William "Billy" Dawson Waugh

(December 1, 1929 – April 4, 2023)

De Oppresso Liber!

Callsigns:

1. 'Batman'
2. 'Mustang'.
3. 'Godfather of the Green Berets'

Billy was the son of Jonathan 'John' Waugh and Lilly Dawson. He had one sister and one brother who died in infancy. The Waugh family is of Scottish descent.

Billy leaves behind his beloved wife Lynn and two children. Billy was proud of his work with the special forces lads/lasses and enjoyed enthusiastically mentoring them. He wrote two books and was working on a third, and often autographed them before shipping them to their new owner. He was an American national treasure and legend. He spoke fondly of how hard his mother worked, his strict upbringing and his sister; Billy was a true Texan.

When Billy was a young lad working at the Tower Theatre in Bastrop (The Picture Show) their local movie theatre. Billy and his older sister Nancy both worked there. She sold tickets and Billy worked as a projectionist. He first heard about the war (WWII) during an announcement at the theater; he wanted to get into this action like many young men in America. Billy made this a determination and his purpose was laid out in front of him without restraint. He made a plan at 15 to enlist in the United States Marine Corps in California after meeting 2 Marines. He lit out of Bastrop, with the money he managed and hitch hiked as far as Las Cruces New Mexico. He was picked up by the local police, as in those days there was a curfew and young lads would not be found about; Billy had no Identification and was not giving up a lot of information to the Police, as he knew his mother would be on the other end of it. The Police made a phone call to his mother and let her know where her son was, and she was not too happy about that. He found his way back to Bastrop Texas on a bus with a ticket his mother had to pay for; still thinking about how he would make it into the military.

Billy graduated from Bastrop High School.

Billy was a former United States Army Special Forces soldier and Central Intelligence Agency paramilitary operations officer who served more than 50 years between the U.S. Army's Green Berets and the CIA's Special Activities Division.

Waugh enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1948, completing basic training at Fort Ord, California, in August of that year. He was accepted into the United States Army Airborne School and became airborne qualified in December of 1948. In April 1951, Waugh was assigned to the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team (RCT) in Korea. After a short stint with the US Postal service, it just wasn't the right outfit for him. he was recruited to the CIA. He initially worked in Libya, where he trained special forces. Waugh went on to work as a spy in places such as the Marshall Islands and Sudan, as well as in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. He participated in searches for notorious people, including Carlos the Jackal and Osama Bin Laden. Waugh's career in the military and the CIA lasted more than 50 years. 

Billy enjoyed his Jalapenos and blackjack. He put more miles on his caddy on the 95 as he enjoyed teaching the lads at Ft. Bragg. (8 Hits).

He didn't mind a Waffle house along the way. Billy loved to hear a ballad sung by Dolly Parton.

Billy's great friend was Isaac Camacho of who he wrote a book 'An American Hero" about Isaac's prisoner of war experience and escape. Billy was the author of Hunting the Jackal.

Billy loved his jalapenos and wouldn't pass them up. He enjoyed speaking engagements, driving '8 HITS' and enjoyed intelligent and adventuresome conversation. He was pretty darn good with a PowerPoint!

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Military History

After the Korean War ended Billy met 2 U.S. Army Special Forces members on a train in Germany. They informed him of openings for platoon sergeants. He requested a transfer. He began training and earned the Green Beret in 1954, joining the 10th Special Forces Group (SFG) in Bad Tölz, W. Germany. In Germany he married his first wife.

In 1961 Billy arrived in South Vietnam with his ODA (Operational Detachment Alpha) and began working alongside Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDGs) there and also in Laos.

In July 1965, he was serving with 5th Special Forces Group A-team A-321 at Camp Bồng Sơn, Bình Định Province, commanded by Captain Paris Davis (MoH). Following a night raid with a Regional Forces unit on a VC encampment near Bong Son, the unit was engaged by a superior VC force. Many of the Regional Forces soldiers refused to fight and most of the A team were injured by VC fire, including Waugh, who was shot multiple times and left between the VC and U.S./South Vietnamese forces. Waugh was later rescued by Davis under fire. In 1965, Billy Waugh began his first tour with the CIA's Special Activities Division and sent to the frontlines in Vietnam. While there, intelligence informed his team that there were only a few hundred North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops in the unit they were supposed to raid in Bồng Sơn, Bình Định province. Unfortunately, this estimate was severely miscalculated, as there were actually more than 4,000 troops, including Chinese regulars.

During the raid, ammunition began to run low and Waugh found himself without any more grenades. He was struck in the knee by a Soviet-made RPK and had to crawl to cover. While trying to move, he was hit in the ankle and foot, before suffering his worst injury.

During the engagement, the Green Beret was shot in the head and knocked unconscious. "I took another bullet, this time across the right side of my forehead," he recalled in his book, Hunting the Jackal: A Special Forces and CIA Soldier's Fifty Years on the Frontlines of the War Against Terror. "I don't know for sure, but I believe the bullet ricocheted off the bamboo before striking me. It sliced in and out of a two-inch section of my forehead, and it immediately started to bleed like an open faucet."

The North Vietnamese troops believed Waugh was dead, stripped him of his clothing and Rolex watch, and left him on the ground with all of the raid's other casualties. He was later picked up by a rescue team.

He spent much of 1965 and 1966 recuperating at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., he convinced the doctors not to amputate his foot and had them open up his leg again to find what was inside as he was suffering recurring infections. They found the rubber heel of his boot! He eventually returning to duty with 5th Special Forces Group in 1966. He received a Silver Star and a Purple Heart (his 6th) for the battle at Bong Son.

Waugh joined the Military Assistance Command-Vietnam Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG). While working for SOG, Waugh helped train Vietnamese and Cambodian forces in unconventional warfare tactics primarily directed against the North Vietnamese Army operating along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Prior to his retirement from U.S. Army Special Forces service, Waugh was senior NCO (non-commissioned officer) of MACV-SOG's Command & Control North (CCN) based at Marble Mountain on the South China Sea shore a few miles south of Da Nang, Vietnam. Waugh held this Command Sergeant Major role during the covert unit's transition and name change to Task Force One Advisory Element (TF1AE). Waugh conducted the first combat High Altitude, Low Opening (HALO) jump, a parachuting maneuver designed for rapid, undetected insertion into hostile territory. In October 1970, his team made a practice Combat Infiltration into the NVA-owned War Zone D, in South Vietnam, for reassembly training, etc. Waugh also led the last combat special reconnaissance parachute insertion by American Army Special Forces HALO parachutists into denied territory which was occupied by communist North Vietnamese Army troops on June 22, 1971.

Waugh retired from active military duty at the rank of sergeant major (E-9) on February 1, 1972

After Waugh retired from the military, he worked for the United States Postal Service until he accepted an offer in 1977 from ex-CIA officer Edwin P. Wilson to work in Libya on a contract to train that country's special forces. This was not an Agency-endorsed assignment and Waugh might have found himself in trouble with U.S. authorities if it were not for the fact that he was also approached by the CIA to work for the Agency while in Libya. The CIA tasked him with surveilling Libyan military installations and capabilities – this was of great interest to U.S. intelligence as Libya was receiving substantial military assistance from the Soviet Union at the time. Wilson was later indicted and convicted in 1979 of illegally selling weapons to Libya.

In the 1980s Waugh was assigned to the Kwajalein Missile Range in the Marshall Islands to track Soviet small boat teams operating in the area and prevent them from stealing U.S. missile technology. Some of his more critical assignments took place in Khartoum, Sudan during the early 1990s, where he performed surveillance and intelligence gathering on terrorist leaders Carlos the Jackal and Osama bin Laden along with Cofer Black.

At the age of 71, Waugh participated in Operation Enduring Freedom from October to December 2001 as a member of the CIA's Northern Alliance Liaison Team led by Gary Schroen which went into Afghanistan to work with the Northern Alliance to topple the Taliban regime and Al Qaeda at the Battle of Tora Bora.

It is unknown how many missions Waugh was involved in during his career

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Billy Waugh (1929–2023), U.S. Army Special Forces veteran

By Linnea Crowther April 5, 2023

Billy Waugh was a U.S. Army Special Forces veteran who served in Korea and Vietnam before going on to a career in the CIA.

Waugh was a legend of the U.S. Special Forces, a career soldier who had dreamed of fighting for his country long before he was old enough. A frequently repeated part of his life story was the time when, at 15, he tried to hitchhike from his home in Texas to California, believing he'd be allowed to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps at 16 and fight in World War II. Though Waugh was too young to fight that war, he joined the U.S. Army in 1948, and quickly became airborne qualified. He fought in the Korean War, after which he transferred to the U.S. Army Special Forces and served in Vietnam. Waugh trained Vietnamese and Cambodian soldiers and fought in the Battle of Bong Son, where he earned a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. Waugh also participated in the first ever High Altitude, Low Opening (HALO) combat jump into enemy territory while in Vietnam.

Waugh retired from the Army in 1972, but he was not yet done serving his country. After a short period working for the U.S. Postal Service, he was recruited to the CIA. He initially worked in Libya, where he trained special forces. Waugh went on to work as a spy in places such as the Marshall Islands and Sudan, as well as in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. He participated in searches for notorious people, including Carlos the Jackal and Osama Bin Laden. Waugh's career in the military and the CIA lasted more than 50 years.

Full obituary: Task & Purpose

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CIB (2), SS, LoM, BS (4), PH (8)

Battle of Bong Son, Binh Dinh

OPERATION MASHER (Operation White Wing)

Det A-1-321

CO CPT/COL Paris D. Davis (OH). Medal of Honor Recipient 2023 (MoH)

SSG David Allen Morgan (TX/FL)

SP4 Robert Brown Jr.

SFC John Ernest Reinburg, Hawaii

FAC: CPT Bronson

SGT Ronald Deis

Hand Salute!

(Everett Delbert)

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Billy was married 5 times, a widower once. He had four children with his first wife. Two of their daughters died in the 40's. One from a brain tumor and the other from a heart ailment. Their son died at the age of 15 from a respiratory ailment. Billy is survived by one child; Leslie.

He married to Alice Loraine Murray on 7 July 1950 in New Hanover, North Carolina, United States

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SOCOM Memorial Ceremony

The U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) will conduct a Memorial Ceremony to celebrate the life and to honor the service of our fallen and former 5th Special Forces Group Airborne (5 SFG (A)) Soldier, Sergeant Major (Retired) William 'Billy' Dawson Waugh on 27 June 2023.

The ceremony will take place 0900-1000 (local) at the Base Theater, MacDill AFB, Florida (2420 Florida Keys Ave, Building 41).

Guest speakers will be Enrique Prado (CIA – friend of Billy's); MG Patrick Roberson (DCG USASOC); LTG (R) John Mulholland and GEN Bryan Fenton, CG USSOCOM. CSM Josh King, 5th SFG(A) will conduct the Last Roll Call. The Ceremony will be available on "Facebook Live".

June 27, 2023; A large memorial, organized by SOCOM, will be held at MacDill AFB NLT 1030 am. There will be a reception "toast to Billy" at the Drop Zone bar following the jump.

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Silver wings upon their chest

These are men, America's best

One hundred men will test today

But only three win the Green Beret