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Patriot Honored At MacDill Memorial

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By VALERIE KALFRIN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 31, 2008

TAMPA - Karen Lynch says her late husband was "a once-in-a-lifetime man on a once-in-a-lifetime mission."

Retired U.S. Army Special Forces Capt. Grayston Lynch fired the first shot during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, one assignment in a career that included fighting at Omaha Beach on D-Day, at the Battle of the Bulge, and in Korea and Laos.

Saturday, roughly 50 friends and relatives gathered at the chapel at MacDill Air Force Base to memorialize Lynch, known affectionately as "Gray." They included former members of the Commandos Mambises, undercover Cuban commandos he trained while working with the Central Intelligence Agency.
Grayston Lynch died Aug. 9 of heart failure. He was 85. In his military and intelligence careers, he was wounded three times and decorated for valor six times.

"It would've been easy for him to brag, but he never did that. He never did," his wife said.

"He was the humblest of men. But he would've put John Wayne to shame."

In honor of Lynch's patriotism, Aileen Rodriguez, representing U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., presented Karen Lynch on Saturday with an American flag that had flown over the U.S. Capitol.

Lynch's first assignment in the Army in 1938 was to the 5th (Horse) Cavalry.

His first assignment with the CIA was as a case officer to the 2506 Assault Brigade and its command ship during the Bay of Pigs invasion, a failed attempt to liberate the Cuban people from communism.

A two-man patrol from the Cuban military spotted Lynch and his crew of five Cuban exiles in their rubber raft on the beach just before midnight on April 16, 1961. Lynch fired, killing both men in the patrol. He later earned the Intelligence Star for volunteering to return to help rescue 41 men from his assault brigade.

Eduardo Zayas-Bazán, 72, of Miami, who landed on the beach at Playa Giron with Lynch, greeted Karen Lynch on Saturday with a warm embrace and a folded Cuban flag.

"We love Gray," he said.

Retired CIA operative Rudolf "Rudy" Enders of Merritt Island told those assembled that Lynch always was disappointed that President Kennedy reduced airstrikes that were supposed to support the crews attempting to take hold of the beachhead.

"Gray felt let down, betrayed, by the very people who had sent him into battle," Enders said. "History demands that we, along with freedom fighters everywhere, pay our respects."

Lynch documented the failed operation in his 1998 book, "Decision for Disaster: Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs," ghostwritten with the help of his wife.

"Together, we set the record straight. We rewrote history on a watershed moment," Karen Lynch said.

A Carrollwood resident, Karen Lynch met her husband of 18 years after she was inspired through her travels in the thoroughbred-breeding business to write an espionage thriller, "The Game of Lies," with a woman intelligence agent as the heroine. A friend who knew of Grayston Lynch suggested she share the manuscript with him and set up an introduction.

Remembering how they met, she smiled. "I write a spy novel, and I marry the spy who loves me."

Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800 or vkalfrin@tampatrib.com.

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