David Zartarian didn’t know Col. Francis “Frank” Cuddy well, but for the past five years, he’s been fighting to give the Vietnam War hero the highest military accolade – the Medal of Honor.
Despite the unfamiliarity, both veterans have a lot in common. Both Cuddy and Zartarian attended the University of Rhode Island (URI), with Cuddy graduating in 1966, one year before Zartarian. Both served in the military in Vietnam, and they were near each other on June 8, 1969, when Cuddy’s daring, order-defying rescue of a Marine Corps reconnaissance patrol team earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Still, Zartarian, an Army veteran, believes Cuddy deserves more for putting his life on the line to save fellow soldiers, especially in recent months with President Donald Trump awarding Medal of Honor accolades to veterans who served even before Vietnam, in the Korean War more than 70 years ago.
“I see where they’re giving awards to people 55 years later and Frank Cuddy is more than deserving,” Zartarian told Military.com. “I finally said to myself, ‘I’m going to send this out to Washington, D.C.’ to see if I can get some movement there, so I sent emails to both the president and vice president, but both emails were rejected. Apparently, their computer system had been hacked.”
Only three days before his mission to save the recon unit, Cuddy, a Marine Corps captain at the time, had been awarded the Silver Star. Manning a helicopter, Zartarian said Cuddy flew 988 combat missions during his long military career.
Cuddy is no longer here to advocate for himself. He died in 2008 after a battle with cancer. But Zartarian, who said Cuddy was well respected at URI, deserves to be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. The most prestigious award for military valor, the medal has only been given to 3,533 soldiers since its inception at the dawn of the Civil War (1861).
“I can be a determined guy, but you get to the point where every setback feels like a punch in the gut,” Zartarian said.
Having spent the past few years collecting the proper paperwork and talking to soldiers who served alongside Cuddy in Vietnam to build his case, Zartarian has reached out to Sen. Jack Reed’s office (D-Rhode Island) to ask for help.
“When they came back and told me I had to get somebody to validate what he did from his original chain of command … come on,” Zartarian said. “Am I supposed to dig them up from the ground? Most of those guys are dead by now.”
John F. Kiernan, who works as the military/veterans liaison for Reed’s office, told Zartarian in an email last November that several requirements still need to be met for Cuddy to be considered for the Medal of Honor, but the biggest hurdle is the lack of eyewitness statements and proper military documentation. Materials a bit hard to find for a mission that occurred almost 57 years ago.
“If I were to cut through all of this, the major part of the issue here is the original chain of command not being available to provide required statements, and in accordance with applicable award procedures, both a living recommender and at least one living intermediate authority are required to support and validate the recommendation,” Kiernan wrote.
In February, Kiernan emailed Zartarian with an update, one he wasn’t looking forward to.
“The hard-stop was the lack of having the chain of command weigh-in on this request. Too much time has passed and so have the service members who could have provided some validity to all this,” Kiernan wrote. “There were other issues that were not able to be presented, but (that) was the big one. I really wanted to get this over the goal line for you and for Col. Cuddy and family.”
Idea Began with Feature Story
Zartarian’s interest in helping Cuddy receive the Medal of Honor was sparked when he read an article written by Jeff Grosscup on Historynet.com published in 2009. Grosscup, a Marine Corps veteran, was an artillery officer in Vietnam and helped save the American Beauty unit, along with Cuddy.
Amazingly, despite dire circumstances, only one Marine was killed during the rescue operation, but the name, 1st Lt. Ronald McLean, made headlines. He was the stepson of legendary actor Jimmy Stewart.
On June 8, 1969, Army Lt. David Zartarian was stationed in Da Nang, working in the American mortuary. Zartarian was only there three days, but it was three days he’ll never forget.
As bodies came into the mortuary, three deaths became notable – Lt. Sharon Lane, a nurse who was the only U.S. service woman killed by enemy forces during the Vietnam War, Lt. Col. Don Bartley, a chaplain filming a story for television whose vehicle struck a land mine, and McLean.
“That was a weird, weird situation,” Zartarian recalls. “Here’s a little tidbit for you, if you’re ever in the military and you get assigned to any type of position, like doing grave registration in the mortuary, you can say, ‘I want out,’ and I bet a lot of infantry guys wish they had that option. So, I blew out of there and ended up in Chu Lai.”
Reading Grosscup’s detailed account of that fateful time in Vietnam, a familiar name listed in the story jogged Zartarian’s memory – Francis Cuddy, a fellow Rhode Island Ram.
However, he didn’t realize Cuddy had already completed a few years of Marine Corps duty before enrolling into URI in 1962. Sgt. Cuddy figured a college education would allow him to become an officer and break into flight school. URI also allowed the athletic 6-foot-5 Cuddy to shine on the gridiron where he logged four seasons of football for the Rams.
With his athletic and educational dreams accomplished, Cuddy pursued his next goal – becoming a pilot in the Marine Corps.
Following his death in ’08, a pilot Cuddy served with praised his impeccable military record.
“The greatest of the great has left us. How is it possible for this mountain of a man, whom I called a friend, to have succumbed to cancer when he conquered everything else? How sad that we have lost one of the greatest Marines of the Vietnam War.”
In a military career spanning nearly four decades, Cuddy collected more than 60 awards and medals. However, the Medal of Honor remains elusive.
Zartarian believes it’s time to change that.
Brave Mission to Save Unit
On June 6, 1969, the American Beauty mission kicked off after a helicopter dropped McLean and his platoon on top of a hill along the demilitarized zone (DMZ). Just two later, enemy troops pinned down the group and killed McLean.
By this time, Cuddy was no stranger to bailing out distressed units and adjusting plans on the fly. Only three days before June 8, he flew into heavy fire to help rescue a downed medivac unit, earning him the Silver Star. Now, as he was flying back from a mission in Laos, a transmission came in about the platoon in the DMZ that needed help. Badly.
Flying his Huey, Cuddy and a group of helicopters headed for the hill, providing defensive cover for Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knights to try to rescue the maligned troops. It wasn’t working. Most of the helicopters left to regroup, but not Cuddy’s. Defying commands, Cuddy flew back to the hill and started firing on the enemy, providing protection for the troubled soldiers.
Cuddy was wounded as bullets ripped through his chopper, absorbing 20 rounds. Zartarian said the chopper’s exterior looked like a block of Swiss cheese. But it was just enough to save the platoon. A rescue squad finally got them off the hill and recovered McLean’s body.
“I think he marched to the beat of his own drum at times, and even thought he defied orders and went back, thank God he did otherwise all those guys would have been dead,” Zartarian said.
Years later, in an interview, Cuddy explained his bold decision to turn back when others bailed.
“In the Marine Corps, it’s ingrained that you don’t leave dead and wounded,” he said. “To leave them out there was to let them die.”
It was a defying act of valor that earned Cuddy the Distinguished Flying Cross, the most acclaimed honor for heroism in military aviation.
“Those guys who flew those helicopters, and to this day fly those helicopters, I don’t how they get their balls in their pants,” Zartarian said. “Those are special people, boy.”
