NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

By: Jim Hodges

It seems that Floyd Newkirk has a story for every occasion, and he was happy to tell the one about delivering four pints of paint for the nose of a rocket being launched into space.

"Remember that monkey that was sent up?" Newkirk, a former Marine machine gunner and retired long-haul trucker, asked Thursday while leading a group of Korean War veterans touring NASA Langley.

He was speaking of "Sam," who went aloft on a Little Joe rocket from Wallops Island in 1959.

And on the story went.

Rudy Hernandez outside the Hangar at NASA Langley: "I'm a great believer in what you are doing here." Credit: NASA/Sean Smith

Click image to enlarge

Across the Langley cafeteria, Rudy Hernandez said little. His story is so fantastic that it bears telling, but he has trouble getting the words out. The gold medal he wore on the blue ribbon around his neck Thursday is probably a good place to start.

The Congressional Medal of Honor is always a good place to start.

Hernandez earned his in action on May 31, 1951, near Wantong-ni, Korea, when his platoon with G Company, 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team fell under withering fire on a spot on a topographical map called Hill 420. When its ammunition was nearly depleted, the unit withdrew, but Hernandez stayed, continued to fire his M-1 rifle until it jammed, then charged the enemy position with a bayonet.

He killed six of the enemy with that bayonet until falling, wounded by enemy bayonets, bullets and a grenade that ripped off part of his helmet, skull and brain.

Thus began almost 12 years of hospital care and rehabilitation, then 17 years of work as a Veterans Administration benefits counselor to help others like himself. Much of that work has been done in Fayetteville, N.C., where Hernandez, a native Californian, now calls home.

"I wanted to stay in (the military) 20 years, but they kicked me out," Hernandez said haltingly, but with ever-present good humor that is the product of a wry wit and work done to repair a bayonet cut on his upper lip that has it permanently affixed into a smile.

"They said I couldn't talk."

Speech is just one of the things he had to relearn among the skills he had acquired as a child. His right arm provides leverage, but little else. He has to move it around with his left hand, the one he has learned to write with.

Swallowing was a re-acquired skill, as was the ability to shake his head to indicate no.

"You never realize how precious each system of your body is until you lose it and have to work like the devil to get it back," Hernandez writes in a narrative of his life since May 1, 1951.

He learned much of what happened on Hill 420 in the White House, when President Truman awarded him the Medal of Honor and the citation was read. There is still pain, but it's intermingled with that of being 77 years old.

And there are reunions, like that with about 70 Korean vets and spouses, who toured Langley's National Transonic Facility and the Hangar on Thursday.

"We go someplace every year," said Newkirk, who lives in Virginia Beach and suggested Langley. "We like to see military facilities and things that are on the cutting edge, and NASA Langley is on the cutting edge."

And then he launched into a story of hauling a trailer that turned out to be part of a tracking station for then-Mercury astronaut John Glenn's orbit of Earth in Friendship 7 on Feb. 20, 1962.

Near day's end, they gathered on the tarmac outside the hangar and listened to Bruce Fisher talk about an OV-10 Bronco. Hernandez hung back a bit, still smiling. It was hard to hear with F-22 Raptors from next door screaming aloft.

He had been impressed by the day and by what he had seen.

"I'm a great believer in what you are doing here," Hernandez said, handing out a card with his name and the insignia of the Congressional Medal of Honor on it.

He said it softly, as he says everything, but to the listener, it was a ringing endorsement.


 
NASA Langley Research Center
Managing Editor: Jim Hodges
Executive Editor and Responsible NASA Official: H. Keith Henry
Editor and Curator: Denise Lineberry