Suzanne Rice

Feb 11 2022

What West Point Means to Me

When I began to think about “What West Point Means to Me”, for some strange reason I had a flashback of that songs by the Animals, “We Gotta Get Out of This Place.” I know that sounds terrible, but I could also see everyone rushing to the dance floor and we still dance to it at reunions. Was it really that bad or were we in such a hurry to get on with our lives? Maybe a little bit of both.

For the guys, it may have been the restrictions, especially for the times when many former high school classmates were having an entirely different college experience. For most of the ladies, completing our degrees, starting a career and maybe a wedding, were what we saw in the not-too-distant future.

Our first assignment was the Armor Basic Course at Fort Knox, KY, distinctly different from West Point. I was definitely out of my element, a newlywed, living far from home, learning what was expected of an army wife. I read Mrs.Lieutenant from cover to cover, and it didn’t make me feel any better. Maybe, West Point wasn’t that bad after all and maybe because it was familiar. Everyone from Cadet Company A-2 was dispersed to their basic courses or grad school. I did enjoy meeting new people but missed those faces that I became so attached to and treasured. Most of the wives were just as uncertain about Army life as I was, so there was a common bond we all tried to appreciate. Hats and gloves were the order of the day and we looked like those old Avon Lady commercials. It was 1969-70, for goodness sake. No one wore hats and gloves. Bell-bottom pants, fringed jackets and love beads were what civilians wore. Somehow, we managed to pull it off for those important receptions we were expected to attend. We donned our post-wedding going-away outfits and a wretched hat that didn’t match anything.

In late 1971, we returned from Germany with infant twins and Denny left for Vietnam. I chose to live at a former air force base that was now called Stewart Airport. Much of the military housing left behind was set aside for “waiting wives,” my new title apparently, not much better than “dependent.” That little community also included professors and their families who were waiting for quarters* and any other overflow military folks that could not be accommodated immediately at West Point. It turned out to be a good experience. My parents lived nearby, and I was 20 minutes from the gate at West Point. The Army maintained my adequate quarters. At Stewart Airport, we had a small commissary** and PX***, nursery/daycare and a medical clinic headed by a pediatrician which was very convenient. The Military Police would circle the housing area at least once every hour and our long-haired dachshund was often picked up by them for wondering off the tiny lawn. It was always a little disturbing to see a big, tall MP standing at my door with Oscar sitting calmly beside him. I couldn’t always get everyone inside in a timely fashion after a walk – two babies and a twin stroller that refused to collapse easily; maybe, that poor dog was just forgotten in the turmoil.

Occasionally, I would go to the larger facilities at West Point and just driving through the post brought back fond memories and even some comfort for a “waiting wife.”

It seems like so long ago. Those infants are now 50 years old. The unique experience of West Point still pulls us together as a couple, along with the Company A-2 “fraternity,” and all the other classmates and grads we have met along the way. I’m so proud that my husband attended one of the highest-rated colleges in the country leading him to a 20-year military career, but it means so much more.

And finally, full disclosure, I listen to a 60’s station on my car radio and when I hear the first few bars of that song by the Animals, I still get a big smile on face. I can’t help it!

*term used for residential housing on a military post or base

**Army grocery store

*** post exchange – a small department store

Jan 24 2022

Fish Killer – 1975

From 1972 till 1975, the First Cavalry Division at Fort Hood was an experimental test bed for the US Army, trying all kinds of innovations. The division was called TRICAP [Triple Capability] because its first brigade was an armored brigade, the second brigade was the Air Cavalry Combat Brigade, with three different types of aviation units, and the third brigade was an airmobile infantry brigade. When I took command of Charlie Company, 8^th Engineer Battalion [“SkyBeavers”] in 1974, it was organized and equipped as an airmobile combat engineer company which directly supported the third brigade. These airmobile troops are transported to the battlefield by helicopters from their own division unlike airborne troops that jump out of airplanes flown by the USAF.

During 1975 the Army converted the 1^st Cav to a conventional armored division, with three brigades of mixed tank and mechanized infantry battalions. On paper, C/8^th Engineers was reconfigured as an armored engineer company, with M-113 armored personnel carriers as squad vehicles for each of the nine combat engineer squads. In reality, creation and conversion of the division’s airmobile infantry battalions to mechanized infantry took up all the M-113 APCs in the Army’s stateside inventory.

Eventually, the Army learned that the North Carolina Army National Guard had a cannibalization lot of old M-113s they had junked for new APCs years ago. So, the NCARNG transferred nine of these old junkers to Charlie Company, Skybeavers. I was fortunate to have the finest maintenance section in the whole 1^st Cav, but even so, it took my guys several weeks to get all those old rags off deadline and operational.

Next mission was to qualify my tracks and their crews in their new equipment. First step was taking my engineers to the range and qualifying them on the nine M-2 Cal .50 machineguns that came with their APCs.

**Soldier qualifying on an M-2 Machine Gun** (The National Interest)

Finally, we had to demonstrate the amphibious capabilities of the tracks by taking them swimming. Fort Hood has a designated track swimming site located on the banks of Lake Belton, many miles from the cantonment area of main post. I submitted my training plan for the upcoming week through our S-3 Operations Officer to the battalion CO to swim our tracks Thursday morning.

On Thursday morning, as we were forming up in the motor pool to move out, my second platoon leader rushed up to me and said excitedly, “Sir, we don’t have to go all the way to Lake Belton to swim the tracks. I found a perfect place, and it’s really close to us.”

I made a command decision on the spot, and said, “OK, Rob, show me what you found.” So, our convoy moved out, with my second platoon leader in his Gama Goat (a six-wheeled semi-amphibious vehicle that my platoon leaders each had) leading my jeep.

Behind us came my two other platoon leaders and our nine resurrected APCs.

Each track had a driver and the squad leader as track commander.

My lieutenant led us to a beautiful pond about 200 meters in diameter, just a few miles distant from main post, with a really fine ramp for entry and exit. The most important item to check on APCs before taking them into water is to ensure that the hull drain plugs are installed good and tight. Many an officer has seen his career dissolve when he discovered that APCs without drain plugs sink to the bottom in about 20 seconds. I wasn’t going to make that mistake.

After final drain plug checks, we began swimming the tracks, one at a time, starting with my second platoon. Gently drive into the water, steer forward about 100 meters using the tracks for propulsion, turn around, and drive back up on land. Mission accomplished. Next track. Everything was going smoothly.

With just one APC left to swim, I told my first platoon leader, my senior lieutenant, to go ahead and take everyone who had finished swimming back to the motor pool to begin the post-swimming maintenance. I would bring the last APC in myself as soon as we finished.

Before he rolled into the water, the last track commander told me, “Sir, my bilge pump ain’t working.” I told him we were just going in and out, so that wouldn’t be a problem. So out he went.

About 75 meters into the pond, his track began to turn left. Confused, I watched him swim two circles. Then he stopped, and began to reverse, re-tracing the circles he had just swum. When I finally signaled him to idle the engine, he hollered to me, “Sir, we threw the left track. With only the right track working, all I can do is go in circles.” Meanwhile, with no working bilge pump, the APC was riding lower and lower in the water. He continued telling the driver to go forward and reverse, hoping that something would enable him to get to shore. With just my jeep, there was nothing I could do but watch.

About this time, we heard the” WOP, WOP, WOP” of the division commander’s helicopter landing behind us, and out stepped the two-star general, followed closely by my battalion commander. Unbeknownst to me, the division staff had forwarded our swimming exercise to the Commanding General as “training highlights.” They had flown out to Lake Belton looking for our swimming exercise and were quite unhappy not to find us. Just by chance, the pilot had seen our track in the pond. Surprise, surprise!!

In the 30 seconds it took me to describe what was happening in the pond, I could see steam rising from my colonel and the general. They walked down to the edge of the pond and offered a few inane suggestions on how to get the APC ashore, just in time to watch the M-113 abruptly sink to the bottom. Fortunately, my track commander and his driver escaped and swam for shore.

It turns out the pond was the Fish and Wildlife fish hatchery, completely off limits to all military traffic. When the M-113 sank, about 50 gallons of diesel fuel got released and killed some 30 million baby fish. My battalion CO was severely embarrassed in front of his Commanding General. That was not one of my better days as a commander. That single ‘aw shit’ wiped out several hundred ‘atta-boys.’ But we all survived.

**Location of the “Perfect Place” for Swimming the M-113’s**

I had made the command decision to change the swimming location without telling my chain of command. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I owned full responsibility for everything my company did or failed to do and took my ass-chewing like a gentleman.

On top of that, the 50 gallons of diesel completely contaminated the entire fish hatchery, and the USDA wound up spending $2.3 million in remediation expenses [in 1975 dollars].

Here are the leadership lessons:

1. My battalion CO never burned me for that. He certainly could have. All he ever said to me was, “I wish you hadn’t done that.” [I continued in service, getting accidentally promoted two more times after this event.]

2. The Division CG never burned my Engineer battalion commander, who went on to pick up two stars of his own.

3. The Division CG got his third star when he left the Cav.

4. That lieutenant was the best platoon leader I ever had, and I maxed all his report cards. I don’t know where he ended up. [No one but he ever knew why I made that fateful command decision.]

5. I spent the rest of my time at Fort Hood being known to 42,000 troops as the ‘fish killer.’

Stuff happens in training. Sometimes you survive, sometimes you don’t.

Dec 23 2021

Challenger Investigation Commission – 1986

In January 1986 I was an Army major serving as the Military Assistant to the Principal Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget on the White House staff. It was a pretty lively environment responsible for budget formulation, execution and policy development and oversight for the Department of Defense (DOD), the State Department and all of the intelligence agencies in the Federal government in the Reagan administration. Our offices were on the second floor of the Old Executive Office Building (EOB) in the White House complex from which we looked down on the West Wing of the White House.

**Old Executive Office Building Adjacent to the White** **House**

On Tuesday, January 28th, around 11:30am one of our staff poked his head in my office and told me that the Space Shuttle Challenger had just exploded on takeoff from the Cape.

**The Challenger Explosion – 1986** (History.com)

My boss (Alton G. Keel) was holding a meeting in his office, and I just walked in without saying anything and turned on his TV. I got a few quizzical looks from the people in the meeting, but the skeptical looks quickly disappeared when they saw what was on the TV. While DOD contracted with NASA to launch DOD satellites, NASA itself was overseen by another OMB Principal Associate Director, not my boss. For the next few days, we simply grieved with the rest of the nation.

The following Monday, February 3rd, I arrived in my office around 7:30am and had just finished opening the safes when my boss Doctor Keel walked in. It was very unusual for him to be in the office so early and he motioned me to follow him into his office. I remember him asking me “Guess what I promised the President over the weekend?” Then, he proceeded to tell me that the President had asked him to be the Executive Director of a new Presidential Commission on the space shuttle accident and he wanted me to help him set up the commission. White House Cabinet Affairs had worked over the weekend assembling the Commission members and getting them to Washington. My boss said he needed me to help set it up and get it operating. My previous assignment for three years was as an investigator for the Department of the Army Inspector General, so I was more than a little familiar with how a major investigation works.

That afternoon the Commission met for the first time in the Indian Treaty Room in the Old EOB.

**Rogers’ Commission Members Being Sworn In**

I ended up sitting between Chuck Yeager and Neil Armstrong. It was an amazing bunch of people. The Chairman, Bill Rogers, was a former Secretary of State and Attorney General. Neil was Vice Chairman. Other Commissioners included Dick Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner for physics; Bob Holtz, the founding editor of Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine; Major General Don Kutyna, USAF, Director of Space Systems Command; Sally Ride, first American woman in space; Joe Sutter, VP of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Company and Chuck Yeager. As it turned out, it was the only Commission meeting that Yeager actually showed up for. Just a statement of facts. It certainly did not reflect well on him that he agreed to be on the commission and then did not participate. The next day, NASA arranged transportation for the Commission down to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to be briefed by NASA on the accident.

**Commission Members Arriving in Florida**

They met in a very large conference room with a hugely long conference table. I sat in the cheap seats directly behind Chairman Rogers. After some preliminaries, the NASA team showed a video/telemetry from high resolution cameras which clearly showed the plume of flame escaping from one of the solid rocket boosters. A visibly upset Chairman Rogers demanded to know how long NASA had known about the plume of flame. When the answer became clear that they knew about it the day of the launch but had failed to pass the information up the chain of command, Rogers called a halt to the meeting, bolted out of his chair knocking it into my lap and turned and told me to get him to a telephone. We hurried out a door and into a hallway where I ejected the occupant of the first office we came to. Rogers told me to get the President on the line which I did by calling the White House operator and telling her that Rogers needed to speak to the President right now. I handed the phone to Rogers who then motioned me out of the room leaving Rogers and my boss alone. When they came out my boss, Doctor Keel, then explained to me that the mission of the Commission had just changed from overseeing the Challenger investigation to conducting it.

On the plane ride back to Washington, my boss and I sketched out the first version of breaking down the Commission into work groups tasked with particular investigative responsibilities and the skeleton of the staff needed to support them. I was still expecting that I would help get the Commission up and running and then return to my assigned OMB job. When we got back in the office the next day, I was told that I was being dragooned onto the Commission staff to serve as chief of staff. Because I was a just lowly major, I argued, they needed to change the name of the position to Executive Secretary to get away from the military connotation of chief of staff. Thank heavens that recommendation stuck.

One of the first things to be done was to find DC office space. I contacted the GSA who then quickly arranged for me to look at available office space to find a location that was suitable. We lucked out with a vacant office space that was on the second floor of a building that was only a block and a half from the NASA headquarters. GSA also arranged for 24-hour security guard coverage and quickly had it fitted out with office furniture. While I did not necessarily want to do it, I was made the official point of contact for NASA and other government agencies for corresponding with the Commission. It did not take long to figure out that I needed a fulltime person to be that initial point of contact. That turned into a relative massive undertaking that was accomplished by using an existent government contract to set up what became the Commission Information Management System. We contracted with a company that specialized in litigation support with the expertise and trained professional staff, to receive, classify and code into a searchable database all the documents and correspondence the Commission would receive. The amount of engineering documentation alone turned out to be staggering.

Getting qualified staff in place as quickly as possible took a lot of effort. The Commission headquarters staff primarily came from the White House and OMB. The investigative staff came primarily from the Department of Justice and the FBI; US Air Force; DOD Inspector General, two NASA Astronauts and contractor support. It was not a joke to say that some of the Commissioners and its support staff were truly “rocket scientists”. We had some very bright people. To conduct the investigation, the Commission was broken down into four Panels: Accident Analysis; Design, Development and Production of the Shuttle; Pre-Launch Activities and Mission Planning and Operations.

While the Commission startup was happening, NASA and DOD were quietly searching for and retrieving the shuttle wreckage. The most sensitive retrievals were carried out in a way to prevent such a sorrowful and respectful duty being tarnished in any way. I was told, but cannot confirm, that at this stage of the recovery and investigation that more than five thousand people were involved.

The staff worked seven days a week. Most days we were at work until at least 7 p.m. The commissioners worked in their Panels along with their staffs for nearly six months compiling the information for the commission report. Three of the Commission sessions were publicly televised preempting the regularly scheduled afternoon programs. Just finding an available and TV camera suitable auditorium on short notice in DC proved difficult. I can still recall a truly classic conversation I had when one evening I called the home phone number of one of the staff of the Daughters of the American Revolution organization. I had always refrained from identifying myself as “White House staff” but broke that rule when the young woman who answered the phone said to her father “Hey, Dad, the White House is calling.” His response, “Tell them I don’t talk to buildings and hang up.” They ended up letting us use their auditorium.

On June 6,1986 the Commission presented its report to President Reagan in a Rose Garden ceremony. The report contains seven volumes and thousands of pages.

**Several Volumes of the Rogers’ Commission Report**

**Rose Garden Ceremony** (Heritage Auctions)

I sat in the audience as the escort to Chairman Rogers’ wife. Principal staff members were given three sets of the report. I donated one set to the West Point library and one set to Army – Navy Club’s library where I was a member. Part of closing down the Commission was having the GSA take possession of all the Commissions files and records. There were literally pallet loads of documents that they shrink-wrapped and used a forklift to move out of the building and into their trucks. One of the GSA people told me that it appeared to be the best organized set of records that they had ever processed.

Probably, one of my favorite memories of the Commission occurred while we were closing it down. One evening the work-a-bee staff decided to get a beer in the bar of the Holiday Inn across the street before heading home. As we were heading out, I noticed that Mr. Armstrong was still in his office. I stuck my head in his office and asked if he would like to join us. His response: “I was hoping you would ask me.” The first man to step on the moon was truly a national treasure.

I followed my OMB and Commission boss, Doctor Keel, to be his Military Assistant when he became the President’s Deputy National Security Advisor. John Poindexter was National Security Advisor and one of my National Security Council (NSC) contemporaries was a Marine major named Oliver North. Then, life got really interesting again.

Remembering the Challenger Astronauts (courtesy New York Post)

Nov 18 2021

Duty and The Deadline Report – 1970

In June 1970, ten weeks into my first assignment and three weeks after making first lieutenant, I assumed command of B Troop, 3^rd Squadron, 7^th Cavalry, in Schweinfurt.

3/7 Cav was the one of the front-line ‘tripwire‘ units stationed along the East German border during the Cold War to deter the much larger Warsaw Pact Soviet forces from seizing West Germany. We believed an invasion could happen any moment. We worked very hard to prepare for that possibility. Fortunately, it never came.

At that point in my new career, I was not nearly ready to command a cavalry troop. I asked the Squadron Commander, a non-grad aviator, to give this command opportunity to a more experienced officer. But for reasons unclear then as now, he was firm that I take the troop. I really did not know where to begin.

One of the more important recurring obligations of mechanized units in Germany was the monthly submission of DA form 2406, the “Material Condition Status Report”, colloquially the ‘deadline report’. It informed higher headquarters which vehicles were not combat ready, and why. B Troop’s report was due a week after I took command. One thing I actually knew something about was automotive and weapons systems, and I resolved that my deadline report would be 100% accurate.

The Army publishes detailed Equipment Serviceability Criteria (ESC) with very specific requirements for reporting the status of each vehicle type. With the relevant ESC in hand, I made myself conspicuous among my soldiers as they performed the requisite technical inspections of their vehicles. I tried to be clear that I wanted an honest and accurate report, which raised some eyebrows among my NCOs. But they did as I asked. Their honest inspections placed 29 of the troop’s 38 vehicles in the ‘ESC Red’ category, ‘not combat ready’, ‘deadlined’. I confirmed the accuracy of each deadlined vehicle’s status per the ESC, signed the report, and sent it to the Squadron Motor Officer.

Somewhat to my surprise – I was new – my report was not well received at Squadron. I learned that my predecessor’s report for the previous month had showed only eight vehicles deadlined. My vastly larger report was not viewed as progress.

I was summoned to the Squadron Commander’s office the next day and told to bring my deadline report. I anticipated some discussion, so I also brought the related Equipment Serviceability Criteria. The CO sat me down and closed the door. Oddly, neither the Squadron XO nor the Squadron Motor Officer was present. The CO was clearly not happy. He told me we would weed down B Troop’s huge deadline report to a more accurate number. Over the course of about 45 minutes, we went down the list vehicle-by-vehicle, with conversations something like this:

CO: So, you’ve deadlined B-16 (an M-551 Sheridan) for inoperative intercom.

We work around that by giving the driver one of the infantry PRC-25 portable radios, and the vehicle commander can talk to the driver over the radio. No need for intercom, so off deadline.

Me: Ah, sir, that’d be a practical workaround in a pinch, but as you can see, the ESC specifically disallow that for the deadline report. I think we’ve got to report the intercom problem as a deadline item. I think B-16 needs to stay on the list.

CO: You’ve deadlined B-32 (an M-114) for no electrical power to the commander’s turret.

But the vehicle commander can pop out of the hatch and fire the .50 cal up top. So, we can take it off the list.

Me: Ah, sir, no doubt we’d do that in combat, but the ESC specifically require deadlining the vehicle if the turret doesn’t have power. Maybe they want to be able to fire buttoned up? I think it needs to stay on the list.

And so it went, through each vehicle on the list. The CO couldn’t justify removing even one, which did not improve his mood. My deadline report went to Brigade and Division without any deletions.

I recall explaining to him, an LTC with Vietnam experience, the importance of submitting an accurate report, so higher headquarters would know how badly we needed the parts that would correct these serious problems, problems that would create casualties in combat. I also suggested that he could send in some reduced version of my report over his own signature, but that my signature could only go on the report I had already submitted. In hindsight, these were probably not the most diplomatic comments I might have made at that juncture. Perhaps unlike lieutenants from other commissioning sources, I was accustomed to frank discussions with my LTC instructors at West Point.

This Squadron Commander and I had several other disagreements of principle during what was to be the brief tenure of my first command. In September, during my fourth month, an Armor captain showed up in the squadron, and I was promptly relieved. A trivial job was found for me in Brigade S2, where I marked time over the next twelve months, awaiting the predictable orders for Vietnam.

Later, I learned that the Squadron Commander had earlier promised the Division Commanding General to reduce the squadron’s deadline rate below 5%. So, my initial deadline report was unwelcome, regardless what effect it might have had on our priority for getting repair parts.

My Squadron CO did not share my “Officer Efficiency Report” job rating with me, so I saw it only when I visited the Office of Personnel Management at the Pentagon en route to Vietnam, a year later. I found I had received an 89 out of a possible score of 100. Having assumed command with near total ignorance of how to run a cavalry troop, and the mistakes I made as a result, this seemed to me a fair evaluation. Years later, I learned from one of the majors on the personnel staff that this score placed me at the floor of the bottom fifth of my peer group.

Over the next couple years, as we all accumulated OERs, it became obvious that even weak officers rarely scored below 96. When the Army launched a Reduction-In-Force (RIF) of regular army officers in 1975, it came as no surprise that I was selected for involuntary separation.

Nov 16 2021

Country – My Friend Ed – 2010

I, like my WP ’69 classmates, have had the good fortune during my military and civilian careers to have met some really remarkable individuals along the way. For me, one of the most memorable was Edward M. Feldman, Lt. Commander, USNR, DO, USN Medical Corps.

I met Ed through my wife who was one of his patients when we lived in Westlake Village, CA. During her initial visit with Ed, when he was taking her medical history, she mentioned that I was former military and West Point grad. Ed stated that he was also former military and that we should get together some time. My wife and I both thought that he was just being polite. Some months later I had occasion to accompany my wife on a routine visit to Ed. While I was sitting in the waiting room, a side door opened and out walked a slight gnome-like man in surgical greens. He glanced around the waiting room and when his eyes settled on me, he walked over and introduced himself. He then invited me back into his private office where we proceeded to tell Vietnam war stories. Finally, as the patient load began to back up, his head nurse came in and ran me out so Ed could get back to his medical practice!

We both enjoyed the bittersweet memories and discussion as former military are wont to do. Some of the stories we told may have even been true! At that time, I had no idea of Ed’s Vietnam history and valor.

I mentioned Ed to another of my former local military friends and he was surprised that I was not aware of Ed’s Vietnam experiences. I started to so do some research on Ed and was surprised to learn of his heroism, initiative and decorations. A truly remarkable individual. His humble demeaner had kept all of this hidden during our first meetings.

To me Ed seemed like an unlikely hero. He was a feisty small statue individual from Brooklyn, NY. Raised in the Jewish faith, he was the caricature model of brash cockiness. His stories of early life in Brooklyn were classic tough life stories. Ed decided that he would pursue medicine as a career. He earned a BS from Columbia University and obtained his DO degree from Kansas City University of Medicine, College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Like most in the late ‘50s – early ‘60s, Ed was very patriotic. His love of country led him to volunteer for the US Navy Medical Corps and to eventually volunteer for VN.

In country for only a short while, Ed volunteered to serve with the Marines at Khe Sanh. He served as one of the surgeons at Charlie Med (Khe Sanh, Marine medical facility) for the entire siege.

**Khe Sanh Marine Medical Facility, 1968**

During one of the frequent assaults a young Marine casualty was brought to Charlie Med with an 81mm mortar round imbedded in his abdomen. As the protocol at that time was to minimize the potential for more casualties, the standard practice would have been to isolate the young Marine as far as possible from other troops in case the 81mm mortar round detonated. Ed decided that this was not the way to proceed. Ed and a volunteer corpsman set up a waist high sandbag bunker around the Marine, put on flak jackets and helmets and lay over the edge of the bunker with flashlights to operate and remove the unexploded mortar round. The round was successfully removed and given to ordinance techs who took the round to the defense perimeter for detonation. No casualties.

Ed was awarded the Silver Star for this action. The young Marine recovered and lived a normal life. To my knowledge he is still alive. He remained in contact with Ed for his entire life. This selfless act by Ed caused him to become somewhat of a legend to Marine grunts, particularly Khe Sanh survivors. I had occasion to see just how much Ed was revered by Marines when I was his guest at several Marine Corps functions.

Ed’s pugnacious medical support (usually disregarding medical SOPs) of troops on the ground continued.

In Sept. ’68 (as we were enjoying football in the Fall of our First Class year) Company A, 1/61^st. Mechanized Infantry, US Army was engaged in a desperate action in VN. The company was deployed on a ridge line and about to be overrun by North Vietnamese regulars. There was a steady stream of casualty evacuations by helicopter. The casualties were taken to a Marine aid station where Ed was on duty as surgeon. As the battle continued into the evening with bad weather approaching, the Medivac missions would have to cease due to lack of visibility. One of the pilots asked for a corpsman to volunteer to return to the battle site and remain overnight as the besieged company no longer had any functional medics. Ed decided that his presence at the battle site would be more effective than a corpsman so he volunteered to fly out to the site and remain as long as he was needed. A very rare occurrence for a doctor to undertake such a mission.

Upon disembarking at the battle site, Ed learned that all of the company officers and senior NCOs were hors de combat. Entrenched in an M113 APC Ed decided that his own and the company’s survival depended upon obtaining effective leadership. In desperation he took tactical command of the company. He backed the remaining M113s up the ridge line, and formed a defensive perimeter. In addition to tactical command of the company he also provided medical assistance where he could. The company was relieved 2 days later.

For his actions Ed was nominated for the Medal of Honor. An excerpt of his MOH submission follows:

This is a very unusual case in which a Navy Doctor performed with conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, by voluntarily responding to a call for help from an Army Mechanized Infantry Company that was under the command of a Marine General.

On 4 September 1968, Army Company A, 1/61^st Mechanized Infantry was about to be overrun by a larger North Vietnamese Army force. Navy Lieutenant (0-3) Edward M. Feldman, Medical Corps was under no obligation by orders or command relationships to do so, risked his life by volunteering to fly through a typhoon that had grounded most aircraft to jump into a “hot” Landing Zone that was receiving heavy artillery, mortar, RPG and direct weapons fire to selflessly and repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire as he moved throughout our dispersed company to save the lives of our wounded, at times having to return fire in self-defense. Feldman eventually took operational control of A Company, when he realized most of our officers were casualties, and guided us to a better defensive position, all while under enemy fire. He then arranged and executed, while still under fire, a daring nighttime medical evacuation of the severely wounded and some of the dead. Feldman refused to be evacuated; he chose to remain with us for two more days to provide both leadership and medical support to the wounded that could not be evacuated.

By the end of this battle, when our unit and Dr. Feldman returned to our respective home bases, we learned that about 60% of our company had been killed or wounded and about 25% of our unit received decorations for valor. Unfortunately, we did not learn until some 30 years later that Dr. Feldman – whose Medical Battalion had no command relationship with our unit – was never recognized for his extraordinary heroism. That is when we started our efforts to recommend him for a Medal of Honor.

For reasons unconscionable to me, Ed was denied the MOH even after 3 resubmissions. He received the Bronze Star with Combat V.

My own conclusion was that his MOH submission was an orphan among the services. Ed was a Navy doctor, assigned to the Marines who rescued an Army unit. Neither the Navy nor Marines had any skin in the game and the Army was somewhat embarrassed. None of the politics seemed to matter to the troops whom Ed saved. They continued to resubmit the application for Ed’s MOH, the most recent resubmission being in 2017.

I became a good friend of Ed’s and was privileged to remain so until his death. I even had occasion to introduce Ed to John Feagin ’55 (whom we all knew as the head orthopedic surgeon when we were cadets) https://thedaysforward.com/tribute-to-army-docs/. They got along famously sharing a surgical scalpel project.

Poor health caused Ed to retire from his medical practice in 2016. Ed and his lovely wife, Patti, moved to a very nice retirement community near San Diego. As it was bit far for me to drive, I knew that Ed still needed the constant interservice “insults and rivalry” common to our generation. Therefore, I recruited my WP classmate, Dutch Harmeling (a San Diego resident), to fill in for me. Needless to say, Dutch and Ed immediately became friends and sharers of the military heritage (and subsequent insults).

ED’s education was a reflection of the times and he was not immersed in military lore with McAuthur’s “Duty, Honor, Country” speech thundering in his ears and thoughts-as we were. Ed’s intense love of country was born of personal, religious and family pride based on the opportunities offered in America. His love of country and its soldiers, sailors and marines was always on display. When I think of the definition of patriot – I think of Ed Feldman.

Ed passed away from complications of Agent Orange and was buried at Miramar National Cemetery on 17 Oct. 2017. Dutch and I were able to attend his military funeral. While Ed was not a grad, I have not met anyone along the way who lived and practiced the West Point motto of Duty, Honor, Country more than Ed. Of all the remarkable individuals who walk the halls of my memory, Ed is one of the best and deserving of a toast when next you reminisce about Viet Nam.