The Daughters of the American Revolution, a huge nationwide organization with 165,000 members, announced that it will award its highest honor to Vietnam veteran and Khe Sanh survivor Ken Rodgers. Ken and his wife Betty directed and produced an award-winning documentary called “Bravo! Common Men, Uncommon Valor” that tells the tale of the siege at Khe Sanh, and the world is starting to notice it.
Ken Rodgers at Khe Sanh (1968)
I have seen the movie and was riveted from beginning to end. It allowed the Marines who were there to describe in their own words the ordeals they faced during the eleven week siege.
According to the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution’s press release, “Ken Rodgers, of Eagle, Idaho, will receive the Ellen Hardin Walworth Founders Medal for Patriotism on May 12 in Boise, the society announced in a statement. The medal honors an adult who has displayed “outstanding patriotism in the promotion of NSDAR’s ideals of God, home and country through faithful and meritorious service to our community, state and nation.”
Having had the privilege of knowing Ken and Betty, it is easy to say they deserve the honor; the movie is dramatic, emotional, and well-produced. But this award goes beyond the film. It will be presented to Ken – not the movie – for being the embodiment of someone who holds God, home and country as ideals around which he lives his life.
The survivors of Khe Sanh could have told us that.
[The ceremony will be held at 7pm in Boise, Idaho on May 12. Email boisegrant@gmail.com for more information.]
