WASHINGTON — The House voted Monday evening to name the U.S. post office in Rose Bud after Nick Bacon, an Arkansan given the military’s top honor for combat valor in Vietnam.
Bacon, who was born in Caraway and moved as a child to Arizona, was the only Arkansan to receive the Medal of Honor in Vietnam. After his service in Vietnam, he returned to Arizona but eventually returned to Arkansas, where he served as the state’s director of Veterans Affairs, beginning in 1993.
After a battle with cancer, Bacon died July 17, 2010, in Rose Bud. He was 64.
Bacon earned his medal Aug. 26, 1968, when he was 22. During his second tour of Vietnam, in the jungle highlands west of Tam Ky, Bacon served as a staff sergeant in the 11th Infantry Brigade of the U.S. Army’s Americal Division.
When men in his company were isolated and exposed to deadly enemy fire, Bacon took charge.
His award citation says Bacon was awarded for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.”
When Bacon’s company received enemy fire from a bunker, he organized the men in his squad and led them on an assault. After destroying the bunker with grenades,he assumed leadership of his platoon and destroyed an enemy machine-gun team that had pinned down wounded members of the platoon, including the platoon leader, in an exposed position.
That was just the start.
Bacon took command of another platoon that moved into the area and continued the fight, killing several enemy soldiers and silencing an anti-tank weapon.
“Continuing to ignore the intense hostile fire,” his citation reads, “he climbed up on the exposed deck of a tank and directed fire into the enemy position while several wounded men were evacuated.”
According to a Washington Post story, a bullet pierced Bacon’s canteen, his boot heel was shot off and he was sprayed with shrapnel.
Bacon had forged his mother’s signature six years earlier when he enlisted in the U.S. Army National Guard as a 17-year-old.
After surviving the Tam Ky battle and a total of 100 fire fights in Vietnam, Bacon served at Fort Hood, Texas, and retired from the Army in 1984. He worked for the U.S. Veterans Administration in Phoenix and for Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain before he moved back to Arkansas in 1991 when he was hired serve as a Veterans Administration benefits officer.
In 1993, Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, a Democrat, appointed Bacon Director of the state Department of Veterans Affairs.
Tucker’s successor, Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee, reappointed Bacon and called him “an honest-to-God American hero.”
On a voice vote Monday, the House passed a bill sponsored by Rep. Tim Griffin, a Little Rock Republican, that would name the one-story brick building at 6083 Highway 36 West in Rose Bud the “Nicky ‘Nick’ Daniel Bacon Post Office.”
On the floor of the House on Monday, Griffin called Bacon “one of Arkansas’ finest sons.”
“Nick Bacon’s example is one all Arkansans can admire, and I’m pleased the House has honored his legacy.”
Typically, post office naming bills originate in the House. Currently there is no corresponding legislation in the Senate.
In a 1997 interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Bacon, who also served as the president of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, reflected on the brutality of war.
“Nobody likes war less than a veteran,” he said. “But if a war has to be ... then you have to go all the way to win. There’s no place for compassion in war. You can’t come in second.”
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/24/2012