Suzanne Rice

Aug 22 2022

9-11 Near Philadelphia – 2001

by Bernie Tatro

I was at work as Director of Marketing for Jerome Medical in a New Jersey suburb of Philadelphia. Someone received a call about the first attack, and I brought up CNN on my PC to get details. There was general shock among the employees. After the attacks on NYC, I thought this might be a first attack on major cities around the U.S. and suspected Philadelphia might be on the target list. I called my wife at home (fortunately about 20 miles from Philly, so probably not on any target list), and I suggested she fill available containers with water in case supplies were cut off. I was concerned that this might be the beginning of attacks on infrastructure, so water, power, etc., might be at risk. In any case, “Plan for the worst; hope for the best.” I also asked her to stay in the house, but she said we needed food, and so went for groceries, which was her normal routine, anyway.

As we now know, things got worse as the second tower was hit, both towers fell, the Pentagon was hit, and brave passengers fought the terrorists and sacrificed their lives bringing the plane down in Pennsylvania. Everyone remained at work, but we were all depressed and distracted. Meanwhile, available ambulances from Philadelphia and elsewhere raced to New York to help. I lived about 5 miles from the office and had no difficulty getting home, or to work the rest of the week. Fortunately, I had no need to go through Philadelphia; don’t know how it was there. The only noteworthy thing about driving was courteous behavior. Drivers waved to each other and readily yielded right-of-way.

The following weekend, I attended a business meeting. Fortunately, it was within driving distance, so I was not affected by the grounding of commercial airplanes. When I returned home on Sunday, I found all my neighbors gathered together in the yard of the house next door. There was no occasion, other than a desire to just “be together.” We were kind of an extended family, and it was comforting to be together.

My father enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor. I think after this I knew how he felt.

Aug 22 2022

9-11 In Northern Virginia – 2001

by Glenn Porter

As a Department of Defense contractor, I arrived at HQ Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) at 9:00 A.M. to sign a new contract scheduled for 9:30 A.M. – it was supposed to be a good day. We walked into the conference room, and everyone was watching the burning World Trade Center North Tower in New York City on TV. Three minutes later, my heart and lungs felt physically crushed as I watched Flight 175 crash into the South Tower. Our meeting was canceled but no one left – we continued to listen and watch in disbelief, silence, and tears as the news tried to keep up with the events of that morning. One of our team arrived 5 minutes late and shouted that an airliner had just passed low over our building. It turned out to be Flight 77 that then crashed a few seconds later into the western façade of the ill-fated Pentagon, a little over a mile to our east.

**Map Shows Glenn’s Location at the Red Dot Just Below Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall and His Daughter’s Location in the Open Space Just West of the Air Force Memorial in Relation to the Pentagon** (Google)

Almost directly between my location and the Pentagon, my daughter was working in Wing 7 of the Navy Annex just across Route 27 from the Pentagon. She was entering a conference room when the plane hit and had to grab the doorframe as the building shook so much. She and others then went outside and saw the Pentagon burning.

**View from Outside Wing 7 of the Navy Annex**

All who worked there were told to leave immediately (as were many in the area), but she could not get to her car as it was in the parking lot nearest the Pentagon. She started towards home with a friend by car. Many of my company’s employees worked in Government buildings, and we spent the rest of the day accounting for each one, including one who worked in the Pentagon – thankfully all were safe. Because of the overwhelmed phone and cell systems, we didn’t get confirmation until late in the day. I tried to get my daughter but couldn’t connect. After our daughter took buses and got rides from other friends, she finally showed up at our house in the late afternoon.

My wife and I took our daughter back after midnight to get her car (figuring the security perimeter would have been reduced by then). I used my retired Army ID card to be allowed through law enforcement checkpoints to reach her car. Before leaving, we stood together on the shoulder of Route 27 facing the still burning western Pentagon façade, emblazoned in lights, workers and vehicles in action everywhere, with the iconic huge American flag illuminated and hanging down – at that moment I felt an overwhelming sadness, a boiling anger and a feeling that things would never be the same again. My family remembers my anger. God bless all who died that day.

Jul 22 2022

Honor On the Line – The Seventh Flimsy, 1971

by Eric Robyn

1971 … a period of extreme turbulence in the Army and American society.

I had just returned home from Vietnam. Reunited with my wife Sally and 8-month-old son, Paul, I quickly packed them up and flew to my next unit in West Germany. Assigned to the 210^th Field Artillery Brigade, we arrived in April 1971 in the town of Ansbach, about 35 miles west of Nuremberg. *

Although our sponsor was a no-show, when we finally arrived at the BOQ (bachelor officer guest quarters) in Ansbach, we were warmly greeted by my dear friend and West Point classmate Bill Rice, https://thedaysforward.com/bill-rice/ who was assigned in the Brigade headquarters as Assistant S-3 (Operations). Bill and I had known each other since grammar school days in St. Louis and later graduated together as members of the US Military Academy Class of 1969. Unmarried at the time, Bill generously helped us get settled in Ansbach, even loaning us his car while we waited 2 months for ours to be shipped from the States. Incidentally, Bill and I shared the same promotion orders to captain and pinned on captain’s bars standing side-by-side on 4 June 1971, 2 years to the day from our graduation at West Point. We laughed about the simple fact that every first lieutenant who survived to his 2d commissioning anniversary was automatically promoted to captain, so it was no big deal … a handshake, a beer with friends in the club, and a wife who never let me forget I failed to invite her to the ceremony! We soon learned that promotions thereafter were increasingly competitive and slow to come, but much to be celebrated with wives, family, and friends!

I was assigned as the Brigade S-2 (Intelligence Officer) on arrival and would be responsible for safeguarding and maintaining all classified documents and material in the brigade headquarters. With nuclear weapons capability in all our subordinate battalions, we managed literally thousands of pages of documents (all on paper, no computers!) ranging in classification from the lowest “For Official Use Only” to “Confidential”, “Secret”, to the highest “Top Secret.”

To assist me in this daunting mission of guarding, organizing, inventorying, and insuring accessibility to authorized users, I was assigned an Intelligence NCO, Sergeant First Class (SFC) Gonzales. He was an experienced and wise NCO who had done this type of work for several years. Anyone with proper clearance and “need to know” could sign out and return whatever document he needed at any time, noting name, date, and time in our register. SFC Gonzales meticulously maintained records of daily inventories and accountability checks in our logbook. At that time, all nuclear capable artillery units operated under a “zero defects” atmosphere when it came to any nuclear operation: assembly, transport, guarding, deployment, communications, surety procedures, etc. In the S-2 shop, we were not directly handling actual nukes like Bill, so we weren’t under the same gun as Bill, so to speak. Nonetheless, we all felt we were always under the intense scrutiny of higher headquarters. Lots of young Field Artillery officers lost their careers by messing up a nuclear inspection!

I was on a fast track of learning the intricacies of classified information, when, as part of many USAREUR unit and headquarters relocations that year, we moved the brigade headquarters to “Herzo Base” in the summer of 1971.** This move required the construction and certification of a secure, reinforced bank-like vault with a dozen high security, fireproof filing cabinets to maintain classified documents to include Top Secret materials, as well providing work space for our desks.

**Entrance to HerzoBase, Herzogenaurach, West Germany**

A few weeks after we had safely moved and accounted for all the classified documents and material in our newly certified vault, SFC Gonzales informed me that he could not find a classified document and considered it might be lost. That got my attention quickly! He explained that during his regular inventory, he could not find the 7th copy of a 3-paragraph, 1-page Confidential document. He showed me the original document, with its paper-clipped 6 carbon-copies (“onion-skin” or “flimsies,” as we called them). Sure enough, the original Confidential document clearly stated, “Original plus 7 copies.” When I read the document, I realized it should never have been classified Confidential by the VII Corps G-4 (Logistics). It referred to a very minor administrative instruction for a military exercise applicable to another unit outside our brigade. But it was classified, in our vault despite its irrelevance, and I was responsible for it. Our records showed the original and copies had been checked out by our brigade S-3 and S-4 sections, so SFC Gonzales and I spoke with everyone who had access, and searched through our vault and all our files, but could not find that single flimsy copy.

I realized that if that flimsy could not be found, I would have to report a missing classified document within 24 hours to VII Corps, which in my mind spelled the end of my career. I let Bill Rice know the situation and he sprang into action quickly, helping to search the entire headquarters, working with me late into the night. But, alas, no 7th flimsy could be found. The next morning, I reported the situation to the brigade executive officer and brigade commander, woefully aware that this incident would reflect negatively on them and our unit when I sent in the report of a missing classified document. The entire brigade staff was now fully engaged to locate that flimsy. The next three days were stressful, not only in continuing the search, but also in hearing other ideas on how to “fix” the problem.

One simple suggestion was to contact the originator who initially classified the document and have him declassify it and thus, instantly, resolve the problem. I contacted the originating officer at VII Corps headquarters, but he showed no interest in reviewing the document or its classification. Door shut!

Pressure built from other sources simply to destroy the original document and its 6 flimsies and then complete a destruction certificate attesting that the original and 7 flimsies were destroyed by shredding and burning. Of course, I would have to be the attesting officer, swearing that I had witnessed the destruction. Here is where my 4 years of living within West Point’s Honor Code (“A Cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do”) caused me to stop and consider.

Bill had heard this idea as well. We discussed the implications. We both knew what the harder right demanded, and I knew I had only one course of action to follow for a clear conscience. My decision was simple: report the document as missing, insignificant as it seemed to be, and let the chips fall where they may. I did so and resigned myself to await the investigation from VII Corps.

After 3 agonizing days, the 7th flimsy mysteriously showed up on SFC Gonzales’ desk. We never learned who returned it, who had it or where it had been, but we gratefully announced its recovery. The investigation was canceled by Corps to everyone’s relief. I continued to serve as S-2 for a few more months before taking command of an artillery battery, but for the remainder of my career my gratitude deepened for the foundation of Honor laid at West Point, and the loyalty and encouragement of friends such as Bill Rice.

There would be many other times in the years ahead when I would be tempted to cut corners or shade things to avoid problems, but the deeply ingrained sense of “choosing the harder right instead of the easier wrong” (as we recited in the Cadet Prayer), would always be a guiding light. As the Scriptures put it in Luke 16:10: “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much.” It is often the little “flimsy” things that trip us up … or challenge us to overcome.

CADET PRAYER

O God, our Father, Thou Searcher of human hearts, help us to draw near to Thee in sincerity and truth. May our religion be filled with gladness and may our worship of Thee be natural.

Strengthen and increase our admiration for honest dealing and clean thinking, and suffer not our hatred of hypocrisy and pretense ever to diminish. Encourage us in our endeavor to live above the common level of life.

Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong and never to be content with a half-truth when the whole can be won.

Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when truth and right are in jeopardy.

Guard us against flippancy and irreverence in the sacred things of life. Grant us new ties of friendship and new opportunities of service. Kindle our hearts in fellowship with those of a cheerful countenance and soften our hearts with sympathy for those who sorrow and suffer.

Help us to maintain the honor of the Corps untarnished and unsullied and to show forth in our lives the ideals of West Point in doing our duty to Thee and to our Country.

All of which we ask in the name of the Great Friend and Master of All. Amen.

* The 210th Field Artillery Brigade (at that time designated as a “Group”), was part of the VII Corps of the US Army, Europe (USAREUR), then comprising the bulk of NATO’s (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) defense against the -Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact forces threatening Europe. Incidentally, one-third of the US Army’s combat divisions and one-fifth of its total manpower was assigned to USAREUR … the deterrent “trip wire” of the Cold War.

** In the West German town of Herzogenaurach, called Herzo Base, because it was a former Luftwaffe Messerschmidt fighter base in WWII. This quaint German village was about 20 miles from Nurnberg and 15 miles from Erlangen.

Jul 16 2022

Tales from Nick’s FARRP – #14 Crazy Stories – 1972

The “Tales from Nick’s FARRP” series are a fictionalized version of real events and are dedicated to the memory of friends and classmates from the Class of 1969.

“So, Tony, were there any funny or crazy things you remember from Vietnam?”

* * * * * *

I was talking to my beer-drinking customer Tony, known to the Army as Major Williams, sitting on a stool on the other side of the bar from me in “Nick’s FARRP.” That was a drinking establishment for Army guys in Fayetteville, North Carolina, just outside Fort Bragg, that my Uncle Nick left me when he died. Some chemical he was exposed to during his three tours in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot, or as they like to call themselves, “aviator,” gave him cancers that he eventually died from.

I know nothing about the Army, so I am always asking the guys in here questions. My name, by the way, is Gil Edwards.

* * * * * *

“Well, Gil,” Major Tony replied, “anyone who ever served in any of the military services can tell you about the crazy and funny things that happened during their time in. Most of the stories you hear these guys here talking about are the crazy things that happened to them. So, yeah, I suppose you could say I have some stories.

“Silliest thing I remember from Vietnam was in late summer of 1972, when three Special Forces guys in a jeep turned up at our aviation field. They had heard that there was a former Green Beret, now an aviator in the 60^th Assault Helicopter Company at Ninh Hoa. Our airfield was located along the South China Sea in central Vietnam, some twenty miles or so north of Nha Trang, so they wanted to look me up.

“They had a proposition for me. It seems that they had a “perfectly good” Bravo-model Huey helicopter they wanted to trade to us for eight cases of steaks.”

“Are you kidding me?” exclaimed the guy sitting next to him, a short younger soldier I knew as Captain Kenny. “They wanted to give you an operational helicopter, in trade for eight cases of steaks? How much does a helicopter like that cost anyway?”

“That, my young friend, is a question I can answer,” replied the stout older Army guy on the other side of Major Tony. I knew him as Chief Warrant Officer Rod Jordan, a long-time Army master aviator who had been best friends with my late Uncle Nick. He had been flying Army helicopters for nearly twenty years, since they had graduated flight school in 1962 and gone to Vietnam for their first flying tours.

“A Huey helicopter, regardless of the model or year delivered to the Army, cost $238,000. When the first operational B-models began deliveries in 1962, Bell Helicopters negotiated a fixed price with the Army. Later on, as the Huey models got bigger, more advanced and more powerful, the Army insisted that the fixed price of $238,000 each remain in place.

“Over the years, the B-models got supplemented with Charlie-model gunships, and later D-model troop carriers. The helicopter war in Vietnam kept on growing, and Bell couldn’t deliver new models of Hueys fast enough. The Marine Corps got in the act, buying E-models, so the Air Force had to get their F-models as well. In the later years of the war, the extended-cabin more powerful H-models became the mainstay in Vietnam, but always the price remained exactly the same.”

“Hey, Miss Peggy, bring me another beer if you would,” Chief Rod interrupted himself, before continuing. Miss Peggy is my bar manager and mentor, the widow of Uncle Nick and Rod’s life-long buddy, Miguel.

“Through 1972, Bell Helicopters delivered over 13,000 Hueys of various models to all the military services, always for the same flat price. Lady Bird Johnson, who was the primary shareholder in Bell Helicopters, got really rich off the Vietnam war. So did lots of politicians. But I guess that’s how it has been since time began.”

Captain Kenny looked puzzled. “So then, why did these Special Forces guys want to trade a Huey for eight cases of steaks? There must be some story that goes with that.”

“As a matter of fact, there was. Back around 1966, a Special Forces sergeant from a Green Beret A-team in the Central Highlands of Vietnam got approved to go to helicopter flight school as a Warrant Officer Candidate. He went all the way through the program, but two weeks before graduation, there was a scandal at Fort Rucker over a colonel’s daughter, and he was bounced out of the class and straight back to Vietnam.

“Eventually his Special Forces A-team learned of a B-model Huey that had been written off the Army’s property books as a combat loss, just because some aviation unit didn’t want it anymore. Knowing how to fly, this sergeant went out and flew the Huey back to the team camp in the Central Highlands. It became the private helicopter of the Green Berets for the next year and a half. He flew it into the refueling points throughout central Vietnam, topping it off with jet fuel and keeping the oil levels up.

“In 1970 the sergeant was rotated back stateside to Smoke Bomb Hill at Fort Bragg, so the helicopter just sat there abandoned for two years. In all the time it had been flying, the sergeant had never kept track of the flight hours he put on the bird, and no maintenance had ever been performed. There were no maintenance records at all for the helicopter.

“The deal the Green Berets were offering us was this: They were all being rotated back to Fort Bragg and wanted to throw a party for the Montagnard villagers they had supported and fought with for all those years. For eight cases of steaks the helicopter was ours. All we had to do was fly it out. But with no flight records and no maintenance ever having been performed, there wasn’t a single aviator in our company, not even that crazy AMOC warrant officer I told you about earlier (https://thedaysforward.com/amoc-1978/), who would dare even crank it up. As far as I know, it is probably still sitting there, waiting for someone brave enough to try to fly it.”

“Wow,” I responded to Major Tony’s story. “Tell me another story from Vietnam.”

“For the price of another beer, Gil, I will be glad to.” As I drew him a fresh beer, Tony continued entertaining all of us at the bar.

“In February 1972, an AH-1G Cobra from my unit, callsign Gun Runners, had finished its mission and was heading back to our airfield, when the Aircraft Commander (AC) decided to have some fun. QL-1 is the main Vietnamese national highway that runs along the South China Sea coastline from Saigon to Hanoi. The AC and his front-seat copilot were zipping along low-level on QL-1 at 120 kts about five feet above the road. They were flying south between Qui Nhon and Tuy Hoa, having fun honking around the turns and up and down the hills, just barely off the pavement.

“Cresting a small hill, they were surprised by a 5-ton cargo truck rumbling north, which scared the crap out of both the aviators and the truck crew. The AC yanked his Cobra up, but not before the truck driver and his assistant saw helicopter skids slam right around their heads.

**Five-ton Truck Before the Encounter with the Cobra**

When the Cobra hooked its skids through the canvas bows on the truck, the impact ripped the entire skid assembly off the bottom of the gunship. The shocked truck driver and his assistant found themselves still driving in the truck cab, surrounded by the framework of the Cobra skid assembly. I have no idea what the story was they told when they got back to Qui Nhon.

“Lacking any landing gear, the Aircraft Commander radioed ahead to our base that he wouldn’t be able to land the bird. The airfield commander rounded up every spare man to come down to the flight line and start filling sandbags. While the Aircraft Commander held the gunship at a two-foot hover, they built a sandbag cradle the length and width of the Cobra belly, being extra careful to stay clear of the tail rotor. That tail rotor works like an 1,100 horsepower vertical weed eater, which can turn a man into a pink cloud in an instant.

“Once the troops had built the sandbag sidewalls up about three feet high for lateral stability, the Aircraft Commander was eventually able to set his bird in the makeshift sandbag revetment and shut it down. Since so many aviation units had stood down by that late in the war, it took two weeks to get a replacement Cobra skid assembly delivered in country.

“The million-dollar attack aircraft was saved, but that Aircraft Commander was never again allowed to fly in country. He spent the remainder of his tour filling out maintenance forms and records.”

“Yeah, Tony,” I responded, “but I want you to tell me a story about you. What was the craziest thing you personally experienced?”

“Well, I suppose that would be one afternoon in mid-1972, at the finish of a long day of ‘ash-and-trash,’ resupplying the companies in a Korean regiment of their Tiger Division. We were returning to our base after more than eight flying hours, after over 40 direct combat support sorties. It was …”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “What do those words mean?”

“Right, my young civilian friend,” Major Tony replied. “I forget you don’t understand all the Army jargon. ‘Direct combat support’ is the term for our missions flown to support the combat troops out in the field. DCS means we weren’t under enemy fire at the time, and we didn’t have Cobra gunships flying cover for us. But we were still in bad-guy country, flying over territory where we could take fire at any time.”

“All right, then.” I replied, “but what is ‘sorties?’”

“A sortie is one take-off and one landing of an aircraft on a combat mission. For an Air Force bomber or cargo crew, a sortie might last ten hours or longer. When we Army guys were flying single-helicopter ‘ash-and-trash’ missions bringing rations, water, ammo and mail to the troops in the field, a sortie could be ten minutes or less, just the time it took to fly from the regimental logistics pad up to a company of troops on a pinnacle and land to off-load their supplies. Then another sortie back to the pad, to pick up a load for another company.

“On a typical DCS day, we would do that all day long. We got really good at landing heavily loaded on mountain pinnacles in turbulence, and the troops were always glad to hear the famous Huey WOP-WOP-WOP as we were bringing them stuff they really wanted.

“So back to my story. As the Aircraft Commander, radio callsign Ghost Rider 8, in the left pilot’s seat, I was letting my new-guy co-pilot get some extra stick time flying us back. I decided it was time to light up the cigar I had been carrying in my pocket all day long.

“We were cruising home at 2,000 feet above the terrain, straight and level, with 80 knots of airspeed whipping through my left-side window. True story. As I put the cigar in my mouth and started to look for my lighter, out of nowhere a hand reached in through the open window, flicked a Zippo open and lit my cigar.”

“WOW!!” was the simultaneous exclamation from everyone at the bar listening to this story. “How on earth could that happen?”

Major Tony took a long sip of his beer, paused, then replied. “My crew chief, riding in the left rear well of the Huey, had seen me reaching for my cigar. So he unbuckled from his station, climbed outside the helicopter and walked forward balanced on the skid up to my window, and reached inside. He told me he just wanted to see the look on my face when he lit my cigar.”

Thanks to Zandy. In memory of Bill and Terry and Eddie and Jerry

Jun 12 2022

Field Force Chuckles – 2021

Each state has a “West Point Field Force” of volunteer grads and parents who help young candidates assess whether West Point is a fit for them and assist the Congressional staffs and West Point to assess each candidate’s likely degree of success at West Point and in the Army.

In Washington State, our G2 classmate Joe Brillante has led the Field Force since 2004, with distinction. Under Joe, cadets from Washington have punched way over our population weight in the number who became First Captains, Brigade Staff, Regimental Commanders, and Rhodes Scholars, among other honors.

On a Sunday afternoon in September 2021, the Washington Field Force held a by-invitation event for candidates seeking admission to the rising Class of 2026. Two majors from the USMA Department of Admissions were on hand. They and Field Force members, including this author, met with individual candidates. Field Force members wear these magnetic badges that hang in our blazer pockets, and for grads, show class year.

As I was shaking hands with a young candidate for the Class of ’26, he read my badge, and his eyes got big.

“Did you REALLY graduate in 1969?”

“Yes”

“Wow. My father wasn’t even born then.”

“Well, it WAS about a hundred years ago.”

“So that would make you … [eyes rolled up, trying to do the math] …”

“I’m 73.”

“Are you really 73?”

“Last time I checked.”

“Wow. You look pretty good for 73.”

In his defense, the time gap between his prospective West Point experience and mine is huge. It would have been as though, as a candidate, I had been interviewed by a member of the class of 1912!

These young candidates are nearly always amazing, and occasionally entertaining as well. West Point’s future is bright.