Paul Bucha: Payback For The Men He Lost

BY BERNARD EDELMAN

Baltimore Orioles centerfielder Al Bumbry was proud that he was American League Rookie of the Year in 1973 and that he was part of American League All-Star teams. “But the thing Al is most proud of,” manager Earl Weaver once said, “is that in Vietnam he never lost a man.”

For Paul Bucha, the loss of eight of his men and three LRRPs attached to his company when they stumbled upon an NVA battalion on the night on March 18, 1968, still gnaws at him.

“There is a prerequisite to leadership,” he said, “a devotion, a passion, to leading the men and women you are responsible for. There is a great privilege—and a great burden—of command. When some of your troops lose their lives, this stays with you for the rest of your life. Whenever I have to relive that time, when I talk about them, I keep trying to discover: Did I make any mistake?”

After graduating from West Point, followed by an MBA at Stanford University, Capt. Paul Bucha arrived in Vietnam in November 1967 commanding D Company, the last unit formed when the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 187th Infantry of the 101st Airborne Division added a fourth rifle company.

Although dubbed the “clerks and jerks,” the unit “trained together and we came together,” Bucha said. “We had a great first sergeant, a Creek Indian. We were tremendously disciplined and confident and became one of the most highly decorated units” by the end of the war.

For five months, the men of D Company went deep into Indian Country in search of the enemy. Not a single man was killed in action—until March 1968 near Phuoc Vinh in Binh Duong Province.

Inserted by helicopter into a suspected enemy stronghold on a reconnaissance-in-force mission, the 89-man D Company destroyed NVA fortifications and base areas, meeting with and eliminating scattered resistance. On March 18 that resistance turned fierce.

“The lead elements of the company became engaged by heavy automatic weapon, heavy machinegun, rocket-propelled grenade, Claymore mine and small-arms fire,” reads his citation. “Seeing that his men were pinned down by heavy machinegun fire from a concealed bunker located some forty meters to the front of the positions, Capt. Bucha crawled through the hail of fire to single-handedly destroy the bunker with grenades.”

Wounded, and recognizing his unit could not resist the human wave assaults, Bucha ordered a withdrawal. When some men were cut off by an ambush, he ordered them to feign death. Later, “using flashlights in complete view of enemy snipers, he directed the medical evacuation of three air-ambulance loads of seriously wounded personnel and the helicopter supply of his company.”

But for “Buddy” Bucha, the defining moment of that battle occurred in its aftermath.

“When calm finally came, we confronted what we had survived,” he said. “When I saw them bring in on stretchers those who were killed, I came to realize the cost for fighting for an ill-defined objective. When I saw those bodies on the stretchers, that’s when the cockiness got shattered. I asked myself—I still ask myself—Could I have done something more correct that would have saved those lives?

“From that moment on, my life has been different. When the colonel got on the horn and told us to move out, I told him, ‘No. Send in the choppers; we’re going home.’ ”

Many months later, while stationed at Fort Knox, Bucha received a call from a sergeant who told him he would be receiving the Medal of Honor from President Nixon.

“I don’t deserve it,” Bucha protested.

“Sir, if you’ll forgive me, but who the hell do you think you are?” the sergeant replied. “This was put in for you by your own men. You wear the medal for them.” This was acceptable to Bucha; it has since become his mantra.

“I wear this for my guys,” he says in his public appearances. “I wear the medal on behalf of all those who we served with, particularly for those who died without the recognition.”

A gifted public speaker, Bucha advocates on behalf of veterans and active-duty troops, as well as Reservists and members of the National Guard before high rollers at corporate retreats and top brass at meetings of the three services; and he speaks to large and small gatherings of veterans.

He never uses notes; he speaks from the heart about men and women who went off to war and never came home and about those who returned home forever changed by their experiences. He insists that the nation that sent them to war has a contract with its veterans to provide health care and the opportunity to achieve their American Dream.

In 2003 his stirring and impassioned keynote speech at VVA’s National Convention drew an extended standing ovation. Then, to thundering applause, he was awarded VVA’s Commendation Medal, the organization’s highest award. Bucha returned again the following year to address VVA’s National Leadership Conference.

A life member of VVA, Bucha serves on the board of advisors of Veterans Advantage which provides an array of benefits to military veterans. He is also the chair of the Advisory Committee on Veterans Employment and Training Services at the U.S. Department of Labor. He was nominated by VVA to chair this committee, which is charged with coordinating the federal response to veterans’ unemployment.

Bucha has also devoted much time to the question of providing real and relevant readjustment counseling for returning servicemen and women.

With his easy access to powerful offices and men, Bucha has opened doors for VVA’s advocacy. “With Buddy Bucha,” VVA’s Government Affairs Director Rick Weidman said, “there’s no equivocation. His question is always, ‘How can I help?’ ”