"But wearing Aviation insignia?"
"Sir, with all respect, if I'm wearing Aviation insignia, no one will connect me with Special Forces."
Colonel Edmonds considered that, then said, "Question Two: Where is the rest of your insignia? I was informed you are assigned to the Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg. Aren't you supposed to be wearing the Third Army shoulder insignia?"
"Sir, at Bragg I wear the Special Forces shoulder insignia, and the Special Warfare Center insignia on my blaze."
"On your what?"
"The embroidered patch worn on the green beret, sir. We're under DCSOPS, not Third Army, sir."
"Lieutenant, I don't know what you're up to here, but I don't have time to play games. Do you have a tunic to which is affixed all the insignia and decorations to which you are entitled?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then go put it on."
"Sir, permission to speak?"
"Granted," Colonel Edmonds snapped.
"Sir, as I tried to tell the colonel before, we're supposed to maintain a low profile. That is what I'm trying to do, sir."
"Go put on your tunic and every last item of uniform to which you are entitled, Lieutenant."
"Yes, sir."
In five minutes, Lieutenant Castillo returned.
He now was wearing both aviator's and parachutist's wings, and a Combat Infantryman's badge was pinned above both. He had three rows of ribbons on his breast, among which Colonel Edmonds recognized the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star medal with V device, signifying it had been awarded for valor in combat, and the Purple Heart medal with one oak-leaf cluster. The silver aiguillette of an aide-de-camp hung from his epaulet, and on his lapels were the one-starred shields reflecting that he was an aide-de-camp to a brigadier general. He had a green beret on his head, and his trousers were bloused around highly polished parachutist's jump boots.
Colonel Edmonds had a sudden, unpleasant thought, which he quickly suppressed:
Jesus Christ, is he entitled to all that stuff?
Of course he is. He's a West Pointer. He wouldn't wear anything to which he was not entitled.
"Much better, Lieutenant," Colonel Edmonds said. "And now we'd better get going. We don't want to keep the general waiting, do we?"
The story appeared on the front page of The Army Flier two days later, which was a Friday. It included a photograph of Lieutenant Castillo and the Fort Rucker commander standing as if reading what was cast into a bronze plaque mounted on the wall beside the main door to the WOJG Jorge A. Castillo Classroom Building of the Army Aviation School.
LIVING TRADITION
By LTC F. Mason Edmonds
Information Officer Fort Rucker, Al., and the Army Aviation Center Major General Charles M. Augustus, Jr. (right), Commanding General of Fort Rucker and the Army Aviation Center and 1LT Carlos G. Castillo examine the dedication plaque of the WOJG Jorge A. Castillo Classroom Building at the Army Aviation School.
WOJG Castillo, 1LT Castillo's father, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for gallantry, in the Vietnam War. He was killed when his HU-1D helicopter was struck by enemy fire and exploded on 5 April 1971 during Operation Lam Sol 719. He was on his fifty-second rescue mission of downed fellow Army Aviators in a thirty-six-hour period when he was killed, and was flying despite his having suffered both painful burns and shrapnel wounds. The HU-1D in which he died was the fourth helicopter he flew during this period, the others having been rendered un-airworthy by enemy fire.
His sadly prophetic last words were to his co-pilot, 2LT H. F. Wilson, as he ordered him out of the helicopter in which twenty minutes later he made the supreme sacrifice: "Get out, Lieutenant. There's no point in both of us getting killed."
Those heroic words are cast into the plaque MG Augustus, Jr., and 1LT Castillo are examining.
Following in his father's footsteps, 1LT Castillo became an Army Aviator after his graduati
on from the United States Military Academy at West Point.
The opening hours of the Desert War saw him flying deep inside enemy lines as co-pilot of an AH-64B Apache attack helicopter charged with destroying Iraqi antiaircraft radar facilities.