Purple Heart creates red-letter day
	Chapman classified Henderson as, "probably one of the most highly decorated soldiers of Vietnam, especially in this area."			About 60 miles east of Saigon at Bear Cat on 20 June 1969, Rod Henderson took some of the brunt of the day's fighting while flying his Army gunship.      The shrapnel he took in the fighting earned him the Purple Heart medal. Almost 20 years later, he got his medal.      The decoration for being wounded in action was lost in the shuffle of bureaucracy, and a year's worth of sifting wrought the medal Thursday.
		Henderson thanked U. S. Rep. Jim Chapman, D-Sulphur Springs, for finding the medal. "This is very nice and I appreciate it very much."      The congressman and employees of his office are still on the trail of almost 20 flying medals Henderson earned while in his second tour of Vietnam.      "There are (flight) records there, but they need verification from his commanding officer," Chapman said following the presentation of the honor which was established in 1782 by George Washington.      The time lapse from when Henderson came home in 1972 and when he began to search for the missing decorations about a year ago had allowed the wounds, emotional and physical, time to heal.      "I really didn't think about it before then," he said. "Then I got a little older and those things (medals) began to matter to me.      "By that time, I'd gotten over the controversy and turmoil of the war and I thought what the hell, they're mine."      Chapman classified Henderson as "probably one of the most highly decorated soldiers of Vietnam, especially in this area."
		Among his other honors are two awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross and two awards of the Air Medal with Valor. He earned the Soldiers Medal in his second tour for saving two men whose helicopter had been shot down.      "It was my very first day out on my second tour. We hadn't been out two hours; I was really on orientation," Henderson recalled.  He said the helicopter the two men were in went down and he was dropped from the air about 20 to 30 feet into the jungle.He made his way through the thick to the downed aircraft and found the doorgunner pinned under part of the wreckage. The pilot was "torn all to hell and back," on his knees hugging a tree.				The pilot was "torn all to hell and back."
		"It (the wreckage) was burning, but not engulfed in flames. But it was leaking fuel and there were high explosives in there (the helicopter)."      After the medics picked up the three men, a company of infantrymen went back into the area and were ambushed. "They determined later that I walked through the ambush to get to the wreckage. They probably let me through because they knew other infantry would be coming in."      His second one-year tour was more intense, Henderson said because the flights were "all directly involved with combat." The first tour he flew gunships, while during the later stint he flew in a team of hunter-killers.      "I saw more combat, much, much more combat my second tour."      After recalling one of the missions that only three of the 16 gunships that went out returned to the post, Henderson said, "Days like that you come home and you get in your hooch and you look out in space for a long time and you think a lot."
		Date Published: 7/17/88 ~ Publication: News-Telegram ~ Written Under: Karla S. Ware © KWSartin Enterprises info@kwsartin.com