John Philip Baca was born in Providence, Rhode Island, but moved with his mother and stepfather to Stockton, California, at an early age. They later moved to San Diego, where John graduated from Kearny High School in 1967. He was not a good student, and, given family stress, he says he was often truant and ended up in some juvenile detention.

He was drafted into the Army in June 1968 and would soon ship out to Vietnam. He recalled of the War there, “I didn’t really understand what was going on.”

After basic training, he was deployed to Vietnam in July 1969 with Company D of the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division. He was part of a heavy weapons platoon, initially a mortarman, but then joined his Company’s recoilless rifle team.

On 10 February 1970, then SPC4 Baca and his platoon volunteered with another platoon for a night mission near Quan Loi in Phuoc Province near the Cambodian border.

When the first platoon was ambushed and suffering casualties, John led his team into an intense firefight to rescue his friends. Soon after reaching a position where his platoon could provide cover fire on the first patrol’s defensive perimeter, John faced a split-second life and death decision, which few survive.

As they were providing fire relief for the first platoon, a fragmentation grenade landed in the middle of his platoon’s position.

John recalls: “It’s like time stopped. All these thoughts go through my mind, and I knew it was going to go off.”

After shoving his best friend Art James aside and shouting a warning to the rest of his team, he covered the grenade with his helmet and dove on top of it — just as it detonated.

He recalls: “It was like slow motion. I just kind of slowly fell on top of it. My whole life flashed through me, and my childhood. It was like my mom and my sisters were right in front of me.”

Moments later, he launched into the air and landed on his back, saying in the initial moment he felt a sense of peace before becoming fully aware of what had just happened: “I thought I was severed in half. There was no pain. From what I heard, I guess the lieutenant grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me out so they could clear the area.”

For his actions in that moment, John would receive the Medal of Honor from President Richard Nixon.

According to his MoH citation:

Fully aware of the danger to his comrades, Sp4c. Baca unhesitatingly and with complete disregard for his own safety, covered the grenade with his steel helmet and fell on it as the grenade exploded, thereby absorbing the lethal fragments and concussion with his body. His gallant action and total disregard for his personal well-being directly saved eight men from certain serious injury or death. The extraordinary courage and selflessness displayed by Sp4c. Baca, at the risk of his life, are in the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

(Notably, two other soldiers in Company D, Allen J. Lynch and Rodney J. Evans, had previously earned Medals of Honor.)

John was medevaced out to the nearest Army hospital and then flown to Japan for treatment of his serious injuries. From there, he was sent home to a naval hospital in San Diego, where he endured additional surgeries over the next year. He was discharged from the Army as a Sergeant, 364 days after his heroic actions.

You can watch him recount his actions here.

In his civilian life, he took a job with the Los Angeles Department of Veterans Affairs before leaving to attend college at Southern California College in Costa Mesa. He eventually settled back in San Diego, where he bought a fishing boat.

In 1990, John returned to Vietnam, where he and other friends spent two months building a friendship medical clinic. He says: “We worked alongside the North Vietnamese. I was 12 kilometers outside Hanoi. … They just befriended us and loved us. I saw the love that those people have and the crap that they’ve gone through. … I’m glad I went back.”

In 2001, a park in Huntington Beach was renamed for him, and in 2017, a San Diego park near where he grew up was also renamed Baca Park. Notably, the area around that park became a residential resettlement center for Vietnamese refugees.

At the Huntington Beach ceremony, John read a poem he had written for the occasion:

It’s a playground for the young, a walk for the dog, These grounds will be blessed by the rain and the sun, free from the smog.

A refuge for the birds vacationing south, “Let’s visit Baca’s Park.” Soon it won’t be long for all to enjoy their song! My buddies and friends have joined me for this delight.

Some unknown evenings I may be sitting upon my bench enjoying the quiet of the night. What is a park? A site of beauty, a place to rest.

A place to stay, leave one’s worries, also leave behind their stress of the day. A solitude visitor can be still, enjoy the quiet of their thought.

One can hear the voices in the breeze, trees are clapping their hands, with the movement of the leaves. All humanity can find a space. All are welcomed to a safe, you might say sacred place.

These grounds will be a witness for families, lovers and friends who picnic, play, hold hands and maybe embrace.

It will be filled with harmony and song and the smile of God’s grace.

One last thing before I depart and be on my way, I sat on the bench and a swing in the park that was dedicated in my honor and in my name on this beautiful day.

In closing, he humbly observed: “I am an ordinary citizen who answered my country’s call to duty and performed that duty to the very best of my ability. I pray that so naming this park will serve to instill in the minds of generations to come the idea that the liberty we enjoy must be ever so carefully guarded and when they are called upon to defend those liberties, they do so willingly, as I and so many others already have, in order that this nation, as we know it, shall not perish.”

Now 77, John has spent the last few decades assisting Gold Star families and working with other veteran- and military-related service organizations. He says to this day: “I always go back to that moment. I laugh, and I cry, just knowing I’ve been so close to death.” And he lives a life in full appreciation that he did not perish.

The Scripture he selected for his challenge coin captures that spirit: “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy — meditate on these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

SGT John Baca: An ordinary man faced with extraordinary circumstances, he summoned the greatest measure of courage to place his life in imminent peril to save others. Your example of valor — a humble American Patriot defending Liberty for all above and beyond the call of duty — is eternal.

(Among other men who have survived jumping on a grenade would be Medal of Honor recipient LCpl Kyle Carpenter (USMC), the youngest living Marine recipient, and Maj Ron Helle (USMC), recipient of the Navy/Marine Corps’ second-highest award, the Navy Cross. Ron dove on a grenade to protect others, and fortunately, it did not detonate. Ron and his brother Roger are both writers for The Patriot Post.)

“Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

Live your life worthy of his sacrifice.

(Read more Profiles of Valor here.)

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

Follow Mark Alexander on X/Twitter.

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