Local Vietnam War Hero Receives Medal of Honor

By Linda Busetti
HERALD Staff Writer
(From the issue of 7/11/02)

What was it about Capt. Humbert Roque ("Rocky") Versace that made friends and relatives work for almost four decades to see him honored posthumously with the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service and death as a POW in Vietnam?

Fellow graduates of West Point Class of 1959, friends from Alexandria’s George Washington High School — "The Friends of Rocky" — and old neighbors from Del Ray and St. Rita’s Parish lobbied for the medal for Versace — the first Army POW so honored.

This past Monday, President George W. Bush presented the Medal of Honor to Versace’s brother Stephen. Bush praised Capt. Versace’s defiance of his Viet Cong captors during almost two years of captivity, which ended with his execution in 1965.

What kind of man was Rocky Versace to inspire so many people for so long?

Versace’s own mother Tere Ríos Versace, a Catholic author, wrote to earn money so she could travel to Vietnam and go from village to village in search of her son, said family friend Augustine Bresnahan.

Rocky’s father, Col. Humbert Versace, died within a few year’s of his son.

Tere Versace was a woman of great faith who never gave up hope, Bresnahan said. When news of Rocky’s death came, there was a funeral at St. Rita Church in Alexandria and a trip to Arlington National Cemetery, where a stone marker was placed over an empty grave. Capt. Versace’s body was never recovered. Bresnahan said she never saw Tere Versace cry.

Bresnahan has no doubt that it was Rocky’s mother’s great faith that inspired his plans to become a missionary priest. He had been accepted as a candidate by Maryknoll Missioners before his death. He had hoped to one day work with orphaned Vietnamese children.

It was a 1971 book, Five Years to Freedom, by fellow POW, the late Col. James "Nick" Rowe, that inspired many others to see that Versace was not forgotten. Rowe vowed to remember his comrade, who he described as, "the greatest example of what an officer should be."

Rowe told the West Point Class of 1969, "Captain Versace…a man to whom, I know, the words Duty, Honor, Country meant more than words. Rocky lived this code. [The Viet Cong] couldn’t even bend him; they couldn’t break him. As a result they executed him … He died for his actions, but he is a man who I believe will be remembered and I am going to see that he is remembered."

During his second tour of duty in Vietnam, on Oct. 29, 1963, Versace and two fellow advisers to the South Vietnamese were captured by the Viet Cong at Hiep Hoa. As described by Rowe, Versace persistently rebuffed any propaganda attempts or torture by his Viet Cong captors. He repeatedly tried to escape, resulting in imprisonment in a bamboo cage. Ultimately, North Vietnamese "Liberation Radio" announced on Sept. 26, 1965, Capt. Versace had been executed in retribution for three Viet Cong killed in Da Nang.

In 1999, The Friends of Rocky Versace attempted to have an elementary school in the Cameron Station area of Alexandria named after Versace. When the plan was defeated, they turned their efforts to a memorial, raising $25,000 along the way.

Alexandria City Councilman David Speck says he was struck by the "sincerity and passion of the friends."

"We began to listen and what an incredible story it was," Speck said. What the City Council learned was that a significant number of Alexandrians died in Vietnam. Seeing the memorial built became "very important to the whole community," Speck said.

The efforts of The Friends of Rocky culminated in the dedication last Saturday of the Rocky Versace Plaza and Vietnam Veterans Memorial at the Mt. Vernon Recreation Center at 2601 Commonwealth Ave. in the Del Ray section of Alexandria, not far from where the Versace family once lived.

Life-size statues of Versace and two Vietnamese children stand at the recreation center entrance. A low, curving wall inscribed with the names of 65 Alexandrians who died in Vietnam encircles the statues. American and POW flags fly nearby.

Two days after the dedication, a young girl walked tentatively around the new statues. Her mother explained to her younger brother and her that this was a young man who had died long ago in Vietnam. A group of little boys ran over from their basketball game and hugged the bronze figures.

Sadly, Tere Versace is no longer alive to see the memorial or the awarding of the Medal of Honor. "She finally found him," Bresnahan said. "The Lord brought them together. She would have been very happy to see Rocky honored," Bresnahan added. 

Copyright ©2002 Arlington Catholic Herald.  All rights reserved.