by Daniel Connolly

Hot Springs Village, Arkansas (AP)

Lee Moore says when he was in combat in Vietnam, he wallowed in mud to keep the enemy from smelling him.

“Everybody thought I was crazy because I would do that,” said Moore, a member of the Kituwah Tribe who also uses the name Standing Bear.

The mud wasn’t the only thing that set Moore apart – he earned the Silver Star for bravery, one of the highest honors the military gives. Moore, a Hot Springs resident, said a general pinned it on him in the 1960s.

But his receipt of the medal wasn’t recorded in Moore’s military records – neither was the Purple Heart award that would give the 59-year-old higher priority for veterans health benefits.

Because a local veterans group took an interest in him, Moore received the awards in a ceremony during June.

Tall with graying long black hair, Moore stood out in the country club in a group of mostly elderly veterans and their wives. He wore a large black hat decorated with eagle feathers and coin-shaped medallions, but removed it by the time Maj. Gen. Ron Chastain pinned the medals on his suit jacket next to his two necklaces of beads and an animal’s claw.

He went to the podium and said it requires some bravery to do what he did.

“But when you’re in a position of survival you have no other choice. So I don’t believe that’s particularly warranting of an award,” he said.

In an interview before the ceremony, Moore said he was embarrassed by the attention.

“It’s just a lot of memories that I have tried to not let become a part of my life,” he said.

Born in California, Moore was drafted into the Army in the 1960s. He was wounded and recovered before he was assigned to a radio communications center on the top of a mountain known as Nui Ba Den.

Moore said he was expecting an attack for days and could barely sleep at night. He was about to go to bed one night in May 1968 when he heard mortar rounds being fired.

He fought his way to the top of the mountain, where he found a grenade launcher and two bags of grenades, he said, and made his way alone to the inside of a circle of rocks, his feet bare.

From there, he could see the command post that the North Vietnamese had established. He pointed the launcher into the sky and let the grenades arc high and down onto the command post. He continued to fire, his position hidden because of the rock formation, aiming next at the mortar positions.

The following days and nights were nightmarish. Enemy snipers were on the mountain, he said, and he was still alone, without food and water. He described finding other grenades by carefully removing them from under the bodies of dead Americans, where they had been placed as booby traps, and replacing the firing pins. After several nights, he gave up hope, he said.

“Pretty soon your fear just turns numb,” he said. “And I decided that if I am going to die, then I am going to die in the best way that I can. And so I went to where I was at, I just stood up and I just started screaming, ‘If you want me, here I am.”’

But no one fired, and soon American reinforcements arrived by helicopter and started evacuating the men. Moore said he wouldn’t go.

“But I can’t tell you why, even to this day why I refused to leave,” he said. “I felt like I was still protecting the mountain, I don’t know.”

Other Americans arrived to re-establish the communications systems, and Moore stayed for months. He said he stood out because of his eccentric behavior – he refused to wear a uniform, he let his hair grow long, and he wore only black shorts and sandals.

“They called me the old man of the mountain,” he said. “They stayed away from me because I had, I think in my own mind, I had gone off the deep end.”

Eventually, other soldiers tricked him into leaving the mountain for a nearby base by helicopter, he said. He was sent back to the United States.

Back home, he had trouble adjusting.

“I did go through three marriages, one right after the other,” he said. “I am so very grateful to my wife Rebecca of over 25 years right now because she somehow was able to overcome my way of being. I was crazy, you know? I never did learn how to sleep during the night. Haven’t to this day.”

He worked as a concert producer for a while and is now disabled. He does volunteer work, including speaking to children and civic groups about American Indians. He met Surry Shaffer, an 81-year-old World War II vet, while speaking at a Lions Club event, and Shaffer took an interest in him.

Shaffer brought Moore to the attention of a local group of Purple Heart recipients. He said the group believes Moore is eligible for a total of four Purple Hearts for his war wounds and for two Bronze Star awards for bravery.