Suzanne Rice

Apr 22 2023

Duty, Honor, Country – Motto Lived – 1971

Author’s note: I shared this story about Barry McGee with my A-2 mates at a recent reunion. Several advocated that I should share this anecdote with the Class.

Most of our class know of the heralding accounts of Barry’s last moments at Firebase Mary Ann. Our classmate Tom Hayes later recounted to me that he, being a member of a sister company in Barry’s battalion, entered Firebase Mary Ann the morning after. Blood and mayhem everywhere. A survivor approached him: “Hey, aren’t you a West Pointer? Wasn’t Lt. McGee your classmate?”

‘Yes’.

“Well, your Class should be proud. Barry was the one bright spot in this grim debacle. It would have been a lot worse had it not been for Lt. McGee.”

Yet very few know my account of his unsettling premonition of the fate that awaited him in The Republic of Vietnam.

Barry and I were roommates first semester plebe year, along with Ron Wasilewski.

Most know Barry hailed from Detroit, street tough and smart. Golden Gloves boxer. Think of a Rocky Balboa from Detroit—smarter but with the same big heart. He eagerly shared his boxing prowess with me, and it was during one of his ‘lessons’ that he broke my nose. But I digress.

It was halfway through the semester through the toil of plebe math. Our desks abutted face to face. On this now fateful evening, Barry looked up from the calculus text, looked directly at me, clearly wanting to tell me something and then aloud stated, out of the cold clear blue: “I am going to die in Vietnam as an infantryman.” ‘What?’ I responded. He repeated, “I am going to die in Vietnam as an infantryman.” Of course, I had no response to that other than— ‘get outta here…’ Or something to that effect. And trying to change the mood perhaps, “hey I can’t do number 6—did you figure that one out?”

We never discussed it again, and I have no insight as to how he received that premonition. Later Barry joined the cadre to create D-2 and we interacted less. It was not until I heard of his death in March of ’71 that I recalled his statement to me that distant evening. The moment still haunts me. I regret that I did not realize then in 1965 that I was honored to share space and time with an American hero. I would have treasured our time more.

In our Class yearbook we admonished each other to ‘march to the sound of the guns’, which many of our Class obeyed many times over. Barry heard the drumbeat and responded early. Even knowing his ominous foreboding, he ‘marched’ nonetheless. Did he ‘march’ in response to Duty, ‘choosing the harder right instead than the easier wrong’? Or did he ‘march’ to uphold Honor, ‘to live above the common level of life’? Or did he ‘march’ in response to the call of Country, ‘no substitute for victory’? I suspect, knowing Barry, it was all three.

A Semi-final Resting Place, Part 1 – 2018

Mar 27 2023

The 25th Infantry Ends Combat Operations – 1970

In early November 1970, it was announced that the 25^th Infantry Division would be ceasing combat operations before the end of the year. That same week I was helicoptered from the field to the squadron headquarters at Chu Chi to receive, along with a dozen other soldiers, a Purple Heart resulting from my injuries in September.

Despite the short time remaining, the squadron had been assigned a new commander whom I met for the first time. With Army units being withdrawn throughout Vietnam, there was a concerted effort to provide “combat command time” to as many officers as possible. My West Point classmates and I, who began arriving in Vietnam in the summer of 1970, would suffer from this unofficial practice more than any other academy class. In my first ten months in Vietnam as a Lieutenant I would serve under five Captains and four Colonels, not a good situation for any junior officer in wartime.

The final four weeks in the field would be a period of intense activity for me and my platoon. We provided security while combat engineers recovered Bailey bridges, used our demolitions to destroy contaminated fuel at an abandon artillery fire base, conducted a final recon of previous areas of enemy activity, and provided road security for numerous truck convoys. As our divisional units withdrew our local Viet Cong used the opportunity to mine our withdrawal routes and harass us with occasional mortar fire while avoiding any significant engagements.

The main road we were responsible for securing was unpaved and ideal for the use of antitank mines. We were particularly wary of the many civilian mopeds from which a mine could be dropped undetected into a puddle of water. We quickly learned that when local traffic started avoiding a spot in the road there was probably a good reason. Many of my NCO’s, had first-hand experience with mines and stayed away from them. Some of my younger soldiers, however, loved the challenge of being the first to find one and to probe it with their bayonet. I was impressed with the skill with which they could disarm a mine and their bravery, or maybe foolishness.

**With One of the Younger Soldiers**, **Inspecting an Anti-tank Mine**

In mid-November my platoon was given the mission of conducting reconnaissance in a remote area. The only access to the site was along a old logging road bordered by dense jungle. The dirt road was only wide enough for a single vehicle, and as the road narrowed, I became very anxious about the potential for my APC’s running over a mine. I decided to dismount my vehicle with four infantry soldiers and walk in front of the lead vehicle, hoping to find any mines in shallow soil. We had gone about a half mile when there was a huge explosion, the force of which blew me and my infantry to the ground. The third vehicle in my column, in which my platoon sergeant was riding, had hit a large mine.

I immediately ran back to the vehicle to see if anyone was wounded. The first thing I noticed was that the heavily armored cupola that sits on top of the vehicle with a 50-caliber machine gun had been blown off and was nowhere to be seen. I did not see the track commander who had been sitting in the cupola either. I immediately assumed the worst. I climbed on the top of the vehicle and looked into the crew compartment to see my platoon sergeant and two other soldiers staring at me with dazed eyes and blood dripping from their ears, a sign of a concussion. “Are you ok?” I yelled. They looked up at me, saying nothing, and I immediately shouted, “medic.” I looked down into the driver’s compartment and saw the unconscious driver with his head hanging down. As I reached down to pull him out of his seat, his head fell back, and I noticed a large piece of metal from the floor armor had been blown up into his neck and that he was bleeding from several wounds in his stomach. Doc, our medic, was right behind me, and he and several others lifted the driver out. Doc immediately began trying to stop the bleeding from the driver’s neck and stabilize his condition.

I ran to my command track and called on the radio for helicopter medevac of my five wounded soldiers. As I was doing so, the track commander, who had been sitting in the cupola came staggering out of the jungle. The mine had blown him into the air and landed him fifty feet away. Miraculously, he had not been seriously wounded or injured. Four of the soldiers, including my platoon sergeant, would be medevac’d but would recover and continue their Vietnam tours. The seriously injured driver, however, was flown to Japan for further medical treatment. The division surgeon would later credit my medic, with saving the driver’s life that day.

One day on road security, we had a break, and I directed my vehicle commanders to use the time to clean the trash out of their vehicles and burn it. Specialist Carson was my track commander and one of the most professional soldiers in my platoon. He immediately dug a sump pit and began throwing our vehicle trash inside. In keeping with a common practice in the field, I cut a piece of C4 explosive and tossed it in the hole, knowing that it would not explode but would create a very hot fire. I picked up a half empty C ration box and without thinking, threw it in the hole. In my haste I failed to notice that the box included a can of baked beans that had not been opened. Specialist Carson, who was about six feet away from the burning fire, started to say something to me, when suddenly “Crack.” The can of beans suddenly exploded. Carson walked over to me, blood dripping from his face and I realized a piece of metal from the exploding can had struck him right between his eyes. As he stood there, I reached with my hand, pulled the piece of metal from the bridge of his nose. He insisted he was alright, but I ordered him to “Go see the medic and get it bandaged.” He came back later with a small band-aid on his nose, which brought relief and laughter to all of us. I still feel bad to this day that I had been so careless.

**Cavalry Sheridan Tank with RPG Screen**

By the end of November, we were in the last week of combat operations. For our last night in the field our new squadron commander brought elements from all three cavalry troops together in a single night position. In the middle of our defensive perimeter were a half-dozen M577 squadron command and control vehicles with their large tents extended. We made an easy target for any Vietcong who might want to fire a mortar or rocket. As it turned out, one did.

A single enemy soldier crawled in a ditch along the road near our position and just before nightfall, fired a rocket-propelled grenade at one of our Sheridan tanks. Each Sheridan carried a roll of heavy mesh wire placed in front of the vehicle at night to protect against just such a threat. When the RPG hit the mesh wire, it detonated prematurely but several men relaxing on the back of the Sheridan were hit with fragments.

Hearing the explosion and the call for “medic”, we all ran to our armored vehicles and prepared for action. For a moment, everything was quiet. As I glanced across the perimeter, I observed a crewmember hastily trying to fire a night flare that was not well aimed. It hit the 50-caliber machine gun and bounced back, creating a bright flash inside his vehicle. The appearance to everyone was that the track had been hit by enemy fire.

Suddenly the entire squadron spontaneously opened fire with 50-caliber machine guns and small arms. The noise was deafening as three cavalry troops unleashed tens of thousands of 50-caliber rounds from our position. After several minutes of continuous firing and total confusion, “cease fire” came over the radio and the firing stopped almost as quickly as it had started. This “mad minute” was probably one of the few times in the entire war that the squadron had fought as a single unit. We had three soldiers slightly wounded and no confirmed damage to the enemy. it was a fitting ending to our last night in the field.

After almost five years of deployment in Vietnam, 3^rd Squadron 4^th Cavalry returned to Cui Chi for the last time on 1 December 1970. That day was one of the last we would all be together as almost immediately reassignment orders started arriving and vehicle and equipment turn-in in Long Bien began. There would be no “job well done” formation except for the small contingency of officers remaining a month later with nothing but the squadron colors. With my platoon sergeant still in the hospital I had no time to reminisce or rest before I departed myself for my new unit four days later. Before I left, I walked around and said good-by to those remaining soldiers from my platoon and fellow officers that I could find. It was not what I would have wanted as a farewell after the experiences we had shared together, but it was what the situation provided. Except for one officer, I would never see any of those I served with in A Troop again.

Two days later I was flying north from Tan Son Nhut Air Base to the highlands of II Corps to my new assignment. Nothing had surprised me more when I had received my orders than to see that my new assignment was the 173rd Airborne Brigade, and specifically the 1^st Battalion 503^rd Infantry. I was an armor officer, about to be “detailed” as an infantry officer and assigned to an “leg” infantry unit. I couldn’t imagine what job they might have for me, but I was excited about the prospects.

Mar 24 2023

Unexpected Statesmanship Required – 2014

I was a Rotarian from 2007 to 2018, chairing several committees, as well as Secretary and President of the Rotary Club of Pearl Harbor (RCPH). I now routinely attend RCPH meetings as a guest on Zoom from South Carolina. My realtor first invited me to attend a Rotary meeting in Hawaii. Rotary’s motto of “Service Above Self” is still attractive to me. Groups often can accomplish things that individuals cannot, and Rotary is project-oriented both locally and internationally.

On alternating years, the Pearl Harbor Club and the Hiroshima Tonan Club visit the other’s club in their city. The visits are usually 4 days long, with social activities and meetings, including a tree planting and a social call on the mayor. In 2012, while Secretary of RCPH, I had attended the joint meeting of Rotarians with the Hiroshima mayor in his conference room. At that time, I merely shook hands with him, as did each of the Rotarians from the U.S.

In 2014, I was the Pearl Harbor Club President when we were scheduled to visit Hiroshima. As the leader, by custom I sat with the Hiroshima mayor in front of both clubs’ members to exchange pleasantries. The mayor always presented a cloth rendition of the remains of the Genbaku Dome bombed on August 6, 1945 – called the Peace Memorial – which is Hiroshima’s most notable icon.

While sitting with the mayor, I noticed about a dozen additional folks standing behind the seated Rotarians from both Clubs. Because these meetings had always been pro forma exchanges of pleasantries, I was not concerned about the extra attendees. However, the mayor ambushed me with the following question: “Do you think that President Obama should apologize for the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima?” It was only later that I learned that those standing in the room were members of the Japanese press, apparently invited by the mayor to catch my extemporaneous answer to his planned question.

I assume he was unaware that the RCPH President he was addressing was a West Point graduate who had studied the war in the Pacific, and who had both read and watched many recountings of battles, strategies, and Japanese atrocities during the war. Images of the Bataan Death March, Japanese soldiers throwing their own family members over cliffs on Guam, and the attack on Pearl Harbor all flashed in my mind with revulsion. However, I did not feel that this was the time or the place to “relitigate” the war. Rather, I tried to take a straight-forward, peace-keeping approach even though he chose to ask this question of someone who was not an official representative of the American government.

I said three things to the mayor and audience. “First, I am not a politician. Second, as I look around the room, I do not see anyone who was likely old enough to have been in Hiroshima that day. Finally, there was much animus in each club toward ‘the other side’ when the idea of a sister club relationship between these two clubs was proposed in the early 80’s. It took until 1984 for the Rotarians of each Club to decide to look forward, not backward, as the strategy to form this now well-established relationship. So, I suggest we all look forward, not backward.”

So much for a strictly social visit with the mayor! The Americans in the room, many of them veterans were proud of my reply; the Japanese did not discuss the question or my reply, so I don’t know what they thought of the exchange. While there were articles printed in Japanese newspapers the next day, I did not obtain a translation.

**Newspaper Article After the Rotary Meeting**

Notably, there is a substantial amount of “revisionist” history taught in Japanese schools and presented in the Peace Memorial Museum. Younger generations appear to be unaware that the attack on Pearl Harbor was without warning, and that Japan was the aggressor in the Pacific war.

Two years later, in May 2016, President Obama went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park where he delivered a speech expressing concern about nuclear weapons but did not apologize for bombing Hiroshima.

Then in December 2016, Japanese Prime Minister Abe went to Pearl Harbor and delivered a speech expressing condolences but not apologizing for the attack on Pearl Harbor. I read an article in a Japanese publication translated into English with the opinion that: “The overwhelming sense is that the Japanese leader [Abe] would very much like the two visits to mark the end of an era in which, in his opinion, too much time was spent looking back on history and too little time invested in building on a relationship that is critically important to the shared security and economic futures of the two nations.”

That was what I tried to say in 2014: “Look forward, not backwards.” Not too bad for an amateur!

(As a footnote, when the sister club relationship was being developed, RCPH had several WW2 veteran Rotarians, some who previously had been about to deploy for the invasion of Japan, and one Rotarian (CAPT Jim Daniels) who was one of the few US pilots able to get in the air from the USS Enterprise on December 6, 1941 to look for the retreating Japanese fleet. Six of those planes were directed to land at Ford Island at Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately, all six of the planes were shot at by anxious Navy seamen. CAPT Daniels’ plane was the only one not shot down, and he was one of only three survivors. Fittingly, he was also in the air over Tokyo Bay during Japan’s signing of their surrender to GEN MacArthur on the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945.)

Mar 01 2023

Duty, Honor, Country – Through the Years with Coach K

My first experience with Mike Krzyzewski was as a Company mate the first two years, before I was shuttled off to a new Company. The first plebe year re-sectioning for English class was alphabetical by last name. There were “J” and “K” names in my section. The instructor wanted to make sure he said everyone’s name correctly, and when he came to Mike, he asked how to pronounce it. After the instructor tried several times, he said, “I’ll just call you Mike,” and he did.

My parents and younger brother and two sisters were avid Army sports fans, as was I. My parents went to Mike’s wedding, and all of us followed his playing and coaching career both at WP and Duke. I enjoyed watching him make 11 points in an Army-Navy game. The best as a coach was the 104-103 Duke over Kentucky in overtime in 1992.

In 1978, living near Rochester, NY where I worked, I was surprised to get a phone call from Mike. At that time, Mike was coach of the Army team. It was the opening game of the season, and Army was going to play the University of Rochester on their court. Mike said he was sure we would win, anyway, “But, Bobby, can you get a scouting report for Rochester? We don’t know anything about them.” I said I would see what I could do. That afternoon, scouting reports for all the local teams were in the afternoon paper, so I sent it to West Point. Mike sent me a ticket and Army won by 20 points. Mike spoke briefly to me and many local high school coaches he knew, too, as he walked to the locker room after the game.

Years later, in the early 90s, Duke was playing in a tournament at Madison Square Garden in New York City. I was working for West Point Admissions and was taking a plane to a Winter By-Invitation meeting in the mid-west. Arriving at Newark Airport with plenty of time to spare, I strolled through the area. At a gate that was otherwise unoccupied, there was Mike talking into a microphone, responding to questions for a weekly radio program called “This Week in the ACC.” I sat way off to the side, and when the taping was over, Mike came over for a nice chat.

Feb 18 2023

Country – Reflections

In keeping with this site’s call for reflective articles on the meaning of West Point’s motto to us over the years, I offer this impression on the third, and perhaps most profound, word of the three, ‘Country’. Previously I wrote one on ‘Duty’ and then one on ‘Honor’, citing the unexpected (at least when we were cadets) complexities and dilemmas that duty might demand by citing the 1994 Rwandan genocide in the first case, and offering in the second essay the example of the absence of honor to emphasize its critical importance by describing a corrupted prison system in Florida. The bottom line on both words — duty and honor — is that they are key, even noble, concepts that are worthy and necessary characteristics in addressing any event or challenge. Therefore, West Point was right to impress upon us their importance and helped prepare us to take on the challenges that came before us over the year in one way or another.

But what of ‘country’? Why do I say it may be the most profound of the three and therefore by implication the most binding and compelling? The simple answer is that the first two are concepts, essentially intangibles. We speak of ‘doing’ our duty and of doing it ‘with’ honor. Country, on the other hand, is tangible, an entity that exists in form and construct. It is a place as well as an idea, an entity that is defined by geographic boundaries and a system of laws and precedents with both the reality and the idea simultaneously empowered and constrained by a document known as the Constitution. We speak of and act in service to our country, as we pledged on that first day on the Plain in the summer of 1965 and again on the day we were commissioned in the summer of 1969.

It was important that we understood from the very beginning that we were to be subordinate to a higher entity and its lawful civilian leadership. After all, we were to be ‘soldiers of the state’, commissioned officers in fact, given authority over the armed elements the country would need to defend itself and to ‘uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States’. These were not mere words, but a solemn undertaking. They would put us in difficult places under challenging circumstances. For some of us, it would cost them their lives. We knew it was a solemn oath when we took it, but few – if any – knew how solemn.

**“I swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States…”**

As the years passed, some of the Class of 1969 put military duty behind them. Eventually, all of us did. But hardly any of us left the concepts of duty, honor, and country behind. In many walks of life, we ‘soldiered’ on, subordinating ourselves and our egos to those values. Together, they mark a trinity of loyalty and faith, of pride and destiny. We had come to fully realize their value, their meaning, their worth — not only to us but for the greater good.

Therefore, they do not and cannot stand alone. Each is important in its own right, but their power is greatly multiplied when joined together as one. But consider this. What has penetrated most deeply of all into our psyches is the image of country – our country, the United States of America. It is a great country, an exceptional country, which each and every citizen is privileged to be a part of. Paul Johnson, the prolific and renowned British historian who only recently passed from this earth, cited it as a ‘marvelous’ country. Having lived abroad for 17 plus years and visited dozens of other countries (to include Russia and China), for the most part in the line of duty, and having read extensively of other places and times, I would have to agree with him. There has never been another country like it.

Johnson also wrote in his award-winning book, ‘The History of the American People’ that he would hear no more of hyphenated Americans. “They are all Americans,” he stated, “… [a] black, white, red, brown, yellow swirling maelstrom of history which has produced the most remarkable people the world has ever seen.” My mother would agree with him. The daughter of immigrants (likewise her husband, my father) she replied with understandable umbrage, in 1942, to a questioner who, noting her Italian ethnicity, asked what country her recently drafted brother would be fighting for in the war (she was in Alabama at the time to catch a last few days with my father before he deployed to Europe): “America, of course. We are Americans.”

**Lucy McDonough (Nee Buonomano), Wedding Day February 15th, 1942**

All along, the graduates of the West Point Class of 1969 have known intrinsically the wisdom of our West Point motto, but above all we have come to realize the beauty, value, and uniqueness of our country. We are proud of having done our duty (“…May it be said, ‘Well done’…) and we have strived to serve and live with honor (“…To keep thine honor bright…”), but we say and mean, without any self-consciousness, that we love our country. What greater emotion can one feel than love for someone or something cherished. Aside from our relationship with our Creator, what greater allegiance can there be? Duty, Honor, Country.

*Drafted early in 1942 and shipped shortly thereafter to England. Retired as a Master Sergeant in 1965.