-101B Voodoo pilot and F-104 Starfighter pilot. By 1965, he volunteered for duty in Vietnam to serve as a pilot in the A-1E Skyraider, a propeller plane that was a heavy fighter bomber.

"It flies about 150 mph, but it carries a tremendous load … as much as the B-17 in World War II," Fisher said.

He arrived in-country July 1965 and was assigned to the 1st Air Commando Squadron. Their job was initially to train South Vietnamese pilots on the Skyraider, but that only lasted a few months, Fisher said. Their mission switched to flying combat sorties and rescues.

On March 10, 1966, then-Maj. Fisher took off in his aircraft from Pleiku, South Vietnam, to fly a routine bombing and attack mission, but soon he was diverted to a Special Forces camp in the A Shau Valley. The camp was under attack by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers, and the 450 men stationed there — about 17 of whom were American advisors — desperately needed air support.

When Fisher and other aircraft neared the camp, there was heavy cloud cover, and most of the aircraft were flying at about 20,000 feet, trying to find a break in the clouds to get lower to see where they were. Eventually, Fisher found that break and recognized the location, so he and three other aircraft dipped down into the valley.

The weather forced them to operate within range of hostile gun positions, which fired on them. One aircraft got hit early on and had to back off. Fisher and the two remaining aircraft proceeded into the surrounded camp to attack the enemy, many of whom were positioned between the camp and the airfield.

During the fight, Fisher noticed a fellow pilot, 46-year-old Air Force Maj. Dafford Myers, crash-land on the battle-torn airstrip. Fisher said in his Library of Congress interview that the aircraft caught fire, and he initially thought Myers was dead, but he saw the airman run from the burning plane to find refuge in an embankment.

Fisher called for a rescue helicopter but realized it likely wouldn't get there in time. With enemy troops surrounding Myers, Fisher said he knew the likelihood of the pilot being captured beforehand was too high.

"That's about the time that I realized we had to get him out of there some way because he wouldn't make it otherwise," Fisher said.

He announced he was going to land on the airstrip to rescue Myers despite the likelihood of failure.

"I knew the runway was short," Fisher said. "But we made the decision."

Directing his own air cover, Fisher landed his Skyraider and taxied almost the full length of the runway, which was littered with battle debris and parts of Myers' exploded aircraft.

"When I taxied by , he waved both arms vigorously. I stopped as soon as I could, but taxiing as fast as I was, it must have taken about 100 feet to stop," Fisher later told Air Force officials, remembering he quickly lost track of Myers. "So, I set the brakes on the bird and climbed over the right seat to get out on the side he was on. I looked through the mirror and saw two little red, beady eyes trying to crawl up the back of the wing."

He realized it was Myers, so he quickly grabbed the airman by the flight suit and dragged him headfirst into the cockpit. Meanwhile, heavy fire was still coming their way, so they moved to quickly get airborne again.

"We just gave each other a big hug and squeeze, and we took off," Fisher told the Veterans History Project.

Fisher later learned that 19 bullets had struck his aircraft. He got lucky; unfortunately, they still lost a lot of good men and aircraft that day, he said.

Fisher was still in Vietnam when he learned that he'd been nominated for the Medal of Honor. However, he continued flying another 30 missions until his deployment was over in June 1966. During his yearlong tour, Air Force records show, he flew 200 combat sorties.

From Vietnam, Fisher was transferred to Bitburg Air Base, Germany, where he assumed command of the 525th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron. While there, he learned he was officially being sent to Washington to receive the nation's highest honor for valor.

On Jan. 19, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson put the Medal of Honor around Fisher's neck during a White House ceremony that his family and Myers attended. Fisher became the first living Air Force recipient of the medal.

"It was really a beautiful feeling," Fisher said of the ceremony. "It's a great feeling to know that you're recognized for what you've done. And it represents a lot of other people."

Fisher continued with his Air Force career. After Germany, he became the operations officer of the 87th Fighter Interceptor Squadron in Duluth, Minnesota, before arriving at the 124th Fighter Interceptor Group in Boise, Idaho, in July 1971. He remained at that location until he retired as a colonel July 30, 1974. He then moved the short distance back to his native Kuna.

Fisher continued to fly for several years for an Idaho-based commuter airline, according to the Los Angeles Times. He also grew fruit trees, got into beekeeping and was involved in the Boy Scouts.

In 1999, the Military Sealift Command acquired a prepositioning ship and renamed it the MV Maj. Bernard F. Fisher in his honor. Fisher's hometown, Kuna, also dedicated the Col. Bernard Fisher Veterans Memorial Park to him that same year.

In 2004, Fisher released an autobiography called "Beyond the Call of Duty: The Story of an American Hero in Vietnam."

On May 3, 2008 — 57 years after he left college for the Air Force — Fisher finally received his degree in fine arts from the University of Utah.

"It's simply amazing. I didn't think I was ever going to get my diploma. I'm very proud to have it," the 81-year-old said at the ceremony.

During the celebration, which doubled as an ROTC commissioning ceremony, the school also presented its top graduating cadet with a new leadership award named in Fisher's honor.

Fisher died Aug. 16, 2014, at age 87, at the Idaho State Veterans Home. He is buried in the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery in Boise.

In remembrance, the bullet-riddled Skyraider that Fisher flew during his Medal of Honor actions is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Riverside, Ohio.

03/05/2025

Medal of Honor Monday: Air Force Master Sgt. John Chapman

By Katie Lange

Air Force Master Sgt. John Allan Chapman fought until his last breath to fend off insurgents during a reconnaissance-turned-rescue mission on an unforgiving mountaintop in Afghanistan. Chapman is credited with saving the lives of the men who came to rescue his team. To this day, he is the only Air Force Medal of Honor recipient since the Vietnam War.


Chapman was born July 14, 1965, in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Eugene and Terry Chapman. He had a brother named Kevin and two sisters, Lori and Tammy.

Chapman and his siblings grew up over the Massachusetts border in nearby Windsor Locks, Connecticut. According to his friends and family, Chapman made just about everything he did look effortless. He made Windsor Locks High School's varsity soccer team as a freshman, was a record-setting diver, and even rebuilt and maintained an old Pontiac GTO during those years.
In 1983, Chapman graduated high school. Two years later, he joined the Air Force as an information systems operator. However, he wanted to contribute more, so, in 1989, Chapman cross-trained to become a special operations combat controller. The training takes more than two years and is considered among the most rigorous in the U.S. military.
During training in western Pennsylvania, Chapman met Valerie Nessel, who he married in 1992. They had two daughters, Madison and Brianna.

Over the next decade, Chapman served a few years in Okinawa, Japan, before taking on a special duty assignment as a team leader preparing personnel within the 24th Special Tactics Squadron for missions.


After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the U.S. launched a retaliatory campaign against al-Qaida, which took responsibility for the atrocities. That campaign took U.S. special operators to Afghanistan to root out the terrorists hiding there.

On March 4, 2002, then-Tech Sgt. Chapman was attached to a six-man Navy SEAL team conducting reconnaissance on the top of Takur Ghar, a 10,000-foot mountain near Ghazni, Afghanistan. Their mission was to set up an overwatch post where they could support conventional forces in the valley below and report on the movement of terrorists in the region.

"This was a very high-profile, no-fail job, and we picked John," said retired Air Force Col. Ken Rodriguez, Chapman's commander at the time. "In a very high-caliber career field, with the highest quality of men — even then, John stood out as our guy."

Early that morning, as the team's Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter tried to insert them on top of the mountain, they were ambushed by between 40 and 100 al-Qaida fighters. The helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled gr***de, jolting the Chinook and causing Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Neil Roberts to fall to the ground among a large group of enemy combatants.

The chopper was still flying but too damaged to continue, so the pilot completed a controlled crash into the valley below. The team quickly learned that Roberts was still alive, so they didn't hesitate to board another helicopter to return to the top of the snow-capped mountain to rescue him.


Despite more intense enemy fire, that helicopter landed, dropping the remaining men into the heart of the enemy stronghold. Chapman stepped off the chopper and immediately engaged, pushing his way uphill through thigh-deep snow toward the closest enemy position. Despite taking fire from multiple directions, Chapman fearlessly charged the enemy bunker, taking out all enemy combatants inside.

Almost immediately, the team started taking machine-gun fire from another fortified position about 40 feet away.

The situation was precarious, but Chapman didn't hesitate. He quickly moved into the open to attack the second bunker. As he did, he was struck by enemy fire, leading to severe injuries that caused him to fall unconscious.

Chapman's team reported that they thought he was dead, so in the continuing chaos, they moved down the mountainside and continued to fight off enemy gunfire.

Despite Chapman's severe wounds, however, he was still alive — something military investigators discovered after a 30-month investigation that included aerial video footage of the operation. When Chapman regained consciousness, he continued to fight multiple enemy combatants relentlessly for over an hour before he succumbed to his injuries.


Meanwhile, the rest of the team that had moved down the mountain continued to fight for about 14 more hours until they were rescued by an Army Ranger quick reaction force.

During the intense battle, six other men died: Roberts, who they originally returned to rescue; Air Force Senior Airman Jason Cunningham, Army Sgt. Philip Svitak, and three Rangers: Army Cpl. Matthew Commons, Army Sgt. Bradley Crose and Army Spc. Marc Anderson.

Chapman was credited with saving the lives of numerous men who came to his rescue that day. He initially earned the Air Force Cross for his actions.

"John was always selfless. It didn't just emerge on Takur Ghar. He had always been selfless and highly competent," Rodriguez said after the battle. "He could have hunkered down in the bunker and waited for the and team to come in, but he assessed the situation and selflessly gave his life for them."


When his body was returned home, Chapman was buried in St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church Cemetery in Windber, Pennsylvania.

In the mid-2010s, the records of numerous Air Force Cross recipients were reviewed to determine if any had been passed over for the Medal of Honor. The secretary of the Air Force at the time recommended that Chapman's award be upgraded, and it was approved.

On Aug. 22, 2018, Chapman's widow received the Medal of Honor on her husband's behalf from President Donald J. Trump during a White House ceremony. Chapman was also posthumously promoted to master sergeant and inducted into the Pentagon Hall of Heroes, which is customary the day after a Medal of Honor ceremony.


"John died exactly the way he lived — doing anything in his power he could to help those in need," said then-Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force Kaleth O. Wright during the induction.

Chapman's legacy continues to build across the military. In 2005, a Navy cargo ship, Motor Vessel TSgt. John A. Chapman was named in his honor. On Oct. 26, 2018 — shortly after Chapman received the Medal of Honor — a new aircraft at Hurlburt Field, Florida, was dedicated to him. That same day, Chapman's name was unveiled on the base's special tactics wall of honor.

In May 2019, a life-sized figure of Chapman, a portrait and a replica of his Medal of Honor were unveiled and put on permanent display at Pope Army Airfield's nationally recognized museum. In March 2020, the Chapman Training Annex was renamed in his honor at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas.
This article is part of a weekly series called "Medal of Honor Monday," in which we highlight one of the more than 3,500 Medal of Honor recipients who have received the U.S. military's highest medal for valor. The new National Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas, will celebrate these recipients when it opens its doors on National Medal of Honor Day, March 25, 2025.

02/26/2025

Medal of Honor Monday: Air Force Capt. Hilliard Wilbanks

By Katie Lange

After hundreds of combat missions in Vietnam, Air Force Capt. Hilliard Almond Wilbanks gave his life to save friendly troops when air support wasn't available quickly enough. His heroic actions led Wilbanks to be awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor.

Wilbanks was born July 26, 1933, in Cornelia, Georgia, to Travis and Ruby Wilbanks. He had a sister named Patricia and two brothers, Edwin and Norman.

As a young man, Wilbanks was known to be a good student who always tried his best. He delivered newspapers on his bicycle, played the piano at his church and participated in his school's football team, according to a foundation set up in his name.

Wilbanks graduated from high school in 1950 and immediately enlisted in the Air Force, serving as a security guard during the Korean War. In 1954, he began training to be an aviation cadet and eventually earned his wings as a commissioned pilot. He spent his first few years as an instructor before serving as an F-86 Sabre Jet fighter pilot. He also served in Alaska and Las Vegas as an aircraft maintenance officer.

While stationed at Greenville Air Force Base in Mississippi, Wilbanks met Rosemary Arnold. They married shortly thereafter and had two children, a boy and a girl.

Wilbanks eventually trained as a forward air controller, a role that directly supports ground troops in combat zones. He served in that capacity when he was sent to Vietnam in April 1966, where he was assigned to the 21st Tactical Air Support Squadron.

Just prior to his deployment, Wilbanks learned his wife was pregnant with twins. They were born two weeks after he left for Southeast Asia.

During Wilbanks' first 10 months in Vietnam, he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with 18 oak leaf clusters. By late February 1967, he'd flown 487 combat missions.

On Feb. 24, 1967, he flew his last.

That day, Wilbanks was doing visual reconnaissance in a Cessna O-1 Bird Dog — an unarmed, light aircraft — for a South Vietnamese Ranger Battalion that was preparing to attack near Dalat, South Vietnam. The battalion was accompanied by a small detachment of American advisors.

During the recon mission, Wilbanks discovered a large force of well-concealed Viet Cong forces poised on two hilltops, preparing to ambush the advancing rangers. Wilbanks quickly alerted the rangers, called gunships over the radio and began marking the enemy's positions with white phosphorous rockets.

When the enemy forces realized they'd been compromised, they immediately began firing on Wilbanks' aircraft with all the firepower they had. They also started their advance toward the exposed forward elements of the ranger battalion, which became pinned down by the devastating fire.

Wilbanks realized close-air support from the gunships wasn't going to arrive in time to save the rangers from an onslaught. While he knew his unarmed, unarmored aircraft was limited in what it could do to help, Wilbanks didn't hesitate to start providing cover fire for the men on the ground.

Flying at about treetop level, Wilbanks made several passes through a hail of gunfire, launching smoke rockets at the enemy below to inflict as many casualties as he could. When he ran out of smoke bombs, he pointed his personal survival weapon, an M-16 rifle, out of the aircraft's window to strafe the advancing enemy troops — despite the increasing amount of anti-aircraft fire coming his way.

Wilbanks' diversion succeeded at interrupting the enemy's forward advance and took their attention away from the nearly trapped rangers, who were able to withdraw to safety.

"Each pass, he was so close we could hear his plane being hit," Army Capt. R.J. Wooten, the ranger battalion's senior American advisor, later reported.

During Wilbanks' final courageous pass, he suffered from serious injuries that led him to lose consciousness and crash his bullet-riddled aircraft between the opposing forces. The rangers rescued Wilbanks from the wreckage, but he died in a helicopter on the way to a hospital.

When Wilbanks died, he was about two months from finishing his yearlong tour of duty in Vietnam and returning home to his wife and four children, including the twins he never got to meet.

Wilbanks' selfless actions saved the lives of numerous friendly troops. His valor was posthumously rewarded on Jan. 24, 1968, when his wife received the Medal of Honor on his behalf from Air Force Secretary Harold Brown during a Pentagon ceremony.

Wilbanks was buried in Fayette Methodist Cemetery in Fayette, Mississippi, where he and his wife were married.

In 2001, Wilbanks was inducted into the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame. Ten years later, Hilliard A. Wilbanks Middle School in Demorest, Georgia, was named in his honor. Around the same time, the Hilliard A. Wilbanks Foundation was formed to provide scholarships for deserving Georgia ROTC cadets.

To this day, the middle school that is Wilbanks' namesake displays his Medal of Honor for all its students to see.

02/20/2025

Medal of Honor Monday: Navy Lt. Rufus Herring

By Katie Lange

Navy Lt. Rufus Geddie Herring was in command of a gunboat supporting a reconnaissance mission before the Battle of Iwo Jima kicked off when his ship came under heavy enemy fire. Despite serious wounds, Herring managed to fire back and steer his vessel to safety, all without leaving any of the recon team behind. For his bravery and leadership, he received the Medal of Honor.

Herring was born on June 11, 1921, in Roseboro, North Carolina, to Troy and Susan Herring. He had an older brother also named Troy.

Herring attended Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina, graduating with a degree in economics in the spring of 1942. Since World War II was raging at the time, Herring decided to enlist in the Navy shortly after graduation. He attended the Naval Reserve Midshipman School in New York City before commissioning as an ensign in December 1943.

Herring went on to serve on LCI(G) 449, a large landing craft infantry gunboat that took part in amphibious assaults on Pacific islands such as Kwajalein, Saipan, Tinian and Guam.

Preparations for the Battle of Iwo Jima were well underway in February 1945, and Herring's gunboat, as a unit of LCI(G) Group 8, was in the thick of it. By that time, then-Lt. j.g. Herring was the ship's commanding officer. He had just relieved the previous commander, Lt. Cmdr. Willard Nash, who moved up to command seven LCI gunboats, including LCI(G) 449.

Those seven gunboats took part in a pre-invasion mission, Feb. 17, 1945, on the tiny volcanic island of Iwo Jima, providing close-range cover fire for four underwater demolition teams carrying out beach reconnaissance. Unfortunately, around 11 a.m., Japanese defensive positions on the beach mistook the reconnaissance for an actual invasion and opened fire on the gunboats, which were within 1,500 yards of the beach.

The boats were hit repeatedly by mortars, artillery and machine gun fire; however, none were willing to leave behind the demolition teams still in the water. 449 was particularly hard hit, but it stood its ground. Herring directed barrages of 40-mm and 20-mm gunfire toward the shore before the boat was hit by gunfire that damaged the LCI's heavy guns, set the deck on fire and knocked Herring out.

Herring eventually regained consciousness, only to be struck again and critically wounded by an enemy mortar that crashed through the boat's conning station, destroying the navigational control and instantly killing or severely wounding most of the officers onboard.

When Herring recovered a second time, he climbed down to the pilot house, and despite his rapidly waning strength, took over the helm and reestablished communications with the engine room.

At one point, Herring was no longer able to stand, so he propped himself against empty shell cases and rallied his men to help the wounded. He also kept the boat in position to continue firing its 20-mm guns at the enemy on shore until all demolition team members had been recovered. Herring then directed the steering of the crippled vessel until it made it to safety.

During the melee, 21 men on 449 were killed and 20 more were wounded. Herring himself was hospitalized for serious injuries but recovered. During his hospitalization, he fell in love with a nurse named Virginia Higgs. The pair married in 1947 and had three children.

In September 1945, after World War II ended, Herring received the Medal of Honor from Navy Secretary James Forrestal during a ceremony in Washington. Four other sailors, all hospital corpsmen, were also awarded the high honor for their actions during the Battle of Iwo Jima. Those included Francis J. Pierce, George E. Wahlen, Jack Williams and John H. Willis.

Herring was transferred to the retired list at the rank of lieutenant commander in April 1947. He and his wife returned to his hometown of Roseboro, where Herring joined his brother as a partner in a lumber business. He also pursued a career in the poultry business, and from 1947 to 1950 was the town's mayor. Herring was a member of the United Methodist Church and even chaired the Sampson County Board of Education at one point before retiring in 1982.

Herring died Jan. 31, 1996, and was buried in Roseboro's Hollywood Cemetery.

The town has honored Herring in many ways since. A few months after his death, the Roseboro National Guard Armory was dedicated in his name. A section of highway in the town was named in Herring's honor in 2018, and a memorial at a veterans' park in nearby Clinton, North Carolina, also honored him.

02/13/2025

Medal of Honor Monday: Army Sgt. John Baca

By Katie Lange


While several Medal of Honor recipients heroically threw themselves on top of gr***des to keep their comrades safe, very few survived. Army Sgt. John Philip Baca is one of those few. Baca didn't think twice about trying to save his fellow soldiers in Vietnam. After a long recovery upon his return, he received the nation's highest medal for valor.

Baca was born on Jan. 10, 1949, in Providence, Rhode Island. He was still a baby when the family moved to Boston. At some point, his parents split up. When his mother remarried when he was 10, she moved Baca and his two sisters, Kathy and Judy, to Stockton, California.

By the mid-1960s, they moved to San Diego. Baca went to Kearny High School, which he graduated from in 1967. However, he said in a 2003 Library of Congress Veterans History Project interview that he was often truant and had some visits to juvenile hall, so when he was drafted into the Army in 1969, it was probably a good thing for him.

"I didn't really understand what was going on," he said of his knowledge of the Vietnam War at the time.

After basic training, Baca was shipped to Vietnam in mid-July 1969 and assigned to Company D of the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division. He was part of a heavy weapons platoon, initially serving as a mortarman before joining a recoilless rifle team.

On Feb. 10, 1970, Baca, then a specialist 4th Class, and his platoon volunteered to go with another platoon on a night mission near Quan Loi in Phuoc Province, along the Cambodian border. The first platoon was sent to investigate a trip wire that had gone off ahead of his unit's main position. Quickly, they came under intense enemy fire from concealed positions along the trail.

Baca knew his recoilless rifle team could help the besieged patrol, so he led them through a hail of gunfire to a place where they could fire back within the first patrol's defensive perimeter. Just around that time, a fragmentation gr***de landed in their midst.

"It's like time stopped," Baca remembered. "All these thoughts go through my mind, and I knew it was going to go off."

He said he pushed his best friend, Art James, out of the way and warned the rest of the men around him before he unhesitatingly covered the gr***de with his steel helmet and fell onto the explosive device, just as it went off.

"It was like slow motion. I just kind of slowly fell on top of it," Baca said. "My whole life flashed through me, and my childhood. It was like my mom and my sisters were right in front of me."

The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back.

"I thought I was severed in half. There was no pain," he told the Veterans History Project. "From what I heard, I guess the lieutenant grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me out so they could clear the area."

He said he initially felt a peace and comfort before awareness came back to him.

"I always go back to that moment. I laugh and I cry, just knowing I've been so close to death," Baca said.

While some of the other soldiers were injured, Baca's actions saved eight men from serious injury or death. Baca was quickly flown by medevac to a military hospital, then transferred to Japan for more serious treatment. He was eventually sent to a naval hospital in San Diego and underwent several surgeries.

Baca spent nearly a full year in hospitals to treat his many wounds. He was discharged from the Army as a sergeant, one day before the anniversary of his heroics.

Baca was notified in early 1971 that he was to receive the Medal of Honor. The nation's highest medal for valor was bestowed upon him on June 15, 1971, by President Richard M. Nixon during a White House ceremony. Several other soldiers also received the award that day.

In 1973, shortly after his mother passed away unexpectedly, Baca took a job at the Los Angeles Department of Veterans Affairs as a benefits counselor. After a few years, he left the job to attend college at Southern California College in Costa Mesa, California; however, he didn't finish his education. He took a few jobs after that, including as a ski instructor, and he moved around a bit, from the East Coast to Washington state.

Baca eventually settled back in San Diego and bought a fishing boat. He said in his Veterans History Project interview that he returned to Vietnam in 1990 with James, the friend he fought with, and a few other people. Over the course of two months, they helped build a friendship clinic.

"We worked alongside the North Vietnamese. I was 12 kilometers outside Hanoi. … They just befriended us and loved us," Baca said of the visit. "I saw the love that those people have and the crap that they've gone through. … I'm glad I went back."

Back in the U.S., Baca's heroics have been remembered in the places he's lived.

Baca Park in Huntington Beach, California, was renamed for him in 2001.

In 2017 in San Diego, another park near where he grew up — which ironically became a resettlement area for Vietnamese refugees after the Vietnam War — was renamed in his honor.

Baca has spent the past few decades working with Gold Star families and various veteran- and military-related causes. For his many good deeds, a nonprofit he'd worked with gifted him a brand-new truck in 2020, a 2017 L.A. Times article reported.

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