SOA Watch activist and Medal of Honor recipient Charlie Liteky dies at age 85

Charlie Liteky, an original member of School of the Americas Watch and Medal of Honor recipient, died Jan. 20 at a hospital in San Francisco. He was 85.

Although he served in Vietnam as a chaplain and was awarded the nation’s highest military honor, he was remembered by a Columbus friend for supporting the SOA Watch and giving the fledgling group credibility. The protesters called for closing the School of the Americas which operated at Fort Benning from 1984 to December 2000. The Washington-based group continues a scaled back November vigil outside the post to close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the institute’s new name after it opened in January 2001. The institute provides training for civilian, military and law enforcement students from nations throughout the Western Hemisphere.

“What made his voice so credible in the peace movement was his two tours in Vietnam,” said Roy Bourgeois, founder of the group and Vietnam veteran who recalled how Liteky was featured in a newspaper article. “They were branding us like a bunch of hippies and outside agitators coming into town. They did an article on Charlie, and people never forgot the young soldiers would come to meet Charlie when we were fasting for 35 days at the main gate, our very first action for the SOA Watch.”

Liteky’s support for SOA Watch came 23 years after his actions in Bien Hoa province in South Vietnam. His company came under intense fire on Dec. 6, 1967. Wounds to his neck and foot didn’t stop Liteky from carrying more than 20 soldiers to the landing zone to be evacuated during the battle.

For his actions, Liteky was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1968. About 18 years later, Liteky left the medal under the name Angelo J. Liteky at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington in protest of U.S. policies in Nicaragua.

Bourgeois and Liteky joined forces in 1990, a year after Salvadoran soldiers killed six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her 16-year-old daughter during the Salvadoran Civil War. The massacre spurred the founding of SOA Watch, a human rights and advocacy group. It has led to annual protests over the last 26 years.

“It was 10 of us when we came here and we fasted in 1990,” Bourgeois said Thursday. The fast lasted 35 days before the first protest at the gates of Fort Benning.

“He had a lot of credibility being in the military and returning the Medal of Honor,” Bourgeois said. “He gained a lot of respect as a protester of the SOA. His voice was not like your regular critic.”

Liteky volunteered to serve in Vietnam but had the same dedication when he joined the peace movement, Bourgeois said.

“He believed in the cause and he went,” he said. “And he saved all these guys on the battlefield, but something happened. He changed and became a peacemaker with the same kind of commitment. He gave a hundred percent.”

Bourgeois said he plans to visit San Francisco in a couple of weeks when a memorial is held for his longtime friend, Liteky.

This story was originally published February 2, 2017 at 7:07 PM with the headline "SOA Watch activist and Medal of Honor recipient Charlie Liteky dies at age 85."