It has taken 42 years, but Joe Silva finally has his star for this holiday season.
He earned it Oct. 3, 1968, as a member of an armored cavalry division serving in Vietnam. The unit came under heavy attack in what no doubt ranks as the worst night in Silva’s life. From the roar and the chaos rose Silva’s star — the U.S. military’s Bronze Star awarded for heroic or meritorious service.
“I just remember doing a lot of jumping and running and diving for cover,” Silva said. “It went from about 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. There was no letup. I did what I had to do. Two of us got the Bronze Star that night.”
Today, Silva’s Bronze Star hangs on a wall along with an American flag in his home in Fruita. The medal didn’t get there through routine circumstances. Its path to the Silva home on the Western Slope came through a stunning story of denial, remembrance and embracing.
Silva grew up in Fruita and became one of the town’s top high school athletes. He won state wrestling championships at 103 pounds in 1963, 112 pounds in 1964 and 120 pounds in 1965.
He quarterbacked Fruita’s 1965 team to the Class AA state championship game, but the Wildcats lost to Lafayette. He wrestled for coach Jack Pollock and played football for coach Bill Noxon.
Legendary wrestling coach John Hancock recruited him to come across the mountains and attend Colorado State College in Greeley. Silva might have been pressing to keep up with the pace his life had become.
“Coming to the state wrestling tournament in Denver was pretty adventurous for us,” Silva said. “I was kind of a country bumpkin. My senior year, the wrestling tournament moved into downtown Denver (the Auditorium Arena). I hadn’t seen an arena that big before in my life.”
It was off to Greeley that fall in a Greyhound bus and some life- changing experiences.
“I didn’t focus, and I let my grades slip,” Silva said. “I flunked out and was drafted. I didn’t know where Vietnam was when I learned I was going there.”
He would soon encounter an adventure far more dangerous than coming to Denver. Once it was blocked from his memory, but Silva can talk about it today.
“That night wasn’t pretty, and it was scary,” Silva said. “It was like being in a horrendous thunderstorm. I remember being so grateful in the morning when the fighting stopped. Even today, my knees buckle sometimes when I’m in a lightning and thunderstorm.”
His home in Vietnam was a hole in the ground covered by metal sheets from a nearby airfield and fortified with sandbags.
“Everything was underground,” Silva said. “It was the safest place to be.”
Silva came home disenchanted and wanting to forget the details of those horrendous days in Vietnam. There were no welcome home parades. He wasn’t a hero except to family, especially his mother, Ernestine Silva. He returned to Colorado State College, earned a degree and was a member of the Fruita Junior High School faculty for 29 years before retiring in 2001.
As he approached retirement, Silva decided to open a duffle bag that had not been touched in some 30 years. Inside, he found papers that documented he had been awarded the Bronze Star.
He stopped to think of what he had endured: the war, and the loss of brothers Amaedo and Archie, both state wrestling champions, in an auto accident in 1971.
“I think my experiences in sports helped me get through all that,” Silva said.
He embraced the idea of having a medal and went through the necessary channels to have the orders carried out. The first display of the medal was on the license plates of his car. The Bronze Star officially was presented to him Feb. 26, 2010.
Silva has his star this holiday season.
“I’ve learned that the Army duty was a good thing for me,” Silva said. “It taught me discipline and to put focus on my life. I’ve become proud of being a veteran.”
Moss: Silva bio
Born: Oct. 12, 1946, in El Rito, N.M.
High school: Fruita
College: Colorado State College (now Northern Colorado)
Family: Wife Linda, daughters Stephanie and Jennifer
Ambition: Gathering funds to complete a monument to all veterans in Fruita’s Memorial Park
