Remembering A Lake County Hero

Great People I Have Known
Submitted by W.A. “Bill” Milton Jr., Altoona

   Looking at an 80-year-old Eustis Elementary photo taken when we were in fourth or fifth grade, my eyes are immediately drawn to the image of my friend Quincy Hightower Truett.
   This photo includes future lawyers, a judge, two career Florida Highway Patrol officers, a minister, a veterinarian, teachers and professors, business owners, and parents of future outstanding citizens. This photo also includes Quincy Truett (middle row, far right), a true American hero.
   As a child, Quincy was nicknamed “Cotton” because of his nearly white hair. Some classmates teased him about his middle name, Hightower. He seemed older than most of us, and maybe he was, because in the late 1930s and 1940s, many children started school late due to responsibilities at home or on the farm.
   In those days, it was difficult to look at school children and determine whether they were from well-to-do or poor families. Many boys wore bib-front overalls to school, and some went barefoot, but I never remember Quincy doing either. He was easy to get along with, and I never remember him acting out or disobeying the teacher.
   One day, a lady entered our classroom, and confronted the teacher about an alleged insult or sarcasm directed toward Quincy (I was never sure if the teacher was guilty of this, or if some students had made the remarks).
   The lady was Quincy's mother, and she said something I will never forget: “We may be poor, but we are as good as any of you. You have no right to talk to my boy that way, and you had better never do it again.” Today, looking back, I can understand why a mother would advocate for her child, but at the time, I was stunned that a parent would talk that way to a teacher.
   A few years later, my family moved to Orlando. I lost touch with my friends in Lake County, until I returned as an adult. Many many years went by without me knowing what happened to the boy with the white hair, whose mother said “We are as good as any of you.”
   Like most of us, Quincy grew up, married, and had a family. He joined the Navy in 1951, and saw duty in the later stages of the Korean War. He first went to Vietnam in 1965, and returned in 1968.
   In 1969, while serving as part of a 5-boat river patrol flotilla on the Kinh Dong Tien Canal in the Mekong Delta, the entire flotilla came under intense enemy fire. When the boat ahead of Quincy Truett's began to burn, several sailors were forced into the water. Truett ordered his boat toward the burning vessel, intent on rescuing the men. He moved to the bow of his boat, returned fire, and successfully pulled all five men from the water. He was completely visible to the enemy during the entire operation, and suffered mortal wounds after rescuing the final man.
   Chief Petty Officer Quincy Truett is buried in Hickory Grove Cemetery in Green Cove Springs. For his bravery, Quincy Truett was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross (the Navy's second-highest military decoration, awarded for extraordinary heroism in combat with an armed enemy force). The USS Truett, a Knox-class frigate commissioned in 1974 (decommissioned 1994), was named in his honor.
   After all these years, I think Quincy's mother was wrong. He wasn't as good as the rest of us. He was better.