War Story 15 My Life Story: Decisions, Lessons, Regrets
Sitting alone on the balcony overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, a thunderstorm provided a magical light show with deafening bursts of thunder from black skies.
My mind drifted back over a lifetime.
Life was simpler in the 50s, even if not rich in material things. In a simple Cape Cod home with a black & white TV, I remember watching “Victory at Sea,” “Desert Fox,” and “My Three Sons”. My Dad was in the Navy during WW II and saw much action against the Germans in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. We sat for hours together watching every “Victory at Sea” segment and loved the musical theme.
But for whatever reason, I was more interested in the Army. I remember the movies “Bataan” and “The Alamo” and “Pork Chop Hill,” heck, anything with John Wayne in it. One favorite gift at Christmas was a replica of a “ginormous” .50 Cal Machine Gun, complete with a metal tripod and lighted flames dancing back and forth to the noise as I pulled the trigger. It took eight D-size batteries. It was amazing.
Come spring; I dug a foxhole in a neighboring yard when they were building a house. I set up my .50 Cal machine gun on the edge and fired away. I promptly got hit in the face with a dirt bomb from a kid who did not realize the dirt bomb had a rock inside it. Bleeding profusely, I ran to the house, where my Mom, who was a nurse at Mass General, just frowned and patched me up. I then returned to my foxhole, ever more cautious but fearless about seeing blood at age eight.
High school was boring and more about friends I met and great weekends driving my Dad’s Ford station wagon to faraway places, as much as 15 miles from home. All my friends scattered to jobs, vo-tech schools, or colleges at graduation.
Having no ambition, my Mom kicked my butt, and contrary to a school counselor’s admonitions, she made it all possible for me to go to college. My Dad only got a 7th-grade education in Mississippi during the Great Depression. So, he left it to Mom to crack the whip on schooling. He would crack the belt when I created a problem otherwise.
Things sure changed at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. I got into their respected business school and worked a night/weekend job making subs in a food truck. I was broke and had to pay for everything. It was also a time when your grade average must be at least a 2.0, or you would be drafted immediately for Vietnam.
I decided to enlist in the Army, but I wanted to be an officer. To do that, I needed a college degree to get into OCS. It was not easy. It was a time of protest, demonstrations, campus chaos, and even suicides. With most students being anti-war and ultra-liberal, I was the contrarian. I wanted only to be a small unit leader to safeguard American lives. During ’67 and ’68, the weekly death toll climbed to as high as 500 KIA each week for months. Walter Cronkite delivered the news with footage that made me angry.
So, right after graduation, I joined the Army in May of ’68, at the height of the war and the Tet Offensive. During Fort Polk, LA training, a sergeant came to the barracks and yelled my name. “Follow me,” he said, “the Captain wants to see you.” All the soldiers stared and wondered what I had done wrong. I saluted when I marched into his office. At that time, a Captain was the highest rank I had met. He pointed to the phone and said, “Your father is on the line.” I couldn’t believe it. I recognized his voice immediately. He was apologetic that my brother-in-law avoided orders for Vietnam after his Dad called on some politicians. I reminded him I had no problem. I will go. I saluted the Captain, who was expressionless as I left.
In my first week of college, I fell in love at first sight with a girl who truly captured my heart. She was gorgeous, and I knew she was the one for me. But I needed to stall. I went to basic and advanced infantry training schools and then to paratrooper jump school, and by December, she was making me nervous, so I came home after getting my jump wings and married her at Christmas time, ’68. I took her to Fort Benning while I went through Officer Candidate School. She lived in cheap apartments and trailer parks. I only saw her for one hour at Church on Sundays for the first 18 weeks of OCS. After graduating, she was soon pregnant, and we were overjoyed. However, I had to leave for Jungle School in the Panama Canal Zone for jungle training before going to Vietnam. Leaving behind a 3-month-old son and loyal wife, I went to fight a nasty war halfway around the globe.
I got exactly what I asked for – three times; I volunteered to go to Vietnam even when offered to go to South Korea or Germany. After two years of constant training, I was ready mentally and physically. If I didn’t go to Vietnam, what would be the purpose? Now would be the time of reckoning.
It was the luck of the Army draw that I got the assignment in I Corps, the northernmost sector next to North Vietnam and Laos, with the Americal Division. Again, I had to tolerate more “in-country” training on VC/NVA tactics, weapons, etc.
Finally, I got my chance and caught a Huey out to Hill 251 west of Chu Lai. The CO told me to join the patrol in the morning with the 3rd Platoon of Bravo Company with the most experienced Lieutenant in the Company. I would just have to look, learn, and listen. Well, two hours or so after leaving the company perimeter and conducting the patrol across rice paddies, the world blew up. The radio man directly in front of me steps on a mine, sending the explosion forward to cut into the back of the Lieutenant. (53 years later, I would learn I had shrapnel that sliced into me and embedded itself in my lower leg bone. I did not notice it – I had other things to focus on.)
After a flurry of activity, a medic working on the two seriously wounded soldiers, a Medivac Huey comes, picks them up in a hurry, and leaves. Then, the incredible moment came on my first patrol in-country.
A red-haired teenage soldier looked at me with total apprehension, “OK, LT, what do we do now?
Yep, I was now in charge. Twenty-three young souls would depend on me - my decisions, actions, and skills.
And so it went. I thought about my chances of returning home in a whole year. I concluded I would never come back alive. So, I gave up that thought and focused day-to-day on what needed to happen, what I could anticipate, and how to keep us all alive.
The experiences are embedded in my 77-year-old brain. The smell of villages, the leeches, the disgusting rice paddy waters, the jungle at night, the “jungle rot” all over my body. Then there are the smells of village cooking smoke, straw huts, water buffaloes, and the poor villagers themselves. Above all, you remember the gunfire, explosions, and the smell of death.
Making contact with the enemy is an adrenalin rush. Immediately, the platoon goes into hyperdrive. Soldiers dropping down or rushing forward, others shooting, enemy fire with bullets passing inches away from you, yelling, screaming, it is all surreal.
Survival comes if you plan, prepare, and anticipate moves to stay in the game. And a game it was – cat and mouse: find, fix, focus, kill, or get killed. I did get wounded and sent to a hospital this time. On another occasion, it would be the only time the enemy turned the tables and ambushed us while patrolling on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Private Larry Gatliff was 10 feet in front of me when he took a bullet to the head.
Month after month, it was about combat assaults in helicopters, patrolling to find the enemy, ambushes, re-supply, new locations, and at all times, knowing where you were on a map at all times using a lensatic compass. During the ‘60s and ‘70s, no cell phones, GPS devices, satellite links, or binoculars existed.
It was a time of body counts. That was the measure of our success. After five months, I stopped counting after I personally witnessed 60 enemies we killed, with three of my team killed. But the greatest loss was on LZ Judy, which would change the lopsided score. We were evacuating an old special forces base at Kham Duc near Laos after several months of small unit battles, and the last two Chinooks loaded up to relocate us to LZ Judy on a mountaintop.
My platoon was the first to leave and land on a narrow ridgeline between two mountains. The sides were steep, and the landing would make anyone nervous. Fortunately, it went well enough, and we scrambled up the side to reach the foxholes we would occupy. I breathed easier as I consider Chinooks to be flying coffins.
As we dropped our packs, immediately right behind ours was the last Chinook approaching the landing only a hundred yards away when machine gun fire blasted from the opposite side, hitting the helicopter point blank, carrying 31 souls. Watching the huge helicopter as it stumbled and fell backward and slowly crashed down the side of the mountain, exploding in flames, was horrific. Only one person survived. For the fourth time, I avoided certain death by inches or minutes.
Not long after, I would get promoted to Headquarters and Headquarters Company Commandant for the Second Battalion on a forward firebase called Hawk Hill. It would be relatively uneventful, with occasional rockets landing in the interior of the firebase. I would be in charge of perimeter safety and support operations.
Returning from Vietnam, I was immediately offered a promotion to Captain, but that would mean another tour of duty in Vietnam. I said no, as my wife and child were more important, and we were broke. I needed to make some money.
A recruiter in Boston told me to interview at Xerox Corp. They needed salespeople. During the interview, he asked me if I had any “call reluctance.” Having no idea what he meant, he clarified it by saying some people are reluctant to be alone, visit buildings and offices, and knock on the door to sell the Company’s products. Some will freeze up and can’t do it.
I responded, “Does the guy on the other side of the door have a gun?”
He said, “…of course not”. He laughed. He also never forgot that response.
I had no fear and had a successful 12 career with Xerox. Then, I became a VP of Sales for a local company, and so it went into my new world of technology. The average VP Sales & Marketing tenure would be 3-4 years due to a lack of funding, bankruptcy, mergers, and downsizing over the next 45 years. I was managing sales, marketing, and servicing products and system solutions, closing deals, and, towards the end, teaching technology to anyone who would listen from business groups in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Europe. I even lectured to hundreds of NASA scientists at Moffett Field Naval Air Station.
It was a time when I learned that discipline, persistence, and motivation were critical to personal success. “Doing the things other people don’t like to do” separates the average performers from the overachievers. Having a purpose will help keep you on course. My Dad always reminded me that after you make a decision, “stay the course” unless something radically forces changes.
But in the end, it was about making money, supporting the family, and getting the kids into college. Once that phase of my life was complete, it was time to save every dime for retirement. As such, it was not so defining a time, even as I had some spectacular successes. It would never live up to the fear, excitement, teamwork, adventure, learning, challenges, and personal development of those four years in the U.S. Army.
As I converse with Veterans in their retirement years, it is common to see the focus on their military experience rather than their careers. For sure, they were defining times in their lives. Some would regret it if they came back wounded mentally or physically or affected by Agent Orange (AO). For the most part, I believe if you receive the proper training, you will be mentally prepared to manage the challenges. But it is not always the case. Everyone is different.
Everyone has a story. Mine is not so special as so many others endured true hardship, poverty, pain, and paralysis whether in the military or not. Life is not easy, and adversity will make or break you if you let it. You must have faith and hope that you can always overcome. It does take continuous persistence, commitment, and a willingness to learn all your life.
In the end, I also know I made mistakes. You simply cannot go through life without making mistakes. I admitted them to myself and tried hard to adjust and improve. The motto of the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Infantry of the 196th Infantry Brigade of the Americal Division is: “Je ne regrette rien!” (I regret nothing.)
So be it.
The thunderstorm is now over. The sun is coming out, but soon, it will be sunset.
Time moves faster than ever.
I am ready.
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