The Presidential Unit Citation went to the group 29 years after it
went out of business and three years after CNN broadcast a bogus report
saying it used nerve gas on defectors. The network later retracted its
story.
The unit was called the Military Assistance Command-Vietnam Studies
and Observation Group, or SOG.
After the ceremony, some of the veterans sarcastically thanked CNN
for broadcasting the nerve gas report in 1998.
‘‘I think that (the award) is long overdue, and I think that we have
to give some thanks to CNN because the fiasco that they produced caused
an investigation by the Department of Defense and others that found that
we were not only not war criminals but, in fact, we had a collection of
heroes that was not equaled,’’ John K. Singlaub said after the ceremony.
Singlaub, who is 79 years old and a retired major general, lives in
Arlington, Va. He was chief of SOG from 1966 to 1968.
The Presidential Unit Citation is given to units that display
gallantry that set them apart from other units. The unit award is equal
to the individual award of the Distinguished Service Cross, the U.S.
military’s second-highest award for valor.
Hundreds of people attended the award ceremony in the plaza on
Ardennes Street on Fort Bragg. A statue of SOG veteran Col. Bull Simons
stands in the plaza.
Retired Maj. John L. Plaster was the first person to receive a
special commemorative coin minted for the occasion. He wrote a book
about SOG and worked for recognition of the unit.
‘‘It’s a day that I think most of us thought would never happen,’’
Plaster said after the ceremony. ‘‘Everything we were doing in the old
days was denied. We accepted that. That’s part of the cost of doing
classified, black operations. Even our existence was denied. There were
a great many young men that came home that could never quite tell their
families, their friends what they did.’’
Plaster is from Iron River, Wis. He is 52.
SOG members operated deep behind enemy lines in Vietnam, Cambodia and
Laos. They conducted operations on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the North
Vietnamese supply line through the countries that border South Vietnam.
The host for the ceremony was Lt. Gen. Doug Brown, commander of U.S.
Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg.
SOG members had ‘‘the guile and the audacity to take the war where
the enemy lives, to get at his sanctuary, to make him react, to take
away his safe and secure environment, give him those chills as he is
walking down that long jungle trail at night, not knowing if around the
corner members of SOG are waiting,’’ Brown said. ‘‘It doesn’t take many.
It doesn’t take often, but it takes men of steel, willing to take risks,
willing to make the trip.’’
The missions included sabotage, calling in B-52 bomber strikes,
search and rescue of downed pilots in the jungle and destruction and
recovery of sensitive equipment.
The operations tied down thousands of members of the North Vietnamese
Army searching for SOG, Brown said.
At its peak, SOG had about 2,000 members. An estimated 7,800 men
served in SOG over its eight-year existence. Some SOG veterans, such as
Dick Meadows, Eldon Bargewell and Walt Shumate, became founders and
leaders of Delta Force, the Army’s counterterrorism and hostage- rescue
unit founded in 1977.
SOG members received more than 2,000 individual awards for heroism,
including 10 Medals of Honor, twice as many as the 82nd Airborne
Division received in both world wars.
Medal of Honor recipients were Robert L. Howard, James P. Fleming,
Roy P. Benavidez, Jon R. Cavaiani, Franklin Miller, Fred Zabitosky,
Thomas R. Norris, Loren D. Hagen, John J. Kedenburg and George K. Sisler.
The unit’s members also received 23 Distinguished Service Crosses,
the military’s second highest award for valor.
SOG had high casualty rates. In 1968, the unit had more people killed
and injured than it had positions.
Ten teams were lost. Fourteen teams were overrun or destroyed. Fifty
members of SOG are still considered MIAs.
The highest-ranking SOG veteran on active duty is Lt. Gen. William P.
Tangney, deputy commander in chief of U.S. Special Operations Command at
Tampa, Fla.
Tangney hailed the members of the Army, Navy and Marines who flew the
airplanes and helicopters on the infiltration missions and the fighter
airplanes that helped rescue teams.
Retired Maj. John W. Grove, 59, of Fort Walton Beach, Fla.,
represented Air Force participants.
‘‘Most of our missions were classified for so long that nobody got
much recognition,’’ Grove said.
Among veterans at the ceremony were 10 South Vietnamese commandos who
were sent on missions to North Vietnam, where they spent 20 years in
prison. The Vietnamese, who wore green berets to the ceremony, live in
Georgia.
‘‘We are the men who fought the communists,’’ said Son Van Ha, 53.
Active-duty soldiers who received awards during the ceremony were
Tangney, Bargewell, Cols. Thomas A. Deluca, Warner Farr, Fredrick D.
Jones, Steven J. Yevich, Richard O. Sutton and Dale Brown, Lt. Cols.
David Bortnem and Jack L. Kaplan Jr., Chief Warrant Officers 5 Edward G.
Klein and Frank Kormorowski and Sgt. John Bartlett.
Soldiers still on active duty but unable to attend were Maj. Gen.
Kenneth R. Bowra, Air Force Col. Alva Greenup, Cols. Richard M. Johnson
and Doug McCready and Chief Warrant Officers Bob Coder, Gary Ryan, James
A. Bates and Hurley J. Gilpin.
Staff photo by Cindy Burnham
Active-duty members of the Military Assistance Command-Vietnam Studies
and Observation Group stand at attention Wednesday. From left to right,
Lt. Gen. William P. Tangney, Brig. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell, Col. Thomas
A. Deluca, Col. Warner Farr, Col. Fredrick D. Jones, Col. Steven J.
Yevich, Col. Richard O. Sutton, Col. Dale Brown and Lt. Col. David
Bortnem.
Military editor Henry Cuningham
