Veterans of Son Tay Raid made a difference

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Silence filled an MC-130P flying away from Vietnam on Nov. 21, 1970, as the soldiers inside struggled to accept the overwhelming disappointment they had just experienced.

link Staff photo: Tony Bullocks

Cannon AFB Honor Guard present the colors to start the Son Tay ceremony Friday at Cannon AFB.

This was the picture painted by Vietnam veterans honored Friday on Cannon Air Force Base for their participation in the Son Tay Raid, a mission that Army, Navy and Air Force troops trained months to prepare for.

The mission was to rescue prisoners of war — believed to be at least 60 — from a camp in north Vietnam, but when 56 Army Special Forces troops landed at the camp, it was to find that the prisoners had been relocated.

“Coming home, I have never experienced that much silence on an airplane,” said retired Air Force Col. John Gargus, who participated in the mission. “Nobody wanted to talk to anybody, and when we did, it was letting out our anger over what happened. It was like losing a football game when it wasn’t anybody’s fault. How could this happen to us? We did so well.”

Gargus, 81, was one of nine Vietnam veterans involved in the attempted rescue who were honored Friday.

“We got home to the Air Force base two days before Thanksgiving, and none of us were happy, because we felt a great loss,” said retired Army Command Sgt. Major Ed Britt.

“We worked so hard at it, and we were so convinced we were bringing someone home,” Gargus, 81, said of the Son Tay Raid.

But despite leaving empty handed, good news came three years later when the POWs were rescued, and Gargus and his companions found out that their mission had not been a complete loss.

“The mission was successful in that we terrified people that we came to Son Tay undetected,” Gragus said, saying the Vietnamese improved the quality of life for the prisoners after the attack. That came as a relief to the soldiers on the mission, who thought they likely made conditions worse.

“They come up to us and thanked us for being heroes,” Britt said of meeting the POWs three years later. “It made me feel like a little guy, because they were the heroes.”

The nine veterans honored at the ceremony received plaques signed by members of the special forces troops at Cannon.

“Commanders across Cannon Air Force Base take pride in our ability to effectively train, communicate and operate with our joint partners,” said CAFB Commander Col. Ben Maitre said during the ceremony. “But the fact that we expect that as a default standard in all that we do has not always been so. In remembering the events that led up to and culminated in the Son Tay Raid of November 1970, it is important to note that that mission was defined by then a unique combination of integration and innovation that now serves as a foundation for the tactics and procedures we now employ in special operations today.”