A Shining Moment : After 27 Years, Oxnard Man Honored for Vietnam Heroism

Paul Calcaterra is now officially a hero.

After waiting more than 27 years, the former U.S. Army private was awarded the Silver Star Thursday during a red-carpet ceremony at Point Mugu near Oxnard.

Calcaterra, 48, was honored for his bravery during the Vietnam War when he sneaked into a Viet Cong underground cave to survey the medical supplies and weapons stored there.

Another soldier had been killed the previous day on a similar assignment, but Calcaterra, then 21, volunteered for the mission anyway.

“I was cocky and proud of it,” Calcaterra said. “But I was also trained by the best.

“I’d been in Vietnam nine months and I was very confident.”

Calcaterra discovered a huge underground complex with six roads leading to storage areas.

“When I landed there, I realized it was a lot hairier than I expected,” he said.

“I returned with reinforcements and we blew it to smithereens.”

After the mission, Calcaterra’s commanding officer, James T. Scott, said he would receive the Silver Star for his bravery, but the request was lost in the shuffle of military paperwork.

“What he did for us that day was a very brave thing,” Scott said. “I’m sure that by his actions scores of American lives were saved.”

Calcaterra left the war in 1968 after he was wounded by a grenade as he walked across a rice field. He was awarded a Purple Heart and discharged from the Army after serving three years.

He moved to Oxnard 20 years ago, married and had two children.

Three years ago, he saw his former commanding officer interviewed on “Good Morning, America” during the Persian Gulf War. The sighting triggered the Vietnam memory and Calcaterra, prompted by friends, wrote a letter to Scott, now a lieutenant general.

“I didn’t do it when I came back from the war because I figured the last thing the people in Vietnam needed to worry about was a silly medal,” he said. “Then the war went on so long and I never asked about it. I’d thought about it on and off, but I never did anything about it.”

At Thursday’s ceremony, Scott and Calcaterra met again for the first time since 1967.

“He’s shown exceptional humility in waiting this long to set the record straight,” Scott said. “Paul was one of the dedicated, determined soldiers who did their jobs in the most belying set of circumstances.”

Calcaterra, who works as a claims officer for the Veterans Administration, whispered nervously to his wife, Corine, during the ceremony. Afterward, he dropped the star twice before his wife helped pin it to his blazer.

Calcaterra said the tardiness of the award doesn’t diminish its importance.

“This means so much more to me today because 24 years ago people didn’t care about Vietnam vets,” he said.

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Calcaterra said seeing Scott again was also an honor.

“After one battle, I remember, we’d been mauled pretty badly and had lost a lot of soldiers, a lot of friends,” he said. “Our morale was down. It was monsoon season and we had to sleep in the mud. We were up to our knees in mud. The first thing he did was issue air mattresses to everyone. It just restored our dignity to know that this guy cared about us.”

Another time, Scott scored ice cream for the troops.

“I don’t know how he did it, but he did,” Calcaterra said. “He’s a very good man. He cares about his soldiers and always puts them first.”