Posted on 08/19/2007 3:24:14 PM PDT by mdittmar
Wounded twice himself during the Vietnam War's Tet Offensive, former Green Beret Henry Cook of Diamondhead recently took command of a 39,000-member national group for veterans injured in combat.
Cook knew he wanted to join the Military Order of the Purple Heart after attending his first meeting, and this month he was elected to be the group's national commander. He's already gone to work. He was vice commander before moving to the top post.
Cook will find himself traveling a large part of next year, in his duties managing the group, which has a more than $11 million annual budget.
"I just can't tell you how satisfying it is," he said. "It is seldom in life that you get a chance that you are in a position to help people, and there is not a more deserving group to help than veterans."
A native of Harahan, La., Cook joined the military in 1953 as a 16-year-old; when the Army found out his age, he was sent home. But he joined again two years later after reaching legal age. He served in Vietnam with the U.S. Army 5th Special Forces Green Berets and the 4th Mobile Guerilla Unit, near the Cambodian border, where he trained Cambodian mercenaries.
Like most members of the MOPH, Cook has an interesting war story. In the 1968 Tet Offensive, the campaign that was the subject of the movie "Full Metal Jacket," Cook earned his first Purple Heart on his 31st birthday when his leg was broken in five places after an explosion rocked his compound during a gunfight.
When he arrived at the mobile Army surgical hospital for treatment, injured soldiers wearing pajamas lined the hospital walls and fired at enemy forces with machine guns. He earned his second Purple Heart when he was shot in another attack at the hospital, as his broken leg was still healing.
Cook, a retired attorney who also served in the Persian Gulf War, is well-known in the local veterans community. He will travel to Washington next month with a contingent of MOPH members who will be there to show force in front of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which members contend is an effort to prevent the monument from being defaced. A large protest is planned to coincide with the delivery of a report on the Iraq war by U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus.
Cook was there in the same capacity during a protest in March, and the veterans and others were known as "The Gathering of Eagles."
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