Soldier's sacrifice must not be forgotten
It was deer hunting season when two soldiers in immaculate dress uniform approached the Kusick family home in Bruin.
Bill Kusik recalls it vividly 50 years later. He was just 11 in November 1967. It still chokes him up to talk about it.
“I was home with Mom,” Kusik recalled this past week. “Dad and my brother Tom were out hunting. We knew why the soldiers had come. It wasn't good news. They came into the house. They waited until Dad and Tommy got home.”
The ritual had already played out 17 times in Butler County: Army Specialist 4 Joseph Kusik would be Vietnam War casualty No. 18. He died Nov. 8, the Huey helicopter he was aboard with 21 other servicemen shot down while evacuating a firefight.
Joe Kusik was infinitely more than a military statistic; far more than any mere casualty of war. He was a hero to his younger brothers, who regarded him in many ways as a second father, or a cool uncle. He was someone to look up to, the best this nation had to offer.
Kusick was Special Forces. The Green Beret only enhanced his big brother-hero image, Bill Kusick said. Joe Kusick was the living personification of that No. 1 hit of 1966, “Ballad of the Green Beret,” composed and sung by another genuine Green Beret, Barry Sadler.
Joe Kusik was an exceptional individual, a life cut short at the tender age of 22, a sacrificial lamb led willingly to a slaughter called Vietnam.
On Monday, the U.S. House of Representatives paid tribute to Kusick's sacrifice. They voted unanimously to designate the community living center at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Butler Township as the Sergeant Joseph George Kusick VA Community Living Center. Rep. Mike Kelly's resolution was co-sponsored by all 18 members of the Pennsylvania congressional delegation. The bill now goes to the Senate and then to President Donald Trump for approval.
It's a fitting honor for a Green Beret whose mission was shrouded for many years in the obscurity of government secrecy.
For years, the Kusick family assumed Joe had been killed in a remote jungle area of Vietnam. Actually, he died in Laos, where he'd been part of a secret “Black ops” surveillance mission of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Secret intel missionAfter several decades, details of the firefight emerged. Eventually to be told in a book, “That Empty Feeling,” by military historian Terry P. Arentowicz.Arentowicz wrote that Kusick's unit was part of MACV-SOG — Military Assistance Command Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group. The all-volunteer band of Special Forces soldiers was considered the most highly-trained, elite warriors on the planet.They were also a clandestine tool of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.“The last part, SOG, was the most worrisome,” Arentowicz wrote. “It was highly secretive, and word had it that working for SOG could be hazardous to your health.”Funding SOG operations into Laos and Cambodia was an expensive proposition that “came right out of the deep pockets of the CIA,” he wroteWith the blessings of presidents Kennedy and Johnson, the Special Forces staffed MACV-SOG by skimming the “crème de la crème” from the regular Army's ranks of noncommissioned officers. That's how they landed Kusick, apparently seeing many of the same qualities his own friends and family had identified before.
A born leaderJoe Kusick's classmates knew he was something special, and not just because he was a standout three-sport athlete and state medalist in track. They had elected Joe the king of their prom. They voted him most all-around when his class graduated in 1963.Two years later, he was among the first students enrolled at Butler Business College — now Butler County Community College — in 1965 and had gotten a job at Armco Steel when he received a draft notice. Family members say the draft notice prompted Joe to volunteer — a move that enabled him to control his service career.He completed his basic and advanced infantry training combined at Fort Knox, Ky., in the fall of 1965, and was identified as a candidate for the grueling Special Forces training — a regimen so tough that the vast majority of candidates either fail or drop out of before completing it.Joe Kusick passed, no problem.He was assigned to the Command and Control Detachment of the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), headquartered in Ft. Bragg, N.C. After a brief visit home in August 1967, the family drove him to the Pittsburgh airport and put him on the plane that began his journey to the jungles of Southeast Asia.“Last time I saw him,” said William Kusick. “I remember he stopped at the top of the plane and just waved 'til the stewardesses came and got him. You could go out and watch the planes take off and land. Dad took us out there.”Three months later, on Nov. 8, 1967, Sgt. Kusick's 13-man recon team Flatfoot was “inserted” into patrol in the dense jungle hills west of the Laos-Vietnam border. Kusick was the designated “1-2” for record team Flatfoot, meaning he would carry the 23.5-pound radio, plus spare batteries and antennae, along with his regular gear.“It was the single most important piece of equipment carried into the field by any recon team entering Laos,” Arentowicz wrote, adding, “It was a job for young legs.”Flatfoot's team leader, Staff Sgt. Bruce Baxter, took an immediate liking to Kusick. He liked the Pennsylvanian's common sense and athletic ability. Kusick looked up to Baxter for advice and experience.
Ambush AttackRecon team Flatfoot was hunkered down during an overnight surveilance mission Nov. 7-8 when a North Vietnamese Army patrol walked straight into their position, sparking a firefight.The fight quickly escalated. U.S. helicopters responded as Viet Cong reserve fighters joined the battle.Kusick, and Baxter both were wounded, but both refused aid as they radioed the forward air controller to advise him of the critical situation and withdraw the rest of the team.While Baxter led a withdrawal to a landing zone, Kusick maintained contact with the controller and requested emergency extraction for the reconnaissance team. At one point, they directed the attack helicopters to place perimeter fire almost directly on their location, indicating how close the enemy was to overrunning their position.They had to be helped aboard the final rescue helicopter, but it came under fire, crashed and burned. Twenty two soldiers died in the crash. Their bodies were identified a day later but were never recovered.On Dec. 22, 1967, Kusick was posthumously awarded the Silver Star Medal for gallantry in action. The citation stated that “Kusick's gallantry in action, at the cost of his life, was in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflects great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.”
