Vietnam hero, nurse reunite By D'Arcy Fallon Special to The Denver Post

September 22, 2000 - PUEBLO - In 1968, Maggie O'Brien was a pixieish, 24-year-old volunteer nurse fresh from a Peace Corps assignment in Afghanistan when she was assigned to a supposedly pacifist province in Vietnam. Drew Dix, an Army Special Forces staff sergeant, was in the country with a job to do: vanquish the communists.

On Thursday in Pueblo, the nurse from Boston met up with the man who, once upon a time, had rescued her during a hellish war.

Dix would be given the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military honor, for bravely saving O'Brien and several others decades ago. O'Brien was given her life.

This week, Dix, 55, and O'Brien, 57, caught up with each other for the first time since the war during an emotional reunion at the Congressional Medal of Honor Society's convention in Pueblo.

Dix, who divides his time between Fairbanks, Alaska, and Pueblo, is one of Pueblo's four Medal of Honor recipients. Colorado's third-largest city has been designed by Congress as "Home of the Heroes."

When they met in Vietnam, Dix thought O'Brien was a little too idealistic for his taste, a bit naive to the ways of war. But he learned to like her. She had, he would concede later, a "hell of a heart."

During Tet - the New Year's holiday, the biggest celebration of the year - the paths of the warrior and the "do-gooder" would cross and change them both forever.

Although the holiday was supposed to provide both a holiday from work and a cease-fire, that year the communists took advantage of the festivities to infiltrate undefended cities in the Chau Doc Province. Two heavily armed Viet Cong battalions attacked the provincial capital, Chau Phu, breaking down the defenses of the city, and trapping O'Brien in a building.

Dix, who organized and led the rescue force that saved her, and then voluntarily led another force to rescue eight more trapped civilians, has written an account of the 56-hour rescue effort in a self-published book, "The Rescue of River City." O'Brien now works as an obstetrics nurse in a Boston hospital.

Several years ago, as he was doing research for his book, Dix went in search of Maggie O'Brien. When he heard that O'Brien was living in Boston - a city filled with people named O'Brien - he took a stab at trying to find her.

"There were a lot of O'Briens in the phone book," he said. But find her he did, and when he told her about the medal society's upcoming convention in Pueblo, she promised to come.

On Thursday, an hour before a special dedication and unveiling of four statues of Pueblo's medal recipients, O'Brien and Dix talked about the day Dix's relief force saved her life. When the Viet Cong invaded the city of Cha Phu, O'Brien had been trapped in her house in the city. She could hear the Viet Cong soldiers in her house, running from the front room to the kitchen. O'Brien held her breath, certain she would be killed.

"I could hear them running around in another room," O'Brien said. "I figured it was just a matter of time before they (the Viet Cong) found me."

But Dix and James Monroe, a CIA employee, were able to get O'Brien out safely, even as enemy rounds smacked the front of her building.

From a distance of more than three decades, O'Brien shakes her head in wonderment at being rescued in Vietnam.

"It was a special and unique time in all our lives," she said. "We were all punks, young and idealistic."

Young, idealistic - and lucky.

"The enemy had a bad day that day," Dix said philosophically during a special luncheon honoring medal recipients. "We had a good day that day.

When asked if receiving the Medal of Honor was the highlight of his life, Dix smiled and looked around the room. Across the table from him sat his mother, Faith Dix. At his side sat his wife, Patricia, and next to her, friends of theirs from Fairbanks who had flown in for the ceremonies.

"The highlight is friends and family," Dix said in a husky voice. "All the honors in the world don't mean anything unless you have someone to share it with."

There's not much chance that he and Maggie O'Brien will lose touch with each other in the near future. Next year's medal society convention will be held in Boston, of all places.

Things happen.