Billy Waugh.Photo:Courtesy of Enrique ‘Ric’ Prado
Courtesy of Enrique ‘Ric’ Prado
The bagpipe strains of “Amazing Grace” still reverberated through the theater at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday when a soldier marched to the front. A Special Forces Command Sergeant Major in dress blues stationed himself near a large photo of legendary Green Beret-CIA paramilitary operative Billy Waugh. The audience braced for the roll call that signaled a final sendoff for the man they had come to celebrate. The man who passed away this April at age 93: Billy Waugh.
Speakers at the ceremony told story after story of a man who took part in the first HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening) combat jump into enemy territory in Vietnam; who foiled Soviet attempts to steal sensitive missile technology; who spotted Osama bin Laden long before the attacks of 9/11; and who — while infirm at age 93 — tried to escape from the hospital while his gown flapped open behind him.
“There was no one like Billy,” former colleague and close friendEnrique “Ric” Pradotells PEOPLE. “What is there not to love about a national hero?”
Prado — a legend himself in the world of CIA clandestine and counter-terror operations — recalled how in the Philippines decades earlier, Waugh was on point in the wake of the high profile assassination of another iconic Green Beret, Col. Nick Rowe. As a counter-surveillance team leader “with teeth,” Waugh would jog around the Americans' compound and memorize the license plates of suspicious vehicles, Prado said.
Courtesy of Lynn Waugh
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While stationed in Khartoum, Waugh spotted the prolific terrorist, IIich Ramirez, known as “Carlos the Jackal.” Waugh provided a photograph and information that led to Jackal being arrested and then convicted in France, where he remains in prison.
“Billy was super smart and super without fear,” Lynn Waugh tells PEOPLE. “It’s different from being brave. I think it’s a gene set that he had that he had no fear. He just did it.”
“He was fearless and victorious for all of us,” echoed four-star Army Gen. Bryan Fenton, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command.
As much as Waugh loved his country, he cherished his wife. On his cell phone, he listed her as “Lynn the Beautiful.”
“We were great, great companions, and we loved each other,” she says — even when Billy mistook Lynn’s iris plants for weeds, and pulled them from the garden.
The man in dress blues — Command Sergeant Major Josh King, of 5th Special Forces Group — began to call the roll.
“Here, Sergeant Major!” came each resounding voice.
Then CSM King called one final name.
“Sergeant Major Waugh!”
There came no answer. King searched the auditorium. He tried again.
“Sergeant Major William Waugh!”
Again, no answer. King tried for a third time.
“Sergeant Major William Dawson Waugh!”
Then there came Billy Waugh’s favorite song, one that he played every day while at home. Throughout the auditorium, men quietly mouthed the words to “The Ballad of the Green Berets.”
source: people.com
