A Warrior's Goodbye: A Heartfelt Sendoff Hosted for Legendary Green Beret and 'National Hero' Billy Waugh

Within the tight-knit communities of Green Berets and CIA covert warriors, Waugh is known as "the Yoda of Special Forces."

The bagpipe strains of "Amazing Grace" still reverberated through the theater at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday when a soldier marched to the front. A Special Forces Command Sergeant Major in dress blues stationed himself near a large photo of legendary Green Beret-CIA paramilitary operative Billy Waugh. The audience braced for the roll call that signaled a final sendoff for the man they had come to celebrate. The man who passed away this April at age 93: Billy Waugh.

Within the tight-knit communities of Green Berets and CIA covert warriors, Waugh is known as "the Yoda of Special Forces." Throughout a 50-year career that began during war in Korea, he was wounded in action eight times, brought down the deadly terrorist Carlos the Jackal and went into Afghanistan at age 72 to link up with the Northern Alliance on behalf of the CIA. His wife, Lynn, remembers another side of him: The man who loved classical music and courted her by raking leaves and pulling (what he thought were) weeds from her garden.

Speakers at the ceremony told story after story of a man who took part in the first HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening) combat jump into enemy territory in Vietnam; who foiled Soviet attempts to steal sensitive missile technology; who spotted Osama bin Laden long before the attacks of 9/11; and who — while infirm at age 93 — tried to escape from the hospital while his gown flapped open behind him.

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"There was no one like Billy," former colleague and close friend Enrique "Ric" Prado tells PEOPLE. "What is there not to love about a national hero?"

Prado — a legend himself in the world of CIA clandestine and counter-terror operations — recalled how in the Philippines decades earlier, Waugh was on point in the wake of the high profile assassination of another iconic Green Beret, Col. Nick Rowe. As a counter-surveillance team leader "with teeth," Waugh would jog around the Americans' compound and memorize the license plates of suspicious vehicles, Prado said.

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While stationed in Khartoum, Waugh spotted the prolific terrorist, IIich Ramirez, known as "Carlos the Jackal." Waugh provided a photograph and information that led to Jackal being arrested and then convicted in France, where he remains in prison.

"Billy was super smart and super without fear," Lynn Waugh tells PEOPLE. "It's different from being brave. I think it's a gene set that he had that he had no fear. He just did it."

"He was fearless and victorious for all of us," echoed four-star Army Gen. Bryan Fenton, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command.

As much as Waugh loved his country, he cherished his wife. On his cell phone, he listed her as "Lynn the Beautiful."

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"We were great, great companions, and we loved each other," she says — even when Billy mistook Lynn's iris plants for weeds, and pulled them from the garden.

The classical music and Frank Sinatra songs that Billy loved were replaced on Tuesday by bagpipe strains. They were a signal to the "community" that a revered and powerful tradition was about to be enacted.

The man in dress blues — Command Sergeant Major Josh King, of 5th Special Forces Group — began to call the roll.

One by one, men in the audience responded to their names.

"Here, Sergeant Major!" came each resounding voice.

Then CSM King called one final name.

"Sergeant Major Waugh!"

There came no answer. King searched the auditorium. He tried again.

"Sergeant Major William Waugh!"

Again, no answer. King tried for a third time.

"Sergeant Major William Dawson Waugh!"

After a moment's extended silence, there came the three volleys of a 21-gun salute, followed by a bugler playing Taps.

Then there came Billy Waugh's favorite song, one that he played every day while at home. Throughout the auditorium, men quietly mouthed the words to "The Ballad of the Green Berets."

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