Active Duty U.S. Army
It is February 1972, I am a Military Intelligence (MI) Branch Officer assigned as the S-2 (Chief Intelligence Staff Officer) for Division Support Command, of the 1st Infantry Division stationed at Fort Riley Kansas. I am excelling in the assignment and the first MI Officer in the Division to be assigned as a Brigade S-2 (ground breaking assignment). The rumor mill has it that the Reduction in Force (RIF) list has arrived and my name is on it. I was filled with a great amount of anxiety about this. It would mean that I would have to start a new work life and I would need to decide what to do in the future for me and my family (wife, son). Depending on the amount of service time they had, they would be financially compensated (I was at the maximum compensation level, $15,000). Officers in the Brigade were being summoned to the Brigade Executive Officers Office in the Brigade Headquarters Building (my office is in the basement of this building) and told that they are to be relieved of active duty. Two lists had arrived. The earlier list were those officers who were not performing their assigned duties well. The second list was composed of those officers that were completing their duties in a very good manner; but, because of the needs of the service, were to be released from active duty. There had been a massive build up of the Armed Forces during the Vietnam War and now that the war was over, large cuts in personnel had to be made. In addition, only twenty percent of those that enter the military make it to retirement. Also, there is an up or out policy for promotion. Either a person is promoted in a prescribed period of time or they are released from active duty. Obliviously, there are less positions available at the higher ranks. Commission officers are expected to have college degrees and I did not have one at that time. Also, I made the mistake of transferring to the Military Intelligence Branch. This Branch is very small and the officers in it predominately possessed college degrees. Also, there were a large number of West Point graduates in this branch in which the U.S. Government had made a major investment in their education and were less likely to be involuntarily released from active duty. Knowing this , it made a lot of sense in my mind for the military to release me from active duty. It was the correct thing to do. But, what should I do then.
The Brigade Executive Officer, a Lieutenant Colonel summoned me to his office for notification of my termination. Of all the officers that I have known, this officer seemed to have the most limited vocabulary. Not an eloquent speaker was he. He struggled with my notification. He gave me the documents and waited for me to read them before continuing. He repeated over and over again that “things are tough out there”. He was referring to the fact that employment conditions are not good outside the service. My conclusion now and at the time is that he did not personally think he could get a job outside of being an Army Officer.
I had entered active duty in 1963 after a year at Seattle University when I saw my life going no where because of funding problems and a lack of a clear direction with what I should do with my life. I had signed up Europe Guaranteed for three years of service. I wanted to be a commissioned officer and in basic training was made a squad leader. Because of high test scores, I received orders to go to Veterinarian School in Chicago (the school was located in a hotel) and then go to Europe to inspect meat. The Company First Sergeant had never seen orders such as these. I volunteered for Infantry Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning Georgia and this caused the orders to be voided. I passed all the oral interviews and was assigned to a holding company at Fort Ord pending an opening at OCS. In preparation to go, I read books of etiquette, believing that this would be important to my success as an Officer. Fort Benning Georgia, Officer Candidate School was an extreme shock for me. OCS was a school primarily designed to eliminate people that would break under extreme pressure. The pressure is synthetic, contrived and real. Every physical, emotional, sleep deprivation technique that could be thought of was administered to us. Of over 230 candidates that started in our company, only 107 of us graduated. I became a commissioned officer at the age of 20. I could not sign loan papers to buy a car because of my age. I then proceeded to Airborne, and Ranger Schools. I was a hardened, lean mean fighting machine or so I thought. I enjoyed the discipline, hard work, focused direction that the military offered. I enjoyed the raw aggression that the military allowed us to exhibit under controlled circumstances. The training I received in the Bayonet obstacle course in Ranger school and other training courses I participated in Ranger School caused me to change to become a “very” aggressive person when I felt I needed to be aggressive. Normal infantry trainees are required to go through the courses two or three times consecutively. Rangers are required to continuously go through the course 14 times without resting. One of the instructors was my OCS classmate named Marschock. Lieutenant Marshock would routinely make me repeat one hill in the course. After he made me repeat one hill four times, I turned on him and chased him off the hill with my bayonet fixed rifle. I did not see him again for the rest of the day. One of the tragedies of Ranger school for me was when I injured my fellow classmate Kallotay in the hand to hand pit. He and I had been in Basic, Advanced Infantry, Airborne and now Ranger School together. During a knife take down exercise, he resisted me when I executed the take down on him (we had an agreement to never resist each other) and I pulled some ligaments in his elbow. I have never seen him since. His father was an officer in the Hungarian Army. Another conflict in Ranger school was with a Major who was going through the training as part of astronaut training. He could not learn the moves in the hand to hand pit and as a result the instructor kept coming over and demonstrating on me and physically beating me up. I warned this officer that if he did not learn quicker that I would resort to hurting him. He did not believe me until I started to kick him in the ribs strongly in the follow up hits. He became a very quick learner. One the of the biggest disappointments of my life is that I did not complete Ranger School. I had two satisfactory patrols as a leader and was well on my way to graduation when in the Mountain stage of this training I was tied to the back of a very strong buddy in a repelling exercise. He could not hold on to the rope and the safety person gave too much slack to the safety rope and we fell 40 feet and landed on my body. I had injuries that cause me to be briefly hospitalized. The Ranger Doctor felt I could continue in the school and the regular doctor at the hospital had put me down as needing a period of recuperation. I went with the hospital doctor. I was experiencing discomfort. I withdrew my voluntary status in this school. I experienced feelings of failure because of not completing this school which motivated me the rest of my life to finish schools that I started.
My first assignment as an Army officer was at Fort Ord California where I had assignments as a Range Officer, Company Officer, and Officer in Charge of the Infiltration and survival Escape and Evasion Courses. The infiltration course was stimulating in the respect that when it functioned, it involved up to five basic training companies crawling under live machine gun fire and between demolition pits going off. We also used flares fired from a mortar. I would give the class to over 1000 assembled trainees at a time. It was a real emotional high. My class demonstration would include a trainee demonstrator going over various obstacles on an example course behind me where I could not see him. I was in a tower coordinating this event when we would go live fire. Looking back on this assignment, it was very dangerous. If a trainee stood up, he would be machined gunned to his death. This training was conducted both during the day and evenings. One evening, we actually had a trainee do this and fortunately the Sergeant gunner saw it and stopped shooting just in time to not kill the trainee. The Sergeant was an emotional wreck afterwards. We were assigned an infrared scope to see at night. The infrared scope never worked, was not repairable and was required for us to conduct the training. I talked my way around this with the Post Operations Officer one evening and he bought my story. We had to complete the training. It was required or the trainees could not graduate. I told him that it magnified so greatly that he was actually looking at the belly button of a trainee moving through the course. The Colonel after gazing intently through the nonfunctioning device for some time said he now was able to see them.
Another high light of my work at Fort Ord was my assignment on the Survival Escape and Evasion Committee. This course is mandatory training for advanced infantry trainees. The Committee taught trainees to survive behind enemy lines with no food or water, evade capture behind enemy lines and how to conduct themselves if they became prisoners of war. The training became very important after the Korean War when our soldiers did not conduct themselves properly as prisoners.
At the time of my assignment to this committee, I was assigned the additional duty of Courts and Boards Officer. I was responsible to process people for Court Martials regarding the documentation and prosecute the cases in Special Court martials. The Army has now changed where they have lawyers assigned to complete this duty. Of the five cases that I tried, the juries found the defendants guilty. Colonel Wallace would call me in and “chew my ass” for some light sentences that were given in particular cases. Based on my recommendations we solved that problem by puting more senior officers on as jurors.
One day I was called in by my Major supervisor and informed that I was to be reassigned to the Survival Escape and Evasion committee along with an older Sergeant named Morris from the Land Navigation Committee. The Survival Escape and Evasion Committee Officer in Charge had lead a mutiny of the soldiers assigned to the committee and I was to evaluate the committee to see if the Sergeants should be court martialed and what direction the committee should go in the future. A mutiny in the Army may be as little as asking to have a meeting with supervisors. I knew Lieutenant Tanaka, the Officer in Charge and like him. His hobby was setting crab nets in Monterey harbor. Sergeant Morris was shaken by the assignment. He was an older person ready for retirement and this was high stress work. Sergeant Morris and I surveyed the committee and came to some conclusions. The committee was composed of exprisoners of war from Korea who had become emotionally attached to the committee and were having trouble complying with Army standards. The Committee had gotten side tracked and started to raise a variety of wild animals in the committee area and confused this with the mission of the training. We decided that the Sergeants should be reassigned back to training companies and to other Army work, the animals should be released and we would start with a new group of Sergeants. We did this. The old committee sergeants did not like this and I was personally threatened. I complained to the respective Company Commanders of these threats.
It was a challenge starting with a new group of Sergeants. Most of them had no training to teach students and we had to train them. Much of the training was to teach them to speak basic English and phrase sentences properly. When we got through administering the training to them (involved many rehearsals) they sounded very good. We also started a survival museum which consisted of example items soldiers could eat in the wild. One of our greatest achievements was the booby trap display. The Army had not developed training for soldiers being sent to Vietnam. We were allowed some variation in what materials we trained the trainees on. I came up with the idea from a copy of Argosy Magazine to make a display of different types of booby traps. We did this. I kept the magazine article with the lesson plan as our source of instruction because the Army’s reference material on the subject was classified confidential, need to know access only. We were not allowed to share it with the trainees as a result. We also raided rabbits and caught rattle snakes and would kill these animals in front of the trainees we were teaching that this is what soldiers might have to do in a survival situation to survive behind enemy lines. Most had not had to kill any animals to feed themselves.
I have two favorite stories regarding the rattle snakes. The first one is when we went to Hunter Ligget Military Reservation to catch the snakes. I had seen a rattle snake round up on television in Oklahoma and saw them cut pieces of hose, pour gasoline down the hoses and then blow the fumes through the hoses into the snake holes. The snakes came out of the holes and were captured. I had my soldiers do this also. Sergeant First Class Fredrickson, our new committee noncommissioned officer in charge, was behind me with a bag full of rattle snakes after a successful hunt when he feigned that he fell and hit my butt with a stick that he was carrying. I thought it was the bag of snakes and jumped and yelled. It was a very funny incident in my life. The other snake story is that we would rotate killing a snake for one company going through the training and the next week we would kill a rabbit. One particular week it was the rattle snakes turn to be killed, cleaned and cooked. We would have the snake wired up so we would not have to chase the snake just before we went on stage with the presentation. I was designated to take the snake out and do the demonstration. The wire was too tight. It took both my hands to loosen the wire and the snake fell out and was falling towards my leg. Out of terror, I grabbed the snake unmercifully and broke its neck and as a result, it died in my hands. The trainees hissed that was a dead snake instead of a live one when I brought it out for the demonstration. The involuntary contractions of the snake’s body when I stripped the snakes skin off made the trainees reconsider their response.
In 1966, the Army decided that it was my turn to go to Vietnam. I was given orders to Fort Bragg, North Carolina (home of the Army’s Special Forces) to study to be an Advisor to the Vietnamese Army (ARVN). The training was very good and I was then sent to Vietnam. Vietnam was a big shock for my system and I was frightened and at the same time, I liked it. I arrived just before Christmas in December 1966. Six of us officers were put up in one room at the top of a tall building. My first big culture shock was when I was relieving myself in the toilet and a maid walks in as if it was “no big deal”. I learned to understand that the culture does not look down on the nude body and the taboos in western culture are not the same as in the East.
I received orders in country to go to the furthest ARVN division in the south, the 3d Battalion, 31st Regiment, 21st ARVN Division based out of Bac Lieu and be assigned as an Assistant Battalion Advisor. No U.S. units operated in the area and it was thought to be pretty much under the control of the Viet Cong. I recognized it as a very dangerous assignment as it would prove to be. The first time I came under fire, I froze. It was in the evening and I was in an advisors compound for the Regimental Senior Advisor. I was going through intensive theoretical training by reviewing the tactics that were being used in our area by the ARVN units. I woke up and heard firing. I was so inexperienced at the time, I did not know what type of firing it was. We were to scramble for the bunker if we came under attack. It was close to midnight when the rounds struck. I ran to the doorway and froze. I felt in my butt a large boot striking me and propelling me to the bunker. I never froze again in my two tours of duty in Vietnam. It is unfortunate that the Captain who taught me that lesson shortly there after was killed in action when trying to get a medal. He lead an attack on a machine gun bunker. His wife received his silver star posthumously.
It was February 7, 1967, and I was told by Captain Shipey, the Battalion Senior Advisor, my supervisor that we were going to take a convoy back to Vi Thanh from Can Tho. We had been on a mission to scrounge sand for our ARVN counterparts to build dependent housing for their soldiers. We had succeeded and were traveling back to our base. I had a premonition that something bad was going to happen. I asked Captain Shipey if we could take alternate transportation back by helicopter or delay our return, he responded by saying “no”. We departed
in a jeep and I sat next to my counterparts wife (very attractive Vietnamese lady). All at once, I felt great concern for my personal safety (feelings of foreboding, pending doom, depressed feelings, etc.). I had been sitting on my flack jacket, I put it on. I took my beret off and replaced it with a steel helmet. I loaded a round of ammunition in the chamber of my weapon and took the safety off. Captain Shipey turned and demanded what was going on with me and then the ambush took place. I was immediately shot in the upper left arm. Though wounded, I responded by firing my weapon. I had no idea how badly I was wounded. I did not think of Mother or any other endearing thought. My sole thought was that I wanted to survive and would do what I had to do to survive. We pulled into a local hamlet and my counter parts wife administered first aid to me. I was going into shock and threw up. I had concealed my money in the top of my helmet and asked to have my helmet returned to me as I was Medivaced by helicopter to a hospital. I had a fake wallet in my pants which the ARVN stole. I had planned ahead and was not victimized in this situation. The helicopter crew knew I was OK when I asked if the time in the helicopter would count for my air medal.
The Doctor at the Helicopter Companies base gave me first aid and a shot of morphine and had me stay in his hospital because he was lonely, or that is what he told me. He treated me by running a swab through my arm five days in a row. I became so infected that I asked to be evacuated to the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). The 3rd Field staff wanted to know who had caused me to be so infected. There was concern that my arm would have to be amputated. I was given such large shots of penicillin that tears would come to my eyes (one large shot per cheek of my butt at a time). This stabilized my arm and then I was sent to Camp Drake Hospital near Tokyo, Japan. I ended up staying two months in the hospitals as a result of this rifle wound to my left upper arm. I was fortunate that no bones were broken. I had a good time in Japan. I was ambulatory and we would party in the evening and recuperate in our hospital bed during the day. I received a letter addressed to Mrs. Gary Bingham while in the hospital (I was not married at the time) regarding the effects of the deceased. It bothered me a lot to get this letter. The Officers on the ward prepared a surprise ceremony because of this letter. They had a dummy soldier dressed in uniform on a litter with very large boots on and sang the funeral march to me as I returned to the ward one day. In the groin area of the soldier was a magazine rolled up to simulate a full erection. It cheered me immediately and I never thought another thought about the letter. I then got a letter from a girl I had been dating who claimed that she was pregnant. I was very depressed about this. One of the soldiers cheered me up regarding this when he showed me a wallet of pictures of approximately four women each with a picture of a child that he had fathered. He assured me that it “was no big deal”. She later wrote me that she had made up the story so I would marry her. Another shock I received in the hospital in Japan was a “Dear John” letter from Roseann the girl I was engaged to. She had gone to Iceland with the federal civil service when I went to Vietnam and she discovered it was too cold there to stay by herself. I did write her a very nice letter and she returned our engagement ring.
In Japan, I was given a choice, stay in the hospital longer, my arm still hurt, go back to Vietnam to finish my tour of duty or be reassigned back to the states. I chose to go back to Vietnam. I figured that I would be immediately sent back to Vietnam if I did not get credit for a complete
year. Back in Vietnam, I was given my choice of assignments since I had been wounded. I chose a remote hamlet to get out of combat for a while. It did not work. I did not want to go back to my old Division because I felt that I could readily die there. I reported to the 5th ARVN Division in Lam Som. A Captain decided that he wanted me as his assistant Battalion Advisor for the 4th Battalion of the 7th ARVN Regiment. This was a famous Battalion because it had surrounded a church when President Diem was taken prisoner in Saigon. Years later I figured out that this Captain had the power to do this because he was the son of an high ranking general. I still had a medical profile on my arm and should not have been immediately deployed to combat. My arm throbbed.
Immediately after I joined the Battalion, we went on continuous field operations, moving and shooting. My captain appeared to be under great emotional stress. He was married and I was not. He was a devout Catholic. When I asked if I could take the Sergeants to the house of Ill repute, he responded that he would allow it and did not like it. I had asked him at the Sergeants request. My Captain appeared to have a deteriorating mental condition. He and I came into open conflict in a battle that we were in with the enemy. I was with the lead elements of the Battalion in a combat formation which was my usual location. I was shot at a lot. I developed the ability to completely relax my body and fall to the ground almost immediately after hearing a shot fired. I would get very dirty; but, I am alive to type these memories. It was a very hot Asian afternoon and we had been maneuvering for a number of hours on the field. We were in an open rice field approaching an L shape dirt berm under tall palms. Then the enemy opened up on us. I estimated a reinforced platoon of enemy shooting at a high rate of fire. These were regular Viet Cong troops. We called it in and were reinforced with Army helicopter gun ships. I placed the gun ships along the L and they made sweeps shooting with machine guns directly on the enemy.
This effectively suppressed the enemies fire on us. While this was taking place, my Captain intervened over the radio and tried to draw the helicopter away to attack a lone sniper who is firing on him in his location in the rear. I intervened over the radio and did not let him take the helicopters. We never discussed this in detail afterwards and I am sure that he would never forgive me for it. I intended to survive in combat.
My last major conflict with my Captain took place in Binh Long Province where we were assigned to maintain the security of an air field. We were assigned along with US troops in this mission. One night we are under attack by enemy mortars and I woke up my Captain and tried to get him to go the bunker with the Sergeants and myself. He proceeded to talk to me in a demeaning manner. He appeared to have an emotional break. The next day, our Regimental Senior Advisor visited us. The Sergeants and I reported my Captain’s behavior and the Captain was immediately taken with the Major out of the field and assigned to a Vietnamese training center assignment. My Captain’s method of getting back at me was to write a performance report where he reported that I handled administrative logistic matters. I may have done a little logistics work; but, my primary job was to coordinate tactical operations in the field (kill the enemy). I complained to the Major and he indicated that it was an acceptable efficiency report and he would not intervene.
Living with the Vietnamese was a learning experience at all times. I enjoyed the friendly attitude
of the Vietnamese soldiers and we worked well together. They knew the environment and being natives, they knew how to exist in it as comfortably as they could. My memories are very strong when I was assigned to the 21 ARVN Division in the Mekong Delta of the difficulty I had walking across monkey bridges. These are tree limbs that have been placed over small streams with hand holds present (at a very low height) to help steady a person crossing them. The Vietnamese scampered across these bridges. On operations, we moved at a fairly fast rate of speed. With my heavy pack, weapon, ammunition, large feet (compared to Vietnamese feet), I struggled, slipped and otherwise had a great amount of difficulty moving across these bridges. Since this area is mostly flooded, we were crossing these small bridges every fifty meters. I would slip, slide and fall off these bridges to the great amusement of the Vietnamese Soldiers. They would point at me and routinely laugh at me as I struggled over these bridges. I tried to improve my performance on them and mostly without success. It seemed they never tired at chuckling at my efforts.
Through out the areas that I operated with the Vietnamese Units, we were constantly walking by land mines. I could not see them. The Vietnamese would try and show me and teach me to see them. I would be very close to where they would point out a trip wire and still not see the wire. The Vietnamese would give up in desperation and tell me to step in the very foot steps that they stepped in to protect me and themselves from me setting off one of these land mines. This also resulted in some amusing moments with me taking small steps while marching to insure that I stepped where they stepped.
The Vietnamese, unlike the US Army at the time, allow homosexuals into their military. I will never forget when I was with the 5th ARVN Division, near Lam Som and they assigned us to a
remote area near the Saigon River to build an outpost for the local militia, Regional Forces/Popular Forces (RF/PF). I am sure we also served the purpose of disrupting enemy operations in the area. The area was very unsanitary with dead bodies floating down the river on occasion. It was very important to stay clean in this type of situation to avoid diseases. The advisors bathed each day in one area that had a stream running through it. We had a fan club of homosexuals that would routinely watch us. One day, as I walked out of the water, a Vietnamese Soldier reached into my wet shorts and grabbed me. I was very upset about it and told the Vietnamese Battalion Commander that I did not want to be near that person in the future. I never did see the soldier again. Also, the entire Battalion (or it seemed like the entire Battalion) would go to the toilet in one area. The pile that we defecated on was alive with maggots, moving constantly feeding on the feces. My worst fear was slipping and falling into this pile while I was using the toilet. In this same area, I became severely sick with dengue fever and had to be Medivaced for treatment. I would spit up and also had severe diarrhea. The diarrhea was the worst I have experienced. I would wake up in the middle of the night vomiting and experiencing diarrhea. In a field situation, with no toilet, no toilet paper, it was a terrible experience, to say the least (very messy).
The Battalion Commander had an unusual way of disciplining soldiers who would be absent without leave (AWOL). One day I witnessed him with a recently returned cook who had been AWOL. The Battalion Commander would, using a rifle, shoot the rifle next to the soldiers head, all the time saying “Dew Mami” which is Vietnamese for the word “mother fucker”. I was
shocked and starred at the spectacle in disbelief. I can still see the spectacle in my mind.
The Vietnamese would test my tolerance of new foods. Rather then starve, I would eat anything they presented to me. Mostly, I enjoyed eating the food they gave me. I still can remember the bread that we were served. At the bottom of the bread, which was fresh from the bakers, would be insects baked into the bread itself. The insects obviously were on the bottom side of the dough while being baked. On special occasions, the Vietnamese would eat special delicacies and watch my face closely knowing that they were giving me something that Americans did not consider delicacies. I would sample blood soup with nuts in it, blood wine, and suck on fermented duck eggs. I declined to make a meal of these delicacies.
In July 1967, I was promoted to Captain. The Colonel who promoted me pinned on my bars and then handed me an imaginary sack of brains. The Colonel told me that I was now expected to “think” on my own. I used this same statement many times when promoting many Captains over the years as a Reserve Battalion Executive Officer and as a Reserve Battalion Commander. I was twenty three (23) years old. The Army did not want to give me my own Battalion to advise because of my age. They wanted me to go to the field with another Captain, new to the country, to assist him. I refused saying that if you promoted me to Captain, I expect to be assigned to a Captain’s position. This resulted in my assignment as one of two Army Officers to be initially assigned to work for retired Army Lieutenant Colonel John Vann in Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) organization. This was the leading organization that was to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese back from the enemy because of our good deeds for them (pacification). It did not work because the enemies use of force was stronger then our good deeds. The highlight of this assignment was when I visited a hamlet with some senior Vietnamese Officers and discovered that the Army District Advisor was at war with his Vietnamese counterpart. Because of corruption on the Vietnamese part, and the Advisor suspected that he could be the victim of violence by the Vietnamese. I briefed my supervisor about this (Mr. Nunn, Foreign Service Officer) and was told to finish my complete written report before he would brief Mr. Vann. I advised him to tell Mr. Vann ahead of time. A fire fight did develop between the two in the compound they lived in and Mr. Vann took my hand written report and went to the area. I knew that the Vietnamese were capable of violence against us when a very obnoxious battalion advisor crawled in bed one night and had a cobra crawl up into his underwear. This Captain had to be medivaced for shock.
I was delighted with the assignment mainly because I was out of combat (a personal high risk activity). I also heard about a branch of the Army that was looking for recruits and appeared to be a way to keep me out of direct combat. It also promised to improve my formal education. I was well aware that after the war that I was vulnerable to lose my job with the Army because of my formal education (lack of) no matter how good a job I did. I submitted my application for branch transfer from the Infantry to the Military Intelligence Branch with a speciality in Counter Intelligence (spy catcher, internal security specialist).
I received my orders out of Vietnam to Fort Dix, New Jersey to be assigned as a Basic Training Company Commander awaiting my possible transfer to the Military Intelligence Branch.
Returning to the States was a shock for me. The antiwar efforts were strong in 1967 and I was considered a “baby killer” and not a hero for our country. From going to living like an animal in Vietnam to the US affected me emotionally. I went to a private physician and was prescribed some medication to help me control my emotions. I took it briefly and stopped when I did something to bring back the feelings of risk that I had in Vietnam. I drove a Triumph sports car in the winter through the snow from Washington State to New Jersey. Experiencing danger had a calming effect on me and caused me to not feel the need to take medication again. I have never
since attempted or taken any medication to help me control my emotions.
End of Active Duty
I arrived at Fort Dix, New Jersey January 1978 and was given a command of a Basic Training Company. Our Brigade Commander was Colonel Lockhart. We had a Major Jenkins as a Battalion Commander. My company was short of senior Sergeants. I had one Sergeant First Class and he got orders to go to Vietnam leaving me with a Staff Sergeant with less then six years of service in the Army as my senior field sergeant. This significantly negatively effected my ability to manage my company. A Captain in our Battalion who graduated from West Point had over five Sergeant First Class ranking sergeants assigned to his unit. The West Pointers company always performed better then the rest of the Battalions companies mainly because they had more experienced leaders. I went to the Battalion Commander and he declined to redistribute the Sergeants in the Battalion to make it fairer. I learned first hand about prejudice in favor of West Point graduates in the Army based on this experience. My company did do very well in the Marching area and we were selected by the Battalion to represent the Battalion in a brigade parade. I lead the my unit and gave the commands. This was one of my strong areas and I could train in Company mass drill. This can be very demanding marching large numbers of troops.
I learned a valuable lesson one day. I was very concerned that trainees did not dodge their duties and had a number of trainees go on a forced march that I lead to the hand grenade range. A Medical doctor called me and yelled at me profusely for marching one trainee who had a medical condition that I had worsened. I apologized profusely and it was a life long lesson.
At that time, my company was in competition for our trainees achieving high test scores with other companies. Battalions were in competition with other Battalions and the Brigade was in competition with other Brigades. The Post was in competition with other posts. As company commanders, we were encouraged to cheat on the test scores so we all looked good. I refused to cheat. A fellow Captain Michael Merrick (still swap Christmases cards with) (born in Dublin Ireland, raised in his Fathers bar) prepared a study on the cheating and presented it to Colonel Lockhart. At the conclusion of the presentation, Colonel Lockhart pulled a blank rifle qualification card that a range Officer In Charge has signed for a Captain Company Commander and the Colonel was very proud of. The company commander was free to record any score he wanted to on the blank card. My performance report suffered because of my refusal to do such unethical acts and my shortage of sergeants prevented my unit from excelling. Fortunately, my transfer was approved to go to Military Intelligence Advance Course. This transfer included that I was to go to “Intelligence Research” Course which is a cover name to teach me how to be a counterintelligence agent and then to Military Intelligence Advance Course. Advance Course is a middle manager course for commissioned officers provided by the Army. I had decided that I can not handle the emotional, physical needs of my life as a single person any longer. Towards the end of my second tour of Vietnam, I was corresponding with six women from the Seattle area. I dated all six when I returned. I liked Linda the best and proposed to her and sent a check for her to fly out and marry me in New Jersey. She accepted and we have been married ever since. I arranged the wedding (post church, wedding license, flowers, pictures, best man and wedding reception). I also obtained an apartment and bought furniture for it. It all worked out. I loved Linda a lot and still do.
In 1998, we reported to Baltimore, Maryland where I was to attend Military Intelligence courses at Fort Holibird, Maryland. I worked hard in the training. The training was highly technical and almost every agency in the federal government made presentations to us in Advance Course. It was impressive and highly educational. The detail some times became overwhelming. I will never forget when we made a field trip to the Topographical Command and watched some technicians making relief maps. A technician was giving a very detailed presentation of what tools were used for each cut and I had to leave the room. I was close to losing control of myself and laughing uncontrollable that I would ever care what tool they used for any particular cut to prepare these maps. We went to the Presidents command bunker under a mountain on another field trip. Our close proximity to Washington D.C. made it easy for us to have these educational activities. One of the highlights of the course was when one of our class mates died and he was buried at Arlington Cemetery. A rider less horse was used with boots in the stirrups. We had a great lunch in the club. The Captain who had died and I played golf together on occasion and he had a terrible temper on the course. In fact he died in the midst of a temper tantrum on the course. This has served as a good lesson for me for future life.
We left Fort Holibird and went to Vietnamese Language school at Fort Bliss Texas in 1979 on my way back for another year in Vietnam. My assignment was to work with the Vietnamese again in the area of counterintelligence and I was excited about it. I knew that this had the potential to be a very dangerous job. El Paso was beautiful and we enjoyed the location very much. I worked hard at the rote memory requirements.
I was back in Vietnam in January 1970. I illegally smuggled two revolvers with me. On my previous tour of duty, on many occasions, I felt a need to have a revolver and did not have one. I taped the revolvers to my body just before the plan landed in Saigon (not Ho Chi Minh City). I started orientation and was immediately pulled out and was standing before a Colonel who asked me to stand up and talk to him a while. He was measuring my presentation skills and analytical ability. He told me I was hired. I had no idea what I was hired for and what it involved.
I was hired into one of the most demanding jobs, analytically and time wise that I have ever experienced my life. I was assigned as an intelligence analyst in the Current Intelligence and Evaluation Division of J-2, Military Assistance Command Vietnam. This caused me to increase the prescription to my glasses and further caused a deterioration to my general physical condition. It involved working seven days a week, twelve hours a day with no days off. It was the ultimate intelligence job in Vietnam. We received all, or all most all the intelligence that was received in Vietnam and were responsible to process it, make it intelligible and brief it or publish it to the Commanders of our forces in Vietnam. Working this schedule for two months results in muscle deterioration and general feelings of physically falling apart. The room that we worked in was very large with no windows. The rooms were wide open with maps next to our desks. The intelligence picture was broken down by military regions (I, II, III, IV, Laos, Cambodia), wherever we had an interest. I was initially assigned to the III Corps area desk. I was required to memorized the enemy units in the area and their activities going back ten years. Right after I had learned this material, I was reassigned to work for the Marines on the I Corps desk. I was very upset about this and adapted to it. At the time, I was the only Army Officer working for the Marines. This assignment was a joint assignment working with other services of the US Armed Forces. We also would be called directly by the White House Intelligence people asking for interpretations. I personally remember receiving one of these calls. I would read up to two books of information daily, write up to seven articles a day or more and sometimes give two to three stand up briefs a day. It was a high pressure job to the highest degree. The pressure would be so intense that many of the senior officers would be hospitalized or left country early. Many were on medication. It was relentless. I look back fondly on Lieutenant Colonel Donald Hecht (now deceased) as someone that was there to assist us in a fatherly manner. He was assigned to supervise all the Corps. Sometimes the officers would participate in frisbee wars by throwing plastic coffee can tops at each other. I frowned on such behavior and largely did not participate. I caused quite a controversy when I bought a crystal ball, put it in a glass enclosure on top of a red cloth (marine colors). I would tell people on occasion that the crystal was cloudy and I could not see the complete picture. When I left the Marines would not buy it from me so I sold it to the Cambodian desk, they seemed to need it. We were so good at our job that someone could merely point at a section of our assigned areas and we could stand up and tell them what had been going on there. The tedious boredom of the repetitive aspect of our jobs was many times overwhelming. My personal diversion was to emphasis threats that I could prove; however, probably did not merit the urgency that I gave them. I usually did this during the resource allocation briefing and the Colonel in charge of the briefing would usually end up giving orders to the assembled staff based on the information I gave, it was usually to collect more information in a particular area.
I worked for two different Marine Corps Majors, Major Unknown (subsequently promoted to full Colonel) and John Gerry (subsequently promoted to Brigadier General). John was a great gentlemen and I have not worked for a better officer. Major Unknown had invented information and this made it difficult for us after he left Vietnam. Major Unknown invented the finding of “General Tin’s notebook”. The J-2 was General Potts, a WW II friend of General Abrams (both and tank back grounds) and Major Unknown had tank experience in the Marine Corps. When asked difficult intelligence questions that defied answers, Major Unknown would describe the contents of General Tin’s note book which usually had some explanation of the intelligence conundrum. I met Colonel Unknown retired on my last reserve duty period at Quanitico Marine Corps Bases Golf Course. We played two days in a row and talked about the past. Without stating the General Tin’s notebook was a made up story, Colonel Unknown would talk about the notebook to me at the golf course. It is a remarkable coincidence that we would meet again. Colonel Unknown was in the process of moving to Tennessee to find a cheaper place to live in retirement.
I had done so well in this assignment that I was told that I was recommended to take over a desk in the National Security Agency. My lack of a college degree probably inhibited this assignment. I wanted to go to a line combat unit and was assigned to the First Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas on rotating out of Vietnam.
We arrived at Fort Riley in the winter and I was immediately thrown in the back of a jeep and on field exercises where I suffered greatly. My body had adapted to Vietnam and the very cold weather of winter in Kansas physically hurt. I went out and bought some Sears aluminum line insulated underwear to help me keep warm. It helped a little. I was assigned as an Assistant G-2 for the First Infantry Division which is part of the Divisions Headquarters Staff in the area of Intelligence, my specialty. After I arrived, a new Lieutenant Colonel arrived name Unknown (later to become an Iranian hostage) to become our staff leader as the G-2. I was in conflict with this Officer. I have worked for many what civilians would consider being abusive personalities in the military. Usually it did not bother me because it is an integral part of the Military to be a very strict disciplinarian. Lieutenant Colonel Unknown, in my opinion, surpassed the level of appropriateness regarding the way he dealt with subordinates. I practiced an approach where I tried to personally tried to avoid him. Our conflict was unavoidable. Colonel Unknown did not have a considerable background in the Intelligence field. He had just left an assignment where he was part of the developmental team for the Apache helicopter. Lieutenant Colonel Unknown was a tyrant and I do not personally do well as a subordinate for this leadership style.
My advise to Lieutenant Colonel Unknown lead to his being yelled at by Division Commander, General Flannagan. General Flannagen had an explosive personality and freely used profanity directed at us in large groups. General Flannagen did not practice a gentlemen approach to leadership. I will never forget where the assembled Divisions Officers were victimized by him in the first large meeting with all of us at Fort Riley about litter being found on the side of the road where the General could observe it on the way to the meeting. The situation that lead to Colonel Unknown getting chewed out by the General took place in Germany. The Army at the time had evolved to put electronic warfare elements as part of the Division Tactical Operations Center. In practice this meant that a new staff van went to the field which was next to the logistics, operations and intelligence vans. Its sole function was to track the electronic warfare aspects of the war. We had received some information from this van which was misinterpreted by a Lieutenant that was reported directly to Colonel Unknown and the Colonel took it directly to the General. I analyzed it based on my experience in Vietnam and came up with a different interpretation and asked that Colonel Unknown go back to the General and correct the initial report. Colonel Unknown went back to General and made this correction and this is when the General demeaned Colonel Unknown. Colonel Unknown appeared to never forgive me for this negative encounter that he had with the General. I could not have stopped Colonel Unknown from going to the General with his initial report because I was not on duty. I believe that Colonel Unknown had me transferred to the new assignment as the S-2 for Division Support command shortly there after this incident. This was a better assignment and I was glad to have it. I also believe that Colonel Unknown had me recommended to be relieved from active duty based on this incident. This incident demonstrates how difficult it is to make a career from the military. Less then twenty percent of those that enter the military reach retirement.
It is February 1972, I am a Military Intelligence (MI) Branch Officer assigned as the S-2 (Chief Intelligence Staff Officer) for Division Support Command, of the 1st Infantry Division stationed at Fort Riley Kansas. I am excelling in the assignment and the first MI Officer in the Division to be assigned as a Brigade S-2 (ground breaking assignment). The rumor mill has it that the Reduction in Force (RIF) list has arrived and my name is on it. I was filled with a great amount of anxiety about this. It would mean that I would have to start a new work life and I would need to decide what to do in the future for me and my family (wife, son). Depending on the amount of service time they had, they would be financially compensated (I was at the maximum compensation level, $15,000). Officers in the Brigade were being summoned to the Brigade Executive Officers Office in the Brigade Headquarters Building (my office is in the basement of this building) and told that they are to be relieved of active duty. Two lists had arrived. The earlier list were those officers who were not performing their assigned duties well. The second list was composed of those officers that were completing their duties in a very good manner; but, because of the needs of the service, were to be released from active duty. There had been a massive build up of the Armed Forces during the Vietnam War and now that the war was over, large cuts in personnel had to be made. In addition, only twenty percent of those that enter the military make it to retirement. Also, there is an up or out policy for promotion. Either a person is promoted in a prescribed period of time or they are released from active duty. Obliviously, there are less positions available at the higher ranks. Commission officers are expected to have college degrees and I did not have one at that time. Also, I made the mistake of transferring to the Military Intelligence Branch. This Branch is very small and the officers in it predominately possessed college degrees. Also, there were a large number of West Point graduates in this branch in which the U.S. Government had made a major investment in their education and were less likely to be involuntarily released from active duty. Knowing this , it made a lot of sense in my mind for the military to release me from active duty. It was the correct thing to do. But, what should I do then.
The Brigade Executive Officer, a Lieutenant Colonel summoned me to his office for notification of my termination. Of all the officers that I have known, this officer seemed to have the most limited vocabulary. Not an eloquent speaker was he. He struggled with my notification. He gave me the documents and waited for me to read them before continuing. He repeated over and over again that “things are tough out there”. He was referring to the fact that employment conditions are not good outside the service. My conclusion now and at the time is that he did not personally think he could get a job outside of being an Army Officer.
I had entered active duty in 1963 after a year at Seattle University when I saw my life going no where because of funding problems and a lack of a clear direction with what I should do with my life. I had signed up Europe Guaranteed for three years of service. I wanted to be a commissioned officer and in basic training was made a squad leader. Because of high test scores, I received orders to go to Veterinarian School in Chicago (the school was located in a hotel) and then go to Europe to inspect meat. The Company First Sergeant had never seen orders such as these. I volunteered for Infantry Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning Georgia and this caused the orders to be voided. I passed all the oral interviews and was assigned to a holding company at Fort Ord pending an opening at OCS. In preparation to go, I read books of etiquette, believing that this would be important to my success as an Officer. Fort Benning Georgia, Officer Candidate School was an extreme shock for me. OCS was a school primarily designed to eliminate people that would break under extreme pressure. The pressure is synthetic, contrived and real. Every physical, emotional, sleep deprivation technique that could be thought of was administered to us. Of over 230 candidates that started in our company, only 107 of us graduated. I became a commissioned officer at the age of 20. I could not sign loan papers to buy a car because of my age. I then proceeded to Airborne, and Ranger Schools. I was a hardened, lean mean fighting machine or so I thought. I enjoyed the discipline, hard work, focused direction that the military offered. I enjoyed the raw aggression that the military allowed us to exhibit under controlled circumstances. The training I received in the Bayonet obstacle course in Ranger school and other training courses I participated in Ranger School caused me to change to become a “very” aggressive person when I felt I needed to be aggressive. Normal infantry trainees are required to go through the courses two or three times consecutively. Rangers are required to continuously go through the course 14 times without resting. One of the instructors was my OCS classmate named Marschock. Lieutenant Marshock would routinely make me repeat one hill in the course. After he made me repeat one hill four times, I turned on him and chased him off the hill with my bayonet fixed rifle. I did not see him again for the rest of the day. One of the tragedies of Ranger school for me was when I injured my fellow classmate Kallotay in the hand to hand pit. He and I had been in Basic, Advanced Infantry, Airborne and now Ranger School together. During a knife take down exercise, he resisted me when I executed the take down on him (we had an agreement to never resist each other) and I pulled some ligaments in his elbow. I have never seen him since. His father was an officer in the Hungarian Army. Another conflict in Ranger school was with a Major who was going through the training as part of astronaut training. He could not learn the moves in the hand to hand pit and as a result the instructor kept coming over and demonstrating on me and physically beating me up. I warned this officer that if he did not learn quicker that I would resort to hurting him. He did not believe me until I started to kick him in the ribs strongly in the follow up hits. He became a very quick learner. One the of the biggest disappointments of my life is that I did not complete Ranger School. I had two satisfactory patrols as a leader and was well on my way to graduation when in the Mountain stage of this training I was tied to the back of a very strong buddy in a repelling exercise. He could not hold on to the rope and the safety person gave too much slack to the safety rope and we fell 40 feet and landed on my body. I had injuries that cause me to be briefly hospitalized. The Ranger Doctor felt I could continue in the school and the regular doctor at the hospital had put me down as needing a period of recuperation. I went with the hospital doctor. I was experiencing discomfort. I withdrew my voluntary status in this school. I experienced feelings of failure because of not completing this school which motivated me the rest of my life to finish schools that I started.
My first assignment as an Army officer was at Fort Ord California where I had assignments as a Range Officer, Company Officer, and Officer in Charge of the Infiltration and survival Escape and Evasion Courses. The infiltration course was stimulating in the respect that when it functioned, it involved up to five basic training companies crawling under live machine gun fire and between demolition pits going off. We also used flares fired from a mortar. I would give the class to over 1000 assembled trainees at a time. It was a real emotional high. My class demonstration would include a trainee demonstrator going over various obstacles on an example course behind me where I could not see him. I was in a tower coordinating this event when we would go live fire. Looking back on this assignment, it was very dangerous. If a trainee stood up, he would be machined gunned to his death. This training was conducted both during the day and evenings. One evening, we actually had a trainee do this and fortunately the Sergeant gunner saw it and stopped shooting just in time to not kill the trainee. The Sergeant was an emotional wreck afterwards. We were assigned an infrared scope to see at night. The infrared scope never worked, was not repairable and was required for us to conduct the training. I talked my way around this with the Post Operations Officer one evening and he bought my story. We had to complete the training. It was required or the trainees could not graduate. I told him that it magnified so greatly that he was actually looking at the belly button of a trainee moving through the course. The Colonel after gazing intently through the nonfunctioning device for some time said he now was able to see them.
Another high light of my work at Fort Ord was my assignment on the Survival Escape and Evasion Committee. This course is mandatory training for advanced infantry trainees. The Committee taught trainees to survive behind enemy lines with no food or water, evade capture behind enemy lines and how to conduct themselves if they became prisoners of war. The training became very important after the Korean War when our soldiers did not conduct themselves properly as prisoners.
At the time of my assignment to this committee, I was assigned the additional duty of Courts and Boards Officer. I was responsible to process people for Court Martials regarding the documentation and prosecute the cases in Special Court martials. The Army has now changed where they have lawyers assigned to complete this duty. Of the five cases that I tried, the juries found the defendants guilty. Colonel Wallace would call me in and “chew my ass” for some light sentences that were given in particular cases. Based on my recommendations we solved that problem by puting more senior officers on as jurors.
One day I was called in by my Major supervisor and informed that I was to be reassigned to the Survival Escape and Evasion committee along with an older Sergeant named Morris from the Land Navigation Committee. The Survival Escape and Evasion Committee Officer in Charge had lead a mutiny of the soldiers assigned to the committee and I was to evaluate the committee to see if the Sergeants should be court martialed and what direction the committee should go in the future. A mutiny in the Army may be as little as asking to have a meeting with supervisors. I knew Lieutenant Tanaka, the Officer in Charge and like him. His hobby was setting crab nets in Monterey harbor. Sergeant Morris was shaken by the assignment. He was an older person ready for retirement and this was high stress work. Sergeant Morris and I surveyed the committee and came to some conclusions. The committee was composed of exprisoners of war from Korea who had become emotionally attached to the committee and were having trouble complying with Army standards. The Committee had gotten side tracked and started to raise a variety of wild animals in the committee area and confused this with the mission of the training. We decided that the Sergeants should be reassigned back to training companies and to other Army work, the animals should be released and we would start with a new group of Sergeants. We did this. The old committee sergeants did not like this and I was personally threatened. I complained to the respective Company Commanders of these threats.
It was a challenge starting with a new group of Sergeants. Most of them had no training to teach students and we had to train them. Much of the training was to teach them to speak basic English and phrase sentences properly. When we got through administering the training to them (involved many rehearsals) they sounded very good. We also started a survival museum which consisted of example items soldiers could eat in the wild. One of our greatest achievements was the booby trap display. The Army had not developed training for soldiers being sent to Vietnam. We were allowed some variation in what materials we trained the trainees on. I came up with the idea from a copy of Argosy Magazine to make a display of different types of booby traps. We did this. I kept the magazine article with the lesson plan as our source of instruction because the Army’s reference material on the subject was classified confidential, need to know access only. We were not allowed to share it with the trainees as a result. We also raided rabbits and caught rattle snakes and would kill these animals in front of the trainees we were teaching that this is what soldiers might have to do in a survival situation to survive behind enemy lines. Most had not had to kill any animals to feed themselves.
I have two favorite stories regarding the rattle snakes. The first one is when we went to Hunter Ligget Military Reservation to catch the snakes. I had seen a rattle snake round up on television in Oklahoma and saw them cut pieces of hose, pour gasoline down the hoses and then blow the fumes through the hoses into the snake holes. The snakes came out of the holes and were captured. I had my soldiers do this also. Sergeant First Class Fredrickson, our new committee noncommissioned officer in charge, was behind me with a bag full of rattle snakes after a successful hunt when he feigned that he fell and hit my butt with a stick that he was carrying. I thought it was the bag of snakes and jumped and yelled. It was a very funny incident in my life. The other snake story is that we would rotate killing a snake for one company going through the training and the next week we would kill a rabbit. One particular week it was the rattle snakes turn to be killed, cleaned and cooked. We would have the snake wired up so we would not have to chase the snake just before we went on stage with the presentation. I was designated to take the snake out and do the demonstration. The wire was too tight. It took both my hands to loosen the wire and the snake fell out and was falling towards my leg. Out of terror, I grabbed the snake unmercifully and broke its neck and as a result, it died in my hands. The trainees hissed that was a dead snake instead of a live one when I brought it out for the demonstration. The involuntary contractions of the snake’s body when I stripped the snakes skin off made the trainees reconsider their response.
In 1966, the Army decided that it was my turn to go to Vietnam. I was given orders to Fort Bragg, North Carolina (home of the Army’s Special Forces) to study to be an Advisor to the Vietnamese Army (ARVN). The training was very good and I was then sent to Vietnam. Vietnam was a big shock for my system and I was frightened and at the same time, I liked it. I arrived just before Christmas in December 1966. Six of us officers were put up in one room at the top of a tall building. My first big culture shock was when I was relieving myself in the toilet and a maid walks in as if it was “no big deal”. I learned to understand that the culture does not look down on the nude body and the taboos in western culture are not the same as in the East.
I received orders in country to go to the furthest ARVN division in the south, the 3d Battalion, 31st Regiment, 21st ARVN Division based out of Bac Lieu and be assigned as an Assistant Battalion Advisor. No U.S. units operated in the area and it was thought to be pretty much under the control of the Viet Cong. I recognized it as a very dangerous assignment as it would prove to be. The first time I came under fire, I froze. It was in the evening and I was in an advisors compound for the Regimental Senior Advisor. I was going through intensive theoretical training by reviewing the tactics that were being used in our area by the ARVN units. I woke up and heard firing. I was so inexperienced at the time, I did not know what type of firing it was. We were to scramble for the bunker if we came under attack. It was close to midnight when the rounds struck. I ran to the doorway and froze. I felt in my butt a large boot striking me and propelling me to the bunker. I never froze again in my two tours of duty in Vietnam. It is unfortunate that the Captain who taught me that lesson shortly there after was killed in action when trying to get a medal. He lead an attack on a machine gun bunker. His wife received his silver star posthumously.
It was February 7, 1967, and I was told by Captain Shipey, the Battalion Senior Advisor, my supervisor that we were going to take a convoy back to Vi Thanh from Can Tho. We had been on a mission to scrounge sand for our ARVN counterparts to build dependent housing for their soldiers. We had succeeded and were traveling back to our base. I had a premonition that something bad was going to happen. I asked Captain Shipey if we could take alternate transportation back by helicopter or delay our return, he responded by saying “no”. We departed
in a jeep and I sat next to my counterparts wife (very attractive Vietnamese lady). All at once, I felt great concern for my personal safety (feelings of foreboding, pending doom, depressed feelings, etc.). I had been sitting on my flack jacket, I put it on. I took my beret off and replaced it with a steel helmet. I loaded a round of ammunition in the chamber of my weapon and took the safety off. Captain Shipey turned and demanded what was going on with me and then the ambush took place. I was immediately shot in the upper left arm. Though wounded, I responded by firing my weapon. I had no idea how badly I was wounded. I did not think of Mother or any other endearing thought. My sole thought was that I wanted to survive and would do what I had to do to survive. We pulled into a local hamlet and my counter parts wife administered first aid to me. I was going into shock and threw up. I had concealed my money in the top of my helmet and asked to have my helmet returned to me as I was Medivaced by helicopter to a hospital. I had a fake wallet in my pants which the ARVN stole. I had planned ahead and was not victimized in this situation. The helicopter crew knew I was OK when I asked if the time in the helicopter would count for my air medal.
The Doctor at the Helicopter Companies base gave me first aid and a shot of morphine and had me stay in his hospital because he was lonely, or that is what he told me. He treated me by running a swab through my arm five days in a row. I became so infected that I asked to be evacuated to the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). The 3rd Field staff wanted to know who had caused me to be so infected. There was concern that my arm would have to be amputated. I was given such large shots of penicillin that tears would come to my eyes (one large shot per cheek of my butt at a time). This stabilized my arm and then I was sent to Camp Drake Hospital near Tokyo, Japan. I ended up staying two months in the hospitals as a result of this rifle wound to my left upper arm. I was fortunate that no bones were broken. I had a good time in Japan. I was ambulatory and we would party in the evening and recuperate in our hospital bed during the day. I received a letter addressed to Mrs. Gary Bingham while in the hospital (I was not married at the time) regarding the effects of the deceased. It bothered me a lot to get this letter. The Officers on the ward prepared a surprise ceremony because of this letter. They had a dummy soldier dressed in uniform on a litter with very large boots on and sang the funeral march to me as I returned to the ward one day. In the groin area of the soldier was a magazine rolled up to simulate a full erection. It cheered me immediately and I never thought another thought about the letter. I then got a letter from a girl I had been dating who claimed that she was pregnant. I was very depressed about this. One of the soldiers cheered me up regarding this when he showed me a wallet of pictures of approximately four women each with a picture of a child that he had fathered. He assured me that it “was no big deal”. She later wrote me that she had made up the story so I would marry her. Another shock I received in the hospital in Japan was a “Dear John” letter from Roseann the girl I was engaged to. She had gone to Iceland with the federal civil service when I went to Vietnam and she discovered it was too cold there to stay by herself. I did write her a very nice letter and she returned our engagement ring.
In Japan, I was given a choice, stay in the hospital longer, my arm still hurt, go back to Vietnam to finish my tour of duty or be reassigned back to the states. I chose to go back to Vietnam. I figured that I would be immediately sent back to Vietnam if I did not get credit for a complete
year. Back in Vietnam, I was given my choice of assignments since I had been wounded. I chose a remote hamlet to get out of combat for a while. It did not work. I did not want to go back to my old Division because I felt that I could readily die there. I reported to the 5th ARVN Division in Lam Som. A Captain decided that he wanted me as his assistant Battalion Advisor for the 4th Battalion of the 7th ARVN Regiment. This was a famous Battalion because it had surrounded a church when President Diem was taken prisoner in Saigon. Years later I figured out that this Captain had the power to do this because he was the son of an high ranking general. I still had a medical profile on my arm and should not have been immediately deployed to combat. My arm throbbed.
Immediately after I joined the Battalion, we went on continuous field operations, moving and shooting. My captain appeared to be under great emotional stress. He was married and I was not. He was a devout Catholic. When I asked if I could take the Sergeants to the house of Ill repute, he responded that he would allow it and did not like it. I had asked him at the Sergeants request. My Captain appeared to have a deteriorating mental condition. He and I came into open conflict in a battle that we were in with the enemy. I was with the lead elements of the Battalion in a combat formation which was my usual location. I was shot at a lot. I developed the ability to completely relax my body and fall to the ground almost immediately after hearing a shot fired. I would get very dirty; but, I am alive to type these memories. It was a very hot Asian afternoon and we had been maneuvering for a number of hours on the field. We were in an open rice field approaching an L shape dirt berm under tall palms. Then the enemy opened up on us. I estimated a reinforced platoon of enemy shooting at a high rate of fire. These were regular Viet Cong troops. We called it in and were reinforced with Army helicopter gun ships. I placed the gun ships along the L and they made sweeps shooting with machine guns directly on the enemy.
This effectively suppressed the enemies fire on us. While this was taking place, my Captain intervened over the radio and tried to draw the helicopter away to attack a lone sniper who is firing on him in his location in the rear. I intervened over the radio and did not let him take the helicopters. We never discussed this in detail afterwards and I am sure that he would never forgive me for it. I intended to survive in combat.
My last major conflict with my Captain took place in Binh Long Province where we were assigned to maintain the security of an air field. We were assigned along with US troops in this mission. One night we are under attack by enemy mortars and I woke up my Captain and tried to get him to go the bunker with the Sergeants and myself. He proceeded to talk to me in a demeaning manner. He appeared to have an emotional break. The next day, our Regimental Senior Advisor visited us. The Sergeants and I reported my Captain’s behavior and the Captain was immediately taken with the Major out of the field and assigned to a Vietnamese training center assignment. My Captain’s method of getting back at me was to write a performance report where he reported that I handled administrative logistic matters. I may have done a little logistics work; but, my primary job was to coordinate tactical operations in the field (kill the enemy). I complained to the Major and he indicated that it was an acceptable efficiency report and he would not intervene.
Living with the Vietnamese was a learning experience at all times. I enjoyed the friendly attitude
of the Vietnamese soldiers and we worked well together. They knew the environment and being natives, they knew how to exist in it as comfortably as they could. My memories are very strong when I was assigned to the 21 ARVN Division in the Mekong Delta of the difficulty I had walking across monkey bridges. These are tree limbs that have been placed over small streams with hand holds present (at a very low height) to help steady a person crossing them. The Vietnamese scampered across these bridges. On operations, we moved at a fairly fast rate of speed. With my heavy pack, weapon, ammunition, large feet (compared to Vietnamese feet), I struggled, slipped and otherwise had a great amount of difficulty moving across these bridges. Since this area is mostly flooded, we were crossing these small bridges every fifty meters. I would slip, slide and fall off these bridges to the great amusement of the Vietnamese Soldiers. They would point at me and routinely laugh at me as I struggled over these bridges. I tried to improve my performance on them and mostly without success. It seemed they never tired at chuckling at my efforts.
Through out the areas that I operated with the Vietnamese Units, we were constantly walking by land mines. I could not see them. The Vietnamese would try and show me and teach me to see them. I would be very close to where they would point out a trip wire and still not see the wire. The Vietnamese would give up in desperation and tell me to step in the very foot steps that they stepped in to protect me and themselves from me setting off one of these land mines. This also resulted in some amusing moments with me taking small steps while marching to insure that I stepped where they stepped.
The Vietnamese, unlike the US Army at the time, allow homosexuals into their military. I will never forget when I was with the 5th ARVN Division, near Lam Som and they assigned us to a
remote area near the Saigon River to build an outpost for the local militia, Regional Forces/Popular Forces (RF/PF). I am sure we also served the purpose of disrupting enemy operations in the area. The area was very unsanitary with dead bodies floating down the river on occasion. It was very important to stay clean in this type of situation to avoid diseases. The advisors bathed each day in one area that had a stream running through it. We had a fan club of homosexuals that would routinely watch us. One day, as I walked out of the water, a Vietnamese Soldier reached into my wet shorts and grabbed me. I was very upset about it and told the Vietnamese Battalion Commander that I did not want to be near that person in the future. I never did see the soldier again. Also, the entire Battalion (or it seemed like the entire Battalion) would go to the toilet in one area. The pile that we defecated on was alive with maggots, moving constantly feeding on the feces. My worst fear was slipping and falling into this pile while I was using the toilet. In this same area, I became severely sick with dengue fever and had to be Medivaced for treatment. I would spit up and also had severe diarrhea. The diarrhea was the worst I have experienced. I would wake up in the middle of the night vomiting and experiencing diarrhea. In a field situation, with no toilet, no toilet paper, it was a terrible experience, to say the least (very messy).
The Battalion Commander had an unusual way of disciplining soldiers who would be absent without leave (AWOL). One day I witnessed him with a recently returned cook who had been AWOL. The Battalion Commander would, using a rifle, shoot the rifle next to the soldiers head, all the time saying “Dew Mami” which is Vietnamese for the word “mother fucker”. I was
shocked and starred at the spectacle in disbelief. I can still see the spectacle in my mind.
The Vietnamese would test my tolerance of new foods. Rather then starve, I would eat anything they presented to me. Mostly, I enjoyed eating the food they gave me. I still can remember the bread that we were served. At the bottom of the bread, which was fresh from the bakers, would be insects baked into the bread itself. The insects obviously were on the bottom side of the dough while being baked. On special occasions, the Vietnamese would eat special delicacies and watch my face closely knowing that they were giving me something that Americans did not consider delicacies. I would sample blood soup with nuts in it, blood wine, and suck on fermented duck eggs. I declined to make a meal of these delicacies.
In July 1967, I was promoted to Captain. The Colonel who promoted me pinned on my bars and then handed me an imaginary sack of brains. The Colonel told me that I was now expected to “think” on my own. I used this same statement many times when promoting many Captains over the years as a Reserve Battalion Executive Officer and as a Reserve Battalion Commander. I was twenty three (23) years old. The Army did not want to give me my own Battalion to advise because of my age. They wanted me to go to the field with another Captain, new to the country, to assist him. I refused saying that if you promoted me to Captain, I expect to be assigned to a Captain’s position. This resulted in my assignment as one of two Army Officers to be initially assigned to work for retired Army Lieutenant Colonel John Vann in Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) organization. This was the leading organization that was to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese back from the enemy because of our good deeds for them (pacification). It did not work because the enemies use of force was stronger then our good deeds. The highlight of this assignment was when I visited a hamlet with some senior Vietnamese Officers and discovered that the Army District Advisor was at war with his Vietnamese counterpart. Because of corruption on the Vietnamese part, and the Advisor suspected that he could be the victim of violence by the Vietnamese. I briefed my supervisor about this (Mr. Nunn, Foreign Service Officer) and was told to finish my complete written report before he would brief Mr. Vann. I advised him to tell Mr. Vann ahead of time. A fire fight did develop between the two in the compound they lived in and Mr. Vann took my hand written report and went to the area. I knew that the Vietnamese were capable of violence against us when a very obnoxious battalion advisor crawled in bed one night and had a cobra crawl up into his underwear. This Captain had to be medivaced for shock.
I was delighted with the assignment mainly because I was out of combat (a personal high risk activity). I also heard about a branch of the Army that was looking for recruits and appeared to be a way to keep me out of direct combat. It also promised to improve my formal education. I was well aware that after the war that I was vulnerable to lose my job with the Army because of my formal education (lack of) no matter how good a job I did. I submitted my application for branch transfer from the Infantry to the Military Intelligence Branch with a speciality in Counter Intelligence (spy catcher, internal security specialist).
I received my orders out of Vietnam to Fort Dix, New Jersey to be assigned as a Basic Training Company Commander awaiting my possible transfer to the Military Intelligence Branch.
Returning to the States was a shock for me. The antiwar efforts were strong in 1967 and I was considered a “baby killer” and not a hero for our country. From going to living like an animal in Vietnam to the US affected me emotionally. I went to a private physician and was prescribed some medication to help me control my emotions. I took it briefly and stopped when I did something to bring back the feelings of risk that I had in Vietnam. I drove a Triumph sports car in the winter through the snow from Washington State to New Jersey. Experiencing danger had a calming effect on me and caused me to not feel the need to take medication again. I have never
since attempted or taken any medication to help me control my emotions.
End of Active Duty
I arrived at Fort Dix, New Jersey January 1978 and was given a command of a Basic Training Company. Our Brigade Commander was Colonel Lockhart. We had a Major Jenkins as a Battalion Commander. My company was short of senior Sergeants. I had one Sergeant First Class and he got orders to go to Vietnam leaving me with a Staff Sergeant with less then six years of service in the Army as my senior field sergeant. This significantly negatively effected my ability to manage my company. A Captain in our Battalion who graduated from West Point had over five Sergeant First Class ranking sergeants assigned to his unit. The West Pointers company always performed better then the rest of the Battalions companies mainly because they had more experienced leaders. I went to the Battalion Commander and he declined to redistribute the Sergeants in the Battalion to make it fairer. I learned first hand about prejudice in favor of West Point graduates in the Army based on this experience. My company did do very well in the Marching area and we were selected by the Battalion to represent the Battalion in a brigade parade. I lead the my unit and gave the commands. This was one of my strong areas and I could train in Company mass drill. This can be very demanding marching large numbers of troops.
I learned a valuable lesson one day. I was very concerned that trainees did not dodge their duties and had a number of trainees go on a forced march that I lead to the hand grenade range. A Medical doctor called me and yelled at me profusely for marching one trainee who had a medical condition that I had worsened. I apologized profusely and it was a life long lesson.
At that time, my company was in competition for our trainees achieving high test scores with other companies. Battalions were in competition with other Battalions and the Brigade was in competition with other Brigades. The Post was in competition with other posts. As company commanders, we were encouraged to cheat on the test scores so we all looked good. I refused to cheat. A fellow Captain Michael Merrick (still swap Christmases cards with) (born in Dublin Ireland, raised in his Fathers bar) prepared a study on the cheating and presented it to Colonel Lockhart. At the conclusion of the presentation, Colonel Lockhart pulled a blank rifle qualification card that a range Officer In Charge has signed for a Captain Company Commander and the Colonel was very proud of. The company commander was free to record any score he wanted to on the blank card. My performance report suffered because of my refusal to do such unethical acts and my shortage of sergeants prevented my unit from excelling. Fortunately, my transfer was approved to go to Military Intelligence Advance Course. This transfer included that I was to go to “Intelligence Research” Course which is a cover name to teach me how to be a counterintelligence agent and then to Military Intelligence Advance Course. Advance Course is a middle manager course for commissioned officers provided by the Army. I had decided that I can not handle the emotional, physical needs of my life as a single person any longer. Towards the end of my second tour of Vietnam, I was corresponding with six women from the Seattle area. I dated all six when I returned. I liked Linda the best and proposed to her and sent a check for her to fly out and marry me in New Jersey. She accepted and we have been married ever since. I arranged the wedding (post church, wedding license, flowers, pictures, best man and wedding reception). I also obtained an apartment and bought furniture for it. It all worked out. I loved Linda a lot and still do.
In 1998, we reported to Baltimore, Maryland where I was to attend Military Intelligence courses at Fort Holibird, Maryland. I worked hard in the training. The training was highly technical and almost every agency in the federal government made presentations to us in Advance Course. It was impressive and highly educational. The detail some times became overwhelming. I will never forget when we made a field trip to the Topographical Command and watched some technicians making relief maps. A technician was giving a very detailed presentation of what tools were used for each cut and I had to leave the room. I was close to losing control of myself and laughing uncontrollable that I would ever care what tool they used for any particular cut to prepare these maps. We went to the Presidents command bunker under a mountain on another field trip. Our close proximity to Washington D.C. made it easy for us to have these educational activities. One of the highlights of the course was when one of our class mates died and he was buried at Arlington Cemetery. A rider less horse was used with boots in the stirrups. We had a great lunch in the club. The Captain who had died and I played golf together on occasion and he had a terrible temper on the course. In fact he died in the midst of a temper tantrum on the course. This has served as a good lesson for me for future life.
We left Fort Holibird and went to Vietnamese Language school at Fort Bliss Texas in 1979 on my way back for another year in Vietnam. My assignment was to work with the Vietnamese again in the area of counterintelligence and I was excited about it. I knew that this had the potential to be a very dangerous job. El Paso was beautiful and we enjoyed the location very much. I worked hard at the rote memory requirements.
I was back in Vietnam in January 1970. I illegally smuggled two revolvers with me. On my previous tour of duty, on many occasions, I felt a need to have a revolver and did not have one. I taped the revolvers to my body just before the plan landed in Saigon (not Ho Chi Minh City). I started orientation and was immediately pulled out and was standing before a Colonel who asked me to stand up and talk to him a while. He was measuring my presentation skills and analytical ability. He told me I was hired. I had no idea what I was hired for and what it involved.
I was hired into one of the most demanding jobs, analytically and time wise that I have ever experienced my life. I was assigned as an intelligence analyst in the Current Intelligence and Evaluation Division of J-2, Military Assistance Command Vietnam. This caused me to increase the prescription to my glasses and further caused a deterioration to my general physical condition. It involved working seven days a week, twelve hours a day with no days off. It was the ultimate intelligence job in Vietnam. We received all, or all most all the intelligence that was received in Vietnam and were responsible to process it, make it intelligible and brief it or publish it to the Commanders of our forces in Vietnam. Working this schedule for two months results in muscle deterioration and general feelings of physically falling apart. The room that we worked in was very large with no windows. The rooms were wide open with maps next to our desks. The intelligence picture was broken down by military regions (I, II, III, IV, Laos, Cambodia), wherever we had an interest. I was initially assigned to the III Corps area desk. I was required to memorized the enemy units in the area and their activities going back ten years. Right after I had learned this material, I was reassigned to work for the Marines on the I Corps desk. I was very upset about this and adapted to it. At the time, I was the only Army Officer working for the Marines. This assignment was a joint assignment working with other services of the US Armed Forces. We also would be called directly by the White House Intelligence people asking for interpretations. I personally remember receiving one of these calls. I would read up to two books of information daily, write up to seven articles a day or more and sometimes give two to three stand up briefs a day. It was a high pressure job to the highest degree. The pressure would be so intense that many of the senior officers would be hospitalized or left country early. Many were on medication. It was relentless. I look back fondly on Lieutenant Colonel Donald Hecht (now deceased) as someone that was there to assist us in a fatherly manner. He was assigned to supervise all the Corps. Sometimes the officers would participate in frisbee wars by throwing plastic coffee can tops at each other. I frowned on such behavior and largely did not participate. I caused quite a controversy when I bought a crystal ball, put it in a glass enclosure on top of a red cloth (marine colors). I would tell people on occasion that the crystal was cloudy and I could not see the complete picture. When I left the Marines would not buy it from me so I sold it to the Cambodian desk, they seemed to need it. We were so good at our job that someone could merely point at a section of our assigned areas and we could stand up and tell them what had been going on there. The tedious boredom of the repetitive aspect of our jobs was many times overwhelming. My personal diversion was to emphasis threats that I could prove; however, probably did not merit the urgency that I gave them. I usually did this during the resource allocation briefing and the Colonel in charge of the briefing would usually end up giving orders to the assembled staff based on the information I gave, it was usually to collect more information in a particular area.
I worked for two different Marine Corps Majors, Major Unknown (subsequently promoted to full Colonel) and John Gerry (subsequently promoted to Brigadier General). John was a great gentlemen and I have not worked for a better officer. Major Unknown had invented information and this made it difficult for us after he left Vietnam. Major Unknown invented the finding of “General Tin’s notebook”. The J-2 was General Potts, a WW II friend of General Abrams (both and tank back grounds) and Major Unknown had tank experience in the Marine Corps. When asked difficult intelligence questions that defied answers, Major Unknown would describe the contents of General Tin’s note book which usually had some explanation of the intelligence conundrum. I met Colonel Unknown retired on my last reserve duty period at Quanitico Marine Corps Bases Golf Course. We played two days in a row and talked about the past. Without stating the General Tin’s notebook was a made up story, Colonel Unknown would talk about the notebook to me at the golf course. It is a remarkable coincidence that we would meet again. Colonel Unknown was in the process of moving to Tennessee to find a cheaper place to live in retirement.
I had done so well in this assignment that I was told that I was recommended to take over a desk in the National Security Agency. My lack of a college degree probably inhibited this assignment. I wanted to go to a line combat unit and was assigned to the First Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas on rotating out of Vietnam.
We arrived at Fort Riley in the winter and I was immediately thrown in the back of a jeep and on field exercises where I suffered greatly. My body had adapted to Vietnam and the very cold weather of winter in Kansas physically hurt. I went out and bought some Sears aluminum line insulated underwear to help me keep warm. It helped a little. I was assigned as an Assistant G-2 for the First Infantry Division which is part of the Divisions Headquarters Staff in the area of Intelligence, my specialty. After I arrived, a new Lieutenant Colonel arrived name Unknown (later to become an Iranian hostage) to become our staff leader as the G-2. I was in conflict with this Officer. I have worked for many what civilians would consider being abusive personalities in the military. Usually it did not bother me because it is an integral part of the Military to be a very strict disciplinarian. Lieutenant Colonel Unknown, in my opinion, surpassed the level of appropriateness regarding the way he dealt with subordinates. I practiced an approach where I tried to personally tried to avoid him. Our conflict was unavoidable. Colonel Unknown did not have a considerable background in the Intelligence field. He had just left an assignment where he was part of the developmental team for the Apache helicopter. Lieutenant Colonel Unknown was a tyrant and I do not personally do well as a subordinate for this leadership style.
My advise to Lieutenant Colonel Unknown lead to his being yelled at by Division Commander, General Flannagan. General Flannagen had an explosive personality and freely used profanity directed at us in large groups. General Flannagen did not practice a gentlemen approach to leadership. I will never forget where the assembled Divisions Officers were victimized by him in the first large meeting with all of us at Fort Riley about litter being found on the side of the road where the General could observe it on the way to the meeting. The situation that lead to Colonel Unknown getting chewed out by the General took place in Germany. The Army at the time had evolved to put electronic warfare elements as part of the Division Tactical Operations Center. In practice this meant that a new staff van went to the field which was next to the logistics, operations and intelligence vans. Its sole function was to track the electronic warfare aspects of the war. We had received some information from this van which was misinterpreted by a Lieutenant that was reported directly to Colonel Unknown and the Colonel took it directly to the General. I analyzed it based on my experience in Vietnam and came up with a different interpretation and asked that Colonel Unknown go back to the General and correct the initial report. Colonel Unknown went back to General and made this correction and this is when the General demeaned Colonel Unknown. Colonel Unknown appeared to never forgive me for this negative encounter that he had with the General. I could not have stopped Colonel Unknown from going to the General with his initial report because I was not on duty. I believe that Colonel Unknown had me transferred to the new assignment as the S-2 for Division Support command shortly there after this incident. This was a better assignment and I was glad to have it. I also believe that Colonel Unknown had me recommended to be relieved from active duty based on this incident. This incident demonstrates how difficult it is to make a career from the military. Less then twenty percent of those that enter the military reach retirement.
U. S. Army Reserves
In 1973, I discovered as a State Prison employee that I had extra time on my hands and I could use some extra money. I decided that I would overcome any feelings of being rejected by the military when I was released from active duty and try to find a position in the Army Reserve. I called the 91st Division and reported to the Division Headquarters at Fort Baker. The Division Headquarters referred me to the 4th Brigade Headquarters. At the Brigade Headquarters, I was offered two positions. One position was the Drill Sergeants Academy and the other was with the Automotive Battalion. The Automotive Battalion was an Advanced Individual Training Unit that trained truck drivers and mechanics in an Army Training Center for future assignments in active duty units. My attitude towards the military was less then perfect and I chose the Automotive Battalion which is known to be a disciplinary problem in the Military and frequently less then military in the strict sense of the term. I felt this was the unit for me and for four years I experienced a lot of positive experiences being assigned to it.
I was initially assigned as a Company Commander. Since I had actually successfully held this position on active duty, I had a very different perspective on how this should be done then the normal reservist. On one occasion, we went to the rifle range and I remember that it a became a problem for Captain Bourghs, our supply officer, that we were missing two rifle magazines. We believed that one of the soldiers possessed it. I had the troops fall out and the officers start frisking them and we magically found the magazines laying on the grass. Many of the reserve soldiers that composed the reserves at that time were in the reserves for the sole purpose to avoid the draft. Hair nets were authorized and many of the soldiers were pursuing advanced degrees. My Supply Sergeant was working on a Doctorate in a science related subject at Berkeley. The Battalion Executive Officer, a Major was assigned to the position of Battalion Commander and his position was vacated and open for replacement. Since my permanent reserve date of rank of permanent Captain was the most senior in the unit, I was made the acting Battalion Executive Officer. My file was submitted under the unit vacancy promotion policy and I was selected to promotion to Major, much to my surprise. The reserves filled a void in my life to vent my excess energy and to also help me forget the negative experiences of the prison. Our unit would go to Fort Ord and do our annual training requirements each year. When Fort Ord ceased to be a training center, the unit was flown to Fort Leonard Wood Missouri to do our training. Fort Leonard Wood was not the high light of my military career as far as a place to do active duty. We were kept very busy during our two weeks active duty periods and time passed by rapidly. The prison experience made me a better commissioned officer. I developed a closer, more friendly, helpful manner in the performance of my duties. Because they were reservists, in many or most cases they needed my help to do the most basic activity. I needed to teach, organize, guide and many times, I did the work myself. The full time technicians which were civilians at that time greatly appreciated my attitude and we did a lot of good work together, particularly Mr. Erik Levy.
The reserves went through a major management reorganization and Officers started to be managed regarding their assignments by a central committee at the Division level. I had been in the Battalion for four years and they wanted others to have the opportunity to be Battalion Executive Officers and I was reassigned to the Maneuver Training Command (MTC). This organization administered the Army Training Evaluation Program to Reserve Units in the five western states. This Program was a qualification test to see if the Reserve Unit met the standards of the Army. The standards had been written down by the Army in a manual and we would administer this test. The test was conducted in a field environment and our testers would generate messages to the unit that would cause them to do actions which would put us in a situation to evaluate them. I thought the whole process was unorganized and wanted the messages written out in advances and time phased to the unit, making it similar to what would actually take place in a real situation. The normal practice was to dump the message in a mass on the unit and watch them “jump through their ass” trying to respond to them. I felt this was unrealistic, did not properly allow the unit to respond, did not give the unit time to do some proper research to respond, caused inappropriate stress which demeaned the units members and prevented us from doing an accurate evaluation. The system was not good. I was assigned as one of the Military Police Team Chiefs. I had no back ground in Military Police so immediately enrolled in the correspondence course for the Military Police regarding Military Police subjects only. I was learning. I did know a lot about the military and how to supervise people. I had my work cut out for me because there was some very strong personalities in the Military Police teams who were real life police officers in a variety of duties and law enforcement agencies in the area. Some of these people had some strong personal problems and drank excessively. One of the Captains killed himself while I was assigned to the unit. An alcoholic Major was a Motorcycle Sergeant in San Francisco. He was constantly hazed about the homosexuals in San Francisco. We evaluated a Military Police Company at Fort Lewis Washington, a Military Police Company at Fort Carson, Colorado, and a Military Police Battalion at Camp San Luis Obispo, California while I was in this assignment. I was called back to be the Chief Empire to evaluate the Military Police Battalion from my Battalion Command in San Jose. This developed into an evaluation with a lot of conflict because the active duty Lieutenant Colonel came over and tried to intimidate me and my staff. I kept getting physically closer to him until he understood that he was unwelcome and it was not in his best interest to be behaving improperly with us. I think at that time I had just finished reading the book, “Winning Through Intimidation”.
I had one assignment with the MTC which was very demanding that had nothing to do with Military Police. When I first arrived with MTC, I needed more active duty time to complete my required number of points to have credit for a good retirement year. The Transportation Section of MTC needed a Major as an evaluator and I went down, interviewed and was hired. For this exercise, I was initially assigned to do administrative tasks and when they saw that I had a good attitude and was a worker person, somehow, they decided that I would be a Chief Umpire for the exercise. I was supervised by a full Colonel who was overall in charge of the evaluation. This was a highly political evaluation of five petroleum companies which were based all over the west. The evaluation took place in Fort Irwin in August and it was very hot and dusty there. There was also another Headquarters organization there by the name of a RAOC (Rear Area Organization Control). In a war, this organization would coordinate all the support units behind the combat units. This is a major activity in warfare and the successful movement of supplies to the front line units in a conflict is critical for the success of the combat units. The RAOC was the superior organization in this exercise and they had a Lieutenant Colonel who was their Chief Umpire because they were being evaluated also. An emergency took place during this exercise which I will never forget. The RAOC Chief Umpire controlled some aggressors and they had thrown a hand grenade simulator under a 500 gallon gasoline tanker. These simulators have the potential to start a fire. Major Iseri, later to become my Battalion S-3 Operations Officer, was very worried about it. As a result, I was forced to scramble and drive a jeep through some very deep sand/silt until I found the Lieutenant Colonel Chief Umpire. I told the Colonel, once I found him that he and I would be going to Levenworth (a near by post called Fort Levenworth is the home for the Army’s Command and General Staff Course) for the long course at the Military prison there if he did not get control of the aggressors. The aggressors were subsequently restrained in their activities for the rest of the exercise. One of my strongest lessons from this exercise was after the exit brief, and we told the unit of their evaluation results, we needed to clear out of the area for our own physical safety. Some of the unit members that had been evaluated would start drinking and the built up tension would spill out and result in it being unsafe for us. I would use this precept in future evaluations.
In 1979, I completed the Correspondence Course “Command and General Staff Course” and my file was submitted for consideration to promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, again under the Unit Vacancy Plan. I was surprised to be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and was given command of the worst unit in the 91st Division regarding its strength. The unit did not have enough people assigned to fill its vacant positions. At that time the Reserve Unit Commanders and the soldiers of the units were required to recruit soldiers for their units. This was a very demanding activity and I had a lot of experience recruiting in my previous reserve assignments. Reservist were rapidly leaving the reserves because they no longer needed the reserves to keep them from being drafted into the active duty military. The draft had been stopped. For years in the reserves, I would attend meetings where I was threatened if I did not get the strength of the Unit up to the standard by recruiting more people into the reserves. This situation improved when the government allocated funds for full time recruiters to assist us to do this job. I believed that I needed to jointly focus on recruiting and quality training. The quality training would cause the reservists to want to stay in the Reserves once they were recruited into the Unit. I also knew that to successfully supervise a Battalion, I needed to get control of the Sergeants who are the heart of any unit. They needed to be positively recognized for their achievements. They also need to be assigned to give training classes well in advance to allow them to adequately provide the training. I also knew to do these tasks that I needed to do what I had not seen most of the Battalion Commanders do that I had previously worked with. Most of them would sit behind their desks and use the weekend as a library period where they would get caught up with their correspondence. This resulted in the unit doing largely as they might and with little direction. I vowed to change this usual pattern. I had us plan training a year in advance, including the assignment of instructors to teach specific classes. I also required our active duty recruiter to attend one day of our drill weekend. We also shared the same building with another Reserve Battalion. This Battalion was on the first floor of the building and we were on the second floor. Likely recruits that were referred to us frequently would go to the other Battalion because there was no sign on the first floor telling them where we were located. I had an independent sign located at the entrance to the building identifying where we were located. I also had a medal committee composed of the Unit Sergeant Major, myself and the Senior Unit Technician, Major Foster. We went through the entire list of unit members and designated deserving individuals to receive medals, assigned Officers to write the medals and I provided them with examples to write the medals with. All these things worked. We went from the worst strength to the highest strength in the Division within six months. They assembled all the divisions Officers and senior Sergeants in an auditorium and had me explain how I did it. I received a medal for this. We lead the division in strength the entire time I was a Battalion Commander and I received a number of very nice officer efficiency reports because of this. It was a significant factor in my promotion to Full Colonel before I had reached twenty years of commissioned service, a rare accomplishment. Less then five percent of all commissioned officers are promoted to the rank of Full Colonel
A made many decisions that were very correct regarding this unit. One of my decision was a bad one which I will disclose now. The final two week annual training period that I participated in with this unit took place at Fort Jackson. We had done a very good job during these two weeks. As a special reward, I wanted to present the Battalion with a treat. We always had a final party to celebrate this event and I asked that extra alcohol be provided the soldiers against the advise of our mess Warrant Officer. This resulted in some fighting among our soldiers in the barracks which I and the Officers of the unit responded to. We stopped it. Also, one of our Senior Sergeants smashed the side of an Army bus into a pole at the conclusion of the party. The unit knew I was being reassigned and gave me a Drill Sergeant Hat mounted on a plaque with my name and unit engraved on it. I greatly appreciated this gift and it will hang on the wall of my house indefinitely.
Unfortunately, this was my final assignment to a reserve Unit. I was reassigned to a new unit called Training Command which had all the training committees assigned to it that exist at an Army Training Center. The Commander, a Colonel Menist, was the son of a General who had commanded the Division for over ten years in the distant past. Colonel Menist would not assign me as his executive officer even though I was the senior officer. He wanted me to compete with another Lieutenant Colonel who I knew had been relieved of command. This is not the Army way of determining who was to be in the assignment. The Army uses strict seniority. Colonel Menist also wanted me to be at meetings which conflicted with my civilian job. He was unbending on this. As a result, I called the Deputy Commanding General of the Division and demanded to be reassigned to Saint Louis, the reserve holding area for unassigned reservists. I told the General that I had 18 ½ years good years for retirement and that I would finish the National Security Management Program (a long correspondence course) which would help me qualify me for promotion). I was surprised that after all my years of service in the division that no further efforts were made to retain me and it speaks to the political power of Colonel Menist. I have no regrets in making this decision as later developments would be very beneficial.
I heard from reservists that there was a need in Hawaii for reservists. I called Hawaii and they asked that I send them some documents on myself which I did. I was hired to work in support of the Command Center at CINCPAC (Commander in Chief Pacific Command). I was able to be assigned to Hawaii for over eight years and this very good assignment allowed me to play some great golf courses and have a very good time. CINCPAC supervises all the military forces in the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean including Japan, Korea, etc. It is also responsible to track all the potential opposition forces in the area. When the war broke out with Iraq, a crisis action team was set up in this command and I was part of this team. After a successful annual training tour with CINCPAC, my file was submitted for promotion to full Colonel and I was selected for this promotion. CINCPAC decided to place me in a position that they held and I was assigned as a Command Duty Officer. This assignment was the most responsible positions that I held as a commissioned officer in the military. At CINCPAC is a very large war room that would be used to Command allied forces in action any where in the Pacific. It is also is in the deployment chain for nuclear weapons. The large war room was split in two halves. One half tracked the friendly operational forces and the other half of the building tracked the potential opposition forces. There was on full Colonel in charge of the War room during a twelve hour shift and this is the position that I was assigned to. I was given a two week training period for this assignment and went through the training with a Marine active duty full Colonel. The position involved a lot of reading during the shift and decision making. During the two weeks of duty, I was usually given two to three days off. It was heaven.
I was on duty and made key decisions when the air bus was shot down in the Mideast and advised the CINC (Commander in Chief) that this was an air bus and not a war aircraft that was shot down.
I was deceived into leaving this assignment. I was called by a Lieutenant Colonel from RCPAC (organization back east that controlled the assignment of Officers in Enlisted personnel for the Army Reserves) who told me that I had been selected for a new assignment because of my excellent record and responsible assignments. I should have run for cover and told him to forget it. He told me that I would be assigned to Japan as a Foreign area Specialist. I had enjoyed Japan when I had been hospital patient there and thought this would be a concluding assignment in the reserves. I asked him if he could guarantee this assignment and he said he could. This did not work out. The Army staff in Japan wanted a Japanese Officer who was on active duty in the Washington D.C. area or they did not want anyone. The Army staff in Japan deleted the position. By that time, they had filled my past Hawaii position with another Officer. This same Lieutenant Colonel told me that he would bump another Officer that was less qualified then me in Hawaii so I could stay in Hawaii. This did not work because the active duty staff who was in Hawaii had become attached to the Officer in that assignment and they had trained him to at least empty the ash trays as they said. They stopped my assignment by changing the code on the assignment number so I was no longer qualified for the assignment. The Lieutenant Colonel told me that he could get me assignments in the Washington D.C. area and that could land myself a job there if I liked. I was getting to the end of my career and thought I would enjoy a few weeks in the Washington D.C. area. The first two week assignment was working in the academic school part of the Defense Intelligence Agency. I did various administrative tasks for them. While there I sold myself to an Army Colonel who was the Chief of the Soviet Branch of the Defense Intelligence Agency. I would be his reserve Deputy. This Officer retired and I did get to serve a two weeks in this assignment. The Air Force Officer who replaced him apparently did not want me and the assignment did not stick. The two weeks I did do for them was interesting and reflects the changing times in the United States and the Soviet Union. For many years the top Branch in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was the Soviet Branch because of the concern that the Soviet Threat represented for the United States. Because of the Soviet Unions disintegration, the Soviet Branch was no longer the top dog in the DIA. I was assigned to do a survey of the morale problems and thoughts of the staff. I just did a similar survey for my graduate thesis in college and know exactly what to do. I constructed a form which staff members were to fill out and I also did personnel interviews with key staff members. They let me know what they thought in great detail. The forms worked good to because it gave staff the opportunity to submit them anonymously. Some of the forms were filled with hate. The staff there were suffering because many had put a life time into study of the Soviet Union and thought that they would have a rich career only to now know that this effort would not lead to an executive assignment and may not lead to a supervisory position. Because I was a reservist, they were more likely to talk to me. The staff were also experiencing technology overload. They were given new computer systems every two years and by the time they learned the new one, another one arrived. I felt sorry for these staff members. I completed this large assignment within the two weeks allocated and received a nice performance report.
I think that I had given up on the Army at this point. My career had been one of constant struggle against great odds. I knew I could start a letter writing campaign and probably get another two week assignment or more. I just decided that I did not have the energy anymore. I had enjoyed very much my two week assignments in the Washington D.C. area and played on their local golf courses. I also had enjoyed visiting the Vietnam Monument twice. The first visit caused me to have a strong emotional experience and tears went down my cheeks. The second time, these strong feelings did not come to the surface. I think these last assignments in the Washington D.C. area were the right assignment to conclude my career in the Army.
I wanted to have a retirement ceremony and called Fort Irwin and asked that I participate in their ceremony. They did not respond so I wrote an emotional letter to the Commanding General. He responded and let me participate, gave me a retirement certificate and they said some very nice things about me in the ceremony. My wife Linda and her parents were able to attend the ceremony. This ceremony help me put closure on my Army Reserve Career of thirty one and a half years as did my return to Vietnam helped me to close my combat dreams of Vietnam.
In 1973, I discovered as a State Prison employee that I had extra time on my hands and I could use some extra money. I decided that I would overcome any feelings of being rejected by the military when I was released from active duty and try to find a position in the Army Reserve. I called the 91st Division and reported to the Division Headquarters at Fort Baker. The Division Headquarters referred me to the 4th Brigade Headquarters. At the Brigade Headquarters, I was offered two positions. One position was the Drill Sergeants Academy and the other was with the Automotive Battalion. The Automotive Battalion was an Advanced Individual Training Unit that trained truck drivers and mechanics in an Army Training Center for future assignments in active duty units. My attitude towards the military was less then perfect and I chose the Automotive Battalion which is known to be a disciplinary problem in the Military and frequently less then military in the strict sense of the term. I felt this was the unit for me and for four years I experienced a lot of positive experiences being assigned to it.
I was initially assigned as a Company Commander. Since I had actually successfully held this position on active duty, I had a very different perspective on how this should be done then the normal reservist. On one occasion, we went to the rifle range and I remember that it a became a problem for Captain Bourghs, our supply officer, that we were missing two rifle magazines. We believed that one of the soldiers possessed it. I had the troops fall out and the officers start frisking them and we magically found the magazines laying on the grass. Many of the reserve soldiers that composed the reserves at that time were in the reserves for the sole purpose to avoid the draft. Hair nets were authorized and many of the soldiers were pursuing advanced degrees. My Supply Sergeant was working on a Doctorate in a science related subject at Berkeley. The Battalion Executive Officer, a Major was assigned to the position of Battalion Commander and his position was vacated and open for replacement. Since my permanent reserve date of rank of permanent Captain was the most senior in the unit, I was made the acting Battalion Executive Officer. My file was submitted under the unit vacancy promotion policy and I was selected to promotion to Major, much to my surprise. The reserves filled a void in my life to vent my excess energy and to also help me forget the negative experiences of the prison. Our unit would go to Fort Ord and do our annual training requirements each year. When Fort Ord ceased to be a training center, the unit was flown to Fort Leonard Wood Missouri to do our training. Fort Leonard Wood was not the high light of my military career as far as a place to do active duty. We were kept very busy during our two weeks active duty periods and time passed by rapidly. The prison experience made me a better commissioned officer. I developed a closer, more friendly, helpful manner in the performance of my duties. Because they were reservists, in many or most cases they needed my help to do the most basic activity. I needed to teach, organize, guide and many times, I did the work myself. The full time technicians which were civilians at that time greatly appreciated my attitude and we did a lot of good work together, particularly Mr. Erik Levy.
The reserves went through a major management reorganization and Officers started to be managed regarding their assignments by a central committee at the Division level. I had been in the Battalion for four years and they wanted others to have the opportunity to be Battalion Executive Officers and I was reassigned to the Maneuver Training Command (MTC). This organization administered the Army Training Evaluation Program to Reserve Units in the five western states. This Program was a qualification test to see if the Reserve Unit met the standards of the Army. The standards had been written down by the Army in a manual and we would administer this test. The test was conducted in a field environment and our testers would generate messages to the unit that would cause them to do actions which would put us in a situation to evaluate them. I thought the whole process was unorganized and wanted the messages written out in advances and time phased to the unit, making it similar to what would actually take place in a real situation. The normal practice was to dump the message in a mass on the unit and watch them “jump through their ass” trying to respond to them. I felt this was unrealistic, did not properly allow the unit to respond, did not give the unit time to do some proper research to respond, caused inappropriate stress which demeaned the units members and prevented us from doing an accurate evaluation. The system was not good. I was assigned as one of the Military Police Team Chiefs. I had no back ground in Military Police so immediately enrolled in the correspondence course for the Military Police regarding Military Police subjects only. I was learning. I did know a lot about the military and how to supervise people. I had my work cut out for me because there was some very strong personalities in the Military Police teams who were real life police officers in a variety of duties and law enforcement agencies in the area. Some of these people had some strong personal problems and drank excessively. One of the Captains killed himself while I was assigned to the unit. An alcoholic Major was a Motorcycle Sergeant in San Francisco. He was constantly hazed about the homosexuals in San Francisco. We evaluated a Military Police Company at Fort Lewis Washington, a Military Police Company at Fort Carson, Colorado, and a Military Police Battalion at Camp San Luis Obispo, California while I was in this assignment. I was called back to be the Chief Empire to evaluate the Military Police Battalion from my Battalion Command in San Jose. This developed into an evaluation with a lot of conflict because the active duty Lieutenant Colonel came over and tried to intimidate me and my staff. I kept getting physically closer to him until he understood that he was unwelcome and it was not in his best interest to be behaving improperly with us. I think at that time I had just finished reading the book, “Winning Through Intimidation”.
I had one assignment with the MTC which was very demanding that had nothing to do with Military Police. When I first arrived with MTC, I needed more active duty time to complete my required number of points to have credit for a good retirement year. The Transportation Section of MTC needed a Major as an evaluator and I went down, interviewed and was hired. For this exercise, I was initially assigned to do administrative tasks and when they saw that I had a good attitude and was a worker person, somehow, they decided that I would be a Chief Umpire for the exercise. I was supervised by a full Colonel who was overall in charge of the evaluation. This was a highly political evaluation of five petroleum companies which were based all over the west. The evaluation took place in Fort Irwin in August and it was very hot and dusty there. There was also another Headquarters organization there by the name of a RAOC (Rear Area Organization Control). In a war, this organization would coordinate all the support units behind the combat units. This is a major activity in warfare and the successful movement of supplies to the front line units in a conflict is critical for the success of the combat units. The RAOC was the superior organization in this exercise and they had a Lieutenant Colonel who was their Chief Umpire because they were being evaluated also. An emergency took place during this exercise which I will never forget. The RAOC Chief Umpire controlled some aggressors and they had thrown a hand grenade simulator under a 500 gallon gasoline tanker. These simulators have the potential to start a fire. Major Iseri, later to become my Battalion S-3 Operations Officer, was very worried about it. As a result, I was forced to scramble and drive a jeep through some very deep sand/silt until I found the Lieutenant Colonel Chief Umpire. I told the Colonel, once I found him that he and I would be going to Levenworth (a near by post called Fort Levenworth is the home for the Army’s Command and General Staff Course) for the long course at the Military prison there if he did not get control of the aggressors. The aggressors were subsequently restrained in their activities for the rest of the exercise. One of my strongest lessons from this exercise was after the exit brief, and we told the unit of their evaluation results, we needed to clear out of the area for our own physical safety. Some of the unit members that had been evaluated would start drinking and the built up tension would spill out and result in it being unsafe for us. I would use this precept in future evaluations.
In 1979, I completed the Correspondence Course “Command and General Staff Course” and my file was submitted for consideration to promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, again under the Unit Vacancy Plan. I was surprised to be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and was given command of the worst unit in the 91st Division regarding its strength. The unit did not have enough people assigned to fill its vacant positions. At that time the Reserve Unit Commanders and the soldiers of the units were required to recruit soldiers for their units. This was a very demanding activity and I had a lot of experience recruiting in my previous reserve assignments. Reservist were rapidly leaving the reserves because they no longer needed the reserves to keep them from being drafted into the active duty military. The draft had been stopped. For years in the reserves, I would attend meetings where I was threatened if I did not get the strength of the Unit up to the standard by recruiting more people into the reserves. This situation improved when the government allocated funds for full time recruiters to assist us to do this job. I believed that I needed to jointly focus on recruiting and quality training. The quality training would cause the reservists to want to stay in the Reserves once they were recruited into the Unit. I also knew that to successfully supervise a Battalion, I needed to get control of the Sergeants who are the heart of any unit. They needed to be positively recognized for their achievements. They also need to be assigned to give training classes well in advance to allow them to adequately provide the training. I also knew to do these tasks that I needed to do what I had not seen most of the Battalion Commanders do that I had previously worked with. Most of them would sit behind their desks and use the weekend as a library period where they would get caught up with their correspondence. This resulted in the unit doing largely as they might and with little direction. I vowed to change this usual pattern. I had us plan training a year in advance, including the assignment of instructors to teach specific classes. I also required our active duty recruiter to attend one day of our drill weekend. We also shared the same building with another Reserve Battalion. This Battalion was on the first floor of the building and we were on the second floor. Likely recruits that were referred to us frequently would go to the other Battalion because there was no sign on the first floor telling them where we were located. I had an independent sign located at the entrance to the building identifying where we were located. I also had a medal committee composed of the Unit Sergeant Major, myself and the Senior Unit Technician, Major Foster. We went through the entire list of unit members and designated deserving individuals to receive medals, assigned Officers to write the medals and I provided them with examples to write the medals with. All these things worked. We went from the worst strength to the highest strength in the Division within six months. They assembled all the divisions Officers and senior Sergeants in an auditorium and had me explain how I did it. I received a medal for this. We lead the division in strength the entire time I was a Battalion Commander and I received a number of very nice officer efficiency reports because of this. It was a significant factor in my promotion to Full Colonel before I had reached twenty years of commissioned service, a rare accomplishment. Less then five percent of all commissioned officers are promoted to the rank of Full Colonel
A made many decisions that were very correct regarding this unit. One of my decision was a bad one which I will disclose now. The final two week annual training period that I participated in with this unit took place at Fort Jackson. We had done a very good job during these two weeks. As a special reward, I wanted to present the Battalion with a treat. We always had a final party to celebrate this event and I asked that extra alcohol be provided the soldiers against the advise of our mess Warrant Officer. This resulted in some fighting among our soldiers in the barracks which I and the Officers of the unit responded to. We stopped it. Also, one of our Senior Sergeants smashed the side of an Army bus into a pole at the conclusion of the party. The unit knew I was being reassigned and gave me a Drill Sergeant Hat mounted on a plaque with my name and unit engraved on it. I greatly appreciated this gift and it will hang on the wall of my house indefinitely.
Unfortunately, this was my final assignment to a reserve Unit. I was reassigned to a new unit called Training Command which had all the training committees assigned to it that exist at an Army Training Center. The Commander, a Colonel Menist, was the son of a General who had commanded the Division for over ten years in the distant past. Colonel Menist would not assign me as his executive officer even though I was the senior officer. He wanted me to compete with another Lieutenant Colonel who I knew had been relieved of command. This is not the Army way of determining who was to be in the assignment. The Army uses strict seniority. Colonel Menist also wanted me to be at meetings which conflicted with my civilian job. He was unbending on this. As a result, I called the Deputy Commanding General of the Division and demanded to be reassigned to Saint Louis, the reserve holding area for unassigned reservists. I told the General that I had 18 ½ years good years for retirement and that I would finish the National Security Management Program (a long correspondence course) which would help me qualify me for promotion). I was surprised that after all my years of service in the division that no further efforts were made to retain me and it speaks to the political power of Colonel Menist. I have no regrets in making this decision as later developments would be very beneficial.
I heard from reservists that there was a need in Hawaii for reservists. I called Hawaii and they asked that I send them some documents on myself which I did. I was hired to work in support of the Command Center at CINCPAC (Commander in Chief Pacific Command). I was able to be assigned to Hawaii for over eight years and this very good assignment allowed me to play some great golf courses and have a very good time. CINCPAC supervises all the military forces in the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean including Japan, Korea, etc. It is also responsible to track all the potential opposition forces in the area. When the war broke out with Iraq, a crisis action team was set up in this command and I was part of this team. After a successful annual training tour with CINCPAC, my file was submitted for promotion to full Colonel and I was selected for this promotion. CINCPAC decided to place me in a position that they held and I was assigned as a Command Duty Officer. This assignment was the most responsible positions that I held as a commissioned officer in the military. At CINCPAC is a very large war room that would be used to Command allied forces in action any where in the Pacific. It is also is in the deployment chain for nuclear weapons. The large war room was split in two halves. One half tracked the friendly operational forces and the other half of the building tracked the potential opposition forces. There was on full Colonel in charge of the War room during a twelve hour shift and this is the position that I was assigned to. I was given a two week training period for this assignment and went through the training with a Marine active duty full Colonel. The position involved a lot of reading during the shift and decision making. During the two weeks of duty, I was usually given two to three days off. It was heaven.
I was on duty and made key decisions when the air bus was shot down in the Mideast and advised the CINC (Commander in Chief) that this was an air bus and not a war aircraft that was shot down.
I was deceived into leaving this assignment. I was called by a Lieutenant Colonel from RCPAC (organization back east that controlled the assignment of Officers in Enlisted personnel for the Army Reserves) who told me that I had been selected for a new assignment because of my excellent record and responsible assignments. I should have run for cover and told him to forget it. He told me that I would be assigned to Japan as a Foreign area Specialist. I had enjoyed Japan when I had been hospital patient there and thought this would be a concluding assignment in the reserves. I asked him if he could guarantee this assignment and he said he could. This did not work out. The Army staff in Japan wanted a Japanese Officer who was on active duty in the Washington D.C. area or they did not want anyone. The Army staff in Japan deleted the position. By that time, they had filled my past Hawaii position with another Officer. This same Lieutenant Colonel told me that he would bump another Officer that was less qualified then me in Hawaii so I could stay in Hawaii. This did not work because the active duty staff who was in Hawaii had become attached to the Officer in that assignment and they had trained him to at least empty the ash trays as they said. They stopped my assignment by changing the code on the assignment number so I was no longer qualified for the assignment. The Lieutenant Colonel told me that he could get me assignments in the Washington D.C. area and that could land myself a job there if I liked. I was getting to the end of my career and thought I would enjoy a few weeks in the Washington D.C. area. The first two week assignment was working in the academic school part of the Defense Intelligence Agency. I did various administrative tasks for them. While there I sold myself to an Army Colonel who was the Chief of the Soviet Branch of the Defense Intelligence Agency. I would be his reserve Deputy. This Officer retired and I did get to serve a two weeks in this assignment. The Air Force Officer who replaced him apparently did not want me and the assignment did not stick. The two weeks I did do for them was interesting and reflects the changing times in the United States and the Soviet Union. For many years the top Branch in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was the Soviet Branch because of the concern that the Soviet Threat represented for the United States. Because of the Soviet Unions disintegration, the Soviet Branch was no longer the top dog in the DIA. I was assigned to do a survey of the morale problems and thoughts of the staff. I just did a similar survey for my graduate thesis in college and know exactly what to do. I constructed a form which staff members were to fill out and I also did personnel interviews with key staff members. They let me know what they thought in great detail. The forms worked good to because it gave staff the opportunity to submit them anonymously. Some of the forms were filled with hate. The staff there were suffering because many had put a life time into study of the Soviet Union and thought that they would have a rich career only to now know that this effort would not lead to an executive assignment and may not lead to a supervisory position. Because I was a reservist, they were more likely to talk to me. The staff were also experiencing technology overload. They were given new computer systems every two years and by the time they learned the new one, another one arrived. I felt sorry for these staff members. I completed this large assignment within the two weeks allocated and received a nice performance report.
I think that I had given up on the Army at this point. My career had been one of constant struggle against great odds. I knew I could start a letter writing campaign and probably get another two week assignment or more. I just decided that I did not have the energy anymore. I had enjoyed very much my two week assignments in the Washington D.C. area and played on their local golf courses. I also had enjoyed visiting the Vietnam Monument twice. The first visit caused me to have a strong emotional experience and tears went down my cheeks. The second time, these strong feelings did not come to the surface. I think these last assignments in the Washington D.C. area were the right assignment to conclude my career in the Army.
I wanted to have a retirement ceremony and called Fort Irwin and asked that I participate in their ceremony. They did not respond so I wrote an emotional letter to the Commanding General. He responded and let me participate, gave me a retirement certificate and they said some very nice things about me in the ceremony. My wife Linda and her parents were able to attend the ceremony. This ceremony help me put closure on my Army Reserve Career of thirty one and a half years as did my return to Vietnam helped me to close my combat dreams of Vietnam.
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