1. William Dawson Waugh was an American soldier and paramilitary operations officer whose career in clandestine operations with both the US Army's Special Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division spanned more than 50 years.
Billy Waugh initially joined the US Army during the Korean War, but following the war he quickly moved into Special Forces, first with 10th Group, and later 5th Group.
Billy Waugh left the Army in 1972 with eight Purple Heart medals and a Silver Star.
Billy Waugh spent the next five years as a letter carrier for the US Postal Service.
Billy Waugh fought both Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters at the Battle of Tora Bora.
Billy Waugh retired from the CIA in 2005 and died in 2023; his cremated remains were scattered in a HALO jump over Raeford Drop Zone, North Carolina.
Billy Waugh was born in Bastrop, Texas, on December 1,1929.
In 1945, upon meeting two local United States Marines who returned from the fighting in World War II, the then 15-year-old Billy Waugh was inspired to enlist in the Marine Corps.
Billy Waugh got as far as Las Cruces, New Mexico, before he was arrested for having no identification and refusing to give his name to a local police officer.
Billy Waugh was later released after securing enough money for a bus ticket back to Bastrop.
Now committed to serving in the military once he finished school, Billy Waugh became an excellent student at Bastrop High School, graduating in 1947 with a 4.0 grade point average.
Billy Waugh enlisted in the United States Army in 1948, completing basic training at Fort Ord, California, in August of that year.
Billy Waugh was accepted into the United States Army Airborne School and became airborne qualified in December 1948.
Shortly after the end of the Korean War, Billy Waugh met two US Army Special Forces members on a train in Germany.
Billy Waugh began training for the Special Forces, and earned the Green Beret in 1954, joining the 10th Special Forces Group in Bad Tolz, West Germany.
Billy Waugh arrived in South Vietnam with his ODA in 1961 and began working alongside Civilian Irregular Defense Groups there and in Laos.
Billy Waugh spent much of 1965 and 1966 recuperating at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC, eventually returning to duty with 5th Special Forces Group in 1966.
Billy Waugh received a Silver Star and a Purple Heart for the battle at Bong Son.
Billy Waugh held this Command Sergeant Major role during the covert unit's transition and name change to Task Force One Advisory Element.
Billy Waugh conducted the first combat High Altitude, Low Opening jump, a parachuting maneuver designed for rapid, undetected insertion into hostile territory.
Billy Waugh led the last combat special reconnaissance parachute insertion by American Army Special Forces HALO parachutists into denied territory which was occupied by communist North Vietnamese Army troops on June 22,1971.
Billy Waugh retired from active military duty at the rank of sergeant major on February 1,1972.
Billy Waugh took part in several important assignments in Khartoum, Sudan during the early 1990s, where he performed surveillance and intelligence gathering on terrorist leaders Carlos the Jackal and Osama bin Laden alongside Cofer Black.
At the age of 71, Billy Waugh participated in Operation Enduring Freedom from October to December 2001 as a member of the CIA's Northern Alliance Liaison Team led by Gary Schroen which went into Afghanistan to work with the Northern Alliance to topple the Taliban regime and Al Qaeda at the Battle of Tora Bora.
In 1985, Billy Waugh was again requested by the CIA for clandestine work.
Billy Waugh earned a master's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with a specialization in criminal justice administration in 1988 from Texas State University, in San Marcos, Texas.