Park named after Medal of Honor recipient whose old San Diego neighborhood became resettlement area for Vietnamese refugees

In 1970, in Vietnam, a grenade landed in front of John Baca.

He threw his helmet over the bomb, then his body, smothering the explosion and saving eight other soldiers in his Army unit. The nation later awarded him the Medal of Honor, its highest decoration for valor in combat.

Baca was just 20 at the time, drafted fresh from Kearny High School in San Diego’s Linda Vista neighborhood.

Nearly 50 years later, Baca’s friends from the neighborhood haven’t forgotten the sacrifice of their classmate — who spent long days at the Navy hospital in Balboa Park recovering from an abdomen ripped apart by grenade shrapnel.

On Saturday, the city dedicated John P. Baca Park on Linda Vista Road. Baca grew up nearby.

“I guess everyone [being] here says it all,” the 68-year-old Baca said at the ceremony attended by nearly 200 people, including a Marine Corps band and a Kearny High color guard.

Baca’s old comrades described him as someone who never sought the limelight.

“Johnny was just a regular guy. Got drafted and did a good job of being a soldier,” said Doug Beckham, an old friend who served as a Marine in 1968-69. “You know, some people are heroes and some aren’t. But John’s always been a good guy.”

A lot has changed in Linda Vista since Baca’s high school days. A neighborhood first settled by World War II veterans became a resettlement area for Vietnamese refugees after the war.

The old shopping center that Beckham and Baca remember — the one where Baca admitted he was chased frequently by security guards for misdeeds — now has a Vietnamese supermarket as an anchor tenant.

The park is just across the street.

The war hero said he thinks the juxtaposition is “wonderful.”

Baca returned to Vietnam in the 1990s to perform humanitarian work. He worked alongside former Viet Cong fighters to build a medical clinic. One of them was a former Viet Cong soldier who Baca had captured while on patrol and whose life he spared.

“They forgave us,” Baca said in a brief interview after the ceremony.

“They asked us, ‘How come you Americans are so messed up that you don’t know how to forgive yourself, when we’ve forgiven you?’”

Baca has made his own peace in part by working with Gold Star families, who lost a spouse, child or a parent to war.

He called some of the war widows in the audience to stand on Saturday. He also threw plush “snowballs” into the crowd to promote the Snowball Express, a charity he advises that treats children of fallen troops to entertainment events.

Baca said he tries to help Gold Star families with his own story of facing death.

“Some of the families, they don’t really know what happened to their mom or dad who didn’t come back,” the former soldier said during the ceremony.

“I tell them about those dying moments I had. How peaceful and gentle. I know there were angels, you can’t put it into words, but I know they were ready to bring me up into the heavens.”

The city of Huntington Beach in Orange County, where Baca used to live, has also named a park after him. At Camp Pendleton, a post office bears his name, a family member said.

In Linda Vista, the large sign that marks John Baca Park includes a quote from President Lincoln: “Any nation that does not honor its heroes, will not long endure.”

Steele writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

jen.steele@sduniontribune.com