Suzanne Rice

Oct 08 2021

Honor: The Role of Honor – 2011

Once each year during the holidays, the Societies of all the Service Academies in the Greater Kansas City area sponsor a formal dinner in Kansas City to celebrate the cadets and midshipmen from Western Missouri and Eastern Kansas. Cadets, midshipmen, dates, and families attend. Attendance is always good.

I was fortunate to have been in the Kansas City business community and the civic community for some time. I was asked to be the keynote speaker at the 2011 event, and to discuss the role of an academy experience in the development of honorable leaders. I made a study of it to add more impact. Here is the outcome:

“Good evening and thank you for inviting me. It is always an honor to be among great Americans and great Americans to be. And that is the topic that I have been asked to speak about…specifically, what is it about an Academy experience that positions you to become great Americans? And what will motivate you to truly achieve throughout your career, regardless of your chosen field?

Tonight, I am going to share with you the wisdom of many great and accomplished graduates. Let’s talk about how an Academy experience sets you apart as you pursue your career, whatever that career might be.

When I began to prepare for this talk, I quickly realized that I am just one person with just one journey. I did not believe that my input alone was good enough for tonight. And so, I went to graduates of all the Academies, and I focused on prominent general officers, surgeons, lawyers, CEO’s, astronauts, entrepreneurs, authors, actors, congressmen and congresswomen, ambassadors, coaches, university presidents, and many more.

The very fact that people like Roger Staubach, Mike Krzyzewski, General Wesley Clark, General Scott Wallace, the Chairman of the Board of Johnson & Johnson, the CEO of General Motors, the CEO of 7-11, the Chairman of Comfort Systems, and many others WANTED to share their lessons and perspectives speaks volumes about the importance of the message we have for you.

Once I had inputs from prominent graduates, I sorted them into common themes. Surprisingly, there were but nine themes that came through. Some will not surprise you. But as we move through them, I believe that you will be surprised, even moved, by what you learn tonight.

So here are the collective thoughts on the truly significant things an Academy experience gives you:

Discipline and the ability to prioritize. You made it this far, so you understand discipline and prioritizing already. It will matter throughout your life.
A strong sense of teamwork. Let me explain ‘strong sense of teamwork’. I struggled in chemistry. A classmate of mine stayed up all night before the final to help prepare me to pass. He was a contender for the top position in rank order of merit academically and could justify studying for himself. Instead, he stayed up all night with me helping me to prepare.
How to assess situations and make good, honorable decisions.
How to genuinely listen to people…superiors, peers, and subordinates. Too many people never learn to listen to subordinates.
You are learning how and when to lead.
You are learning how and when to follow.
You are learning how to maintain your poise and values in difficult situations.
You are gaining a deep insight into yourself and what you are capable of.
And finally, and perhaps most important, you are learning lessons in honor and leadership, to include the ability to motivate people to act for the love of accomplishment, the love of the team, or love of Country. NOT LOVE OF MONEY! You are learning leadership with honor, the truest form of leadership.

These attributes that you are gaining have great value for you and the people around you. They create trust and respect that are fundamental to great teams.

Keep in mind, too, that your development is a 2-part process. First, you gain these important attributes at the Academy. Then, you serve in the Military, where you are given great and challenging leadership responsibilities very quickly. It is the military experience that hones your attributes and builds your courage about accepting responsibility and making honorable decisions.

But having these unique and wonderful attributes and leadership experiences is only a portion of the final equation for you. To achieve great things, to be a great American, you must have the drive to achieve throughout your lifetime.

What you probably least recognize about what you are experiencing at the Academy is that you are being shaped by the integrity, the honor, and the drive of the people around you.

Every day you are surrounded by great individual leaders, famous visitors, upperclassmen and women who excel, and great young professors who themselves have your attributes. Consider this, the young officers who taught me at West Point included Major Pete Dawkins (Heisman Trophy winner), Major Norman Schwarzkopf (Commander, Operation Desert Storm), Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Haig (U.S. Secretary of State), and Specialist 4^th Class Arthur Ashe (Tennis Grand Slam winner). And you are surrounded by similar talent, advancing on their respective journeys.

Just the singular honor and dignity of being a cadet or midshipman in these environments is shaping you and your drive. YOUR PHILOSOPHY FOR LIFE IS BEING INFLUENCED RIGHT NOW BY THE VALUES AND INTEGRITY OF THE PEOPLE WHO SURROUND YOU. And most important in that group, especially after you graduate, is your bond with your classmates. As they go forward and achieve, so too, will you, because you are bonded, and you all have the power of honor and integrity within you.

I recall like it was yesterday being at one of my reunions. We had gone off post for a casual dinner dance. Our class band was playing our class song and we were all out on the dance floor going nuts like we were still cadets. I looked this way and saw a classmate who was a veteran astronaut; I looked that way and saw the Ambassador to Germany… the same man who had just negotiated the end to the first Iraq War; and I look over this way and see one of the first Dot.com billionaires; and over here I see the head basketball coach from Duke. Besides these classmates, I see many who are advancing fast in their military careers, and in other careers. Believe me, the honor and the motivation you feel at the Academy only grows within you as you get older, and everyone’s responsibilities grow.

By the way, our class song was the Animals hit “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”. Our class band, “B. Arnold and the Traitors”, still plays at all of our reunions. So, my class was no less irreverent or playful than your class might be today.

**B. Arnold and the Traitors at Camp Buckner 1966** (courtesy of Chris Sauter)

I leave you with one last piece of wisdom; something that has helped guide me several times in my career. You will go on from your Academy experience to do great and wonderful things. But you will also be different from some of the other people you encounter. You will meet people whose motives are not driven by honor or integrity or choosing the harder right over the easier wrong. Often, it will be you who is in the arena fighting to make something good happen when these critics come along. I’d like to share an excerpt from a famous speech by President Teddy Roosevelt. The speech is about the man in the arena. It goes like this:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles; or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who knows great enthusiasms; who spends himself in a worthy cause”.

There will be times in your career when you see greed, or ego, or questionable practices. Stick to your values and protect your honor. They are, after all, what define you, what motivate you, what make you exceptional in the eyes of others, and what bond you to all Academy graduates.

Teddy Roosevelt, later in his speech about the man in the arena says this:

“There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion; of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm of the men [and women] who quell the storm and ride the thunder”.

Ladies and Gentlemen, be true to your honor and your values; be true to your bond to all of us who have gone before you; and be especially true to your classmates and your family. And go forth with confidence as you ‘quell the storm and ride the thunder’.

Thank you again and Godspeed to each and every one of you.” 1415 words

Oct 08 2021

Duty: Rwanda – 1994

McDonough, DUTY: RWANDA 1994

I had been granted the opportunity to command at brigade level late in my career, something I had aspired to for some time. But it would not be of a standing brigade already on the rolls. Instead, it would be a brigade I would have to build from scratch, gathering people, units, and materiel from parts of a dwindling American Army presence in Europe in the aftermath of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. It would eventually become the reflagged 173^rd Airborne Brigade, a storied outfit whose flag was retired after withdrawal from Vietnam in 1971. But that could not be known at the time (but it was an objective I had in mind from the start). Although the assignment would mean dislocation and separation from my family for a while, I eagerly accepted (with my wife Pat’s support) and took on the duties of command.

Those duties came swiftly, for even as we were forming in northern Italy, the brigade (originally dubbed the “Lion Brigade” since we were near to Venice) was tasked to be the rapid reaction force for much of Eastern Europe and Africa and parts of the Middle East. At that time (late ’93, early ’94) the Balkans were heating up while much of the remainder of our AO (area of operations) remained in turmoil. So even as we built our organization, we had to be ready to move and operate quickly with whatever we had at the moment (and we did have some crack units, like the 3^rd/325 Airborne Combat Team, from the get-go). Operationally, the task was to consider where we might have to go and train for a variety of mission-types if so committed. The dilemma was that there were so many diverse likelihoods of place and mission, we could not possibly train for them all. The solution was to contemplate a very difficult one and train for that one, hoping that if any others broke, we could handle them in stride. Ironically, as it turned out, I decided in February of 1994 that Rwanda would be a particularly hard nut to crack, given its remoteness and complexity. So, we conceptualized an evacuation of Americans under duress and trained, rehearsed, and wrote a plan for such a mission.

Rwanda – A Long Way from Italy (Berkeley.edu) — **Rwanda – A Long Way from Italy**

On April 6^th, a scenario in that country unfolded that we had not expected – a horror show that became the worst genocide of the last decades of the 20^th Century, one that would see one ethnic group (Hutu) murder another ethnic group (Tutsi) at the rate of 10,000 a day through the spring and summer of 1994. With little clarity of what was happening, I reported up through the chain of command that we were ready to commit if called upon. But the United States was not interested in getting involved, so we continued to build and train for other contingencies (of which there were no shortages).

By July, it was getting harder for the world to deny that a genocide was in progress. But a U. S. reaction was only precipitated by news coverage of the resulting cholera epidemic in nearby Goma, Zaire, one of 20 or so refugee camps of Hutus who had fled Rwanda in the wake of the civil war then raging alongside the genocide. So, we were alerted and, after a few days of uncertainty, committed to Central Africa.

An infantry company and support units were sent into Goma (along with the general commanding the Southern European Task Force, SETAF, Major General Jack Nix, my immediate superior); CNN was in Goma by that time, so much attention was focused there. The airborne battalion (minus) was staged in Entebbe, Uganda as a backup force (under command of LTC Mike Scaparrotti, USMA 1978, later SACEUR — Supreme Allied Commander, Europe as a four-star general), and the Brigade (minus detached elements) itself went into Kigali, Rwanda, staged at its largely destroyed national airport. Overall commander of the effort was the Deputy Commander of the United States Army Europe, LTG Dan Schroeder, also based in Entebbe.

**AOR (Area of Operation) for the Lion Brigade**

Overall, it was a clean distribution of forces, but even as we boarded the planes in Aviano, Italy, the mission was unclear and the intelligence of conditions on the ground almost non-existent. Somewhere over the Sahara, I received a static-laden call from an unidentified speaker into the cockpit of the C-141 that was trying hard to give me the latest iteration of both, all to no avail. In a final desperate attempt to give guidance, three words came through clearly – “Stop…the…dying.” That was good enough and that became our duty.

The mission was apropos. Dying was everywhere. In Goma alone, five thousand died from cholera within the first day of our arrival, the survivors standing beside the decomposing bodies in Lake Kivu, drinking the cholera-infested waters (a practice we immediately put a stop to as we sought a way to have the dead buried and the water purified). In Kigali and elsewhere in Rwanda, it at first seemed as if nobody was alive, save warring military foes advancing or retreating and a skeletal UN peace-keeping force holed up in its headquarters beside a major killing-field intersection in the city. Indeed, everything seemed dead, to include all livestock and all crops in the field. Everything was in ruin – the electrical grid, the water systems, the abandoned hospitals, communications systems, banking systems, etc. Land mines were ubiquitous. Bodies were everywhere, almost all of them defiled by machete, bludgeon, or fire (the official count was 800,000; I believe it was closer to a million). The rivers were so stuffed with corpses that they created natural dams at bends or other constrictions in the water. It could not have been bleaker.

**Destroyed Rwandan Church, Site of a Massacre** (Design Indaba)

There were survivors and bit by bit they emerged from hiding, some from the marshes, others from the bush (forests), some from cisterns, some from places so vile they beggar description. All had needs, most of them extreme – water, food, medicines, shelter. The mission remained: Stop the dying. How and what to prioritize was itself a priority. Who gets the water we brought in with us? How do we get the airport up and running? What power grid do you restore first? What do we fly in and in what order, or how do we clear roads to let trucks get in? Where do you bury the dead? How do you off-load the large transport planes coming in (soon at a rate of 50+ a day)? What orders do you follow when they conflict with one another (and there was plenty of that, some with escalated risk if obeyed or not obeyed)? As you find survivors and put them to work, what wages do you pay them (we had suitcases of money for that, essentially creating an economy)? How do you protect your troops? How do you hold the airport if attacked? Where do you apply your medical detachments yet keep them safe from attack and from disease (over 50 % of those we treated had HIV infection)? What side in the civil war do you support (eventually it was the Tutsi dominant Rwandan Patriotic Front)? How do we protect VIPs as they arrive once they believe it is safe to do so? Who do you work with and how – UN officials/peacekeeping units, non-government organizations (NGOs), orphans (about 700,000 Tutsi children were orphaned), other militaries (French, Belgian, Australian, many others), returning ambassadors and their staffs, the press, religious leaders (some who may have been complacent in the genocide) and so on?

Such is the nature of duty. The definition is easy, the fulfillment of it complex. In Rwanda and the surrounding areas, we did the best we could and with the support of many others believe we collectively made a significant impact for the better. We didn’t ‘stop the dying’, but we did slow it and gradually improved upon that and then even more.

So many years ago, as a cadet at West Point, I had envisioned duty as clear and straight-forward. Some higher authority would tell me what I was to do, and I would do it. By the time I served in Vietnam soon after graduation, I came to understand it was more complex than that. By the time I served in Rwanda, I began to understand more fully the disparate pulls as one tries to see what duty demands of you. I had entered this part of my military career with the expectation that when committed to operations, tactics would dictate the courses of action to undertake as I looked to fulfill missions while taking care of soldiers. Some of that would lie ahead, but in this instance the full weight of doing one’s duty came to light. Perhaps that is why it stands first in order of those three key words, ‘Duty, Honor, Country.”

Sep 19 2021

Technology – 2020

Before 2020, if anyone had asked me what I might miss most if I were stranded on a deserted island, I would not have thought my answer would be technology. Tea, chocolate, a good book, Duct tape even would have been a more likely response. Certainly, not something I have in the past found challenging at best.

Since we have all been so confined this past year, I realize that Zoom, has become many people’s window to the world, including mine. I have discovered that my phone and iPad have been a great source of intellectual stimulation and social contact. I have taken art classes from Texas and Florida, joined a Photography club from Massachusetts, attended book club meetings and church services and regularly meet with family on the East Coast for three hours every Sunday. Even though my children live close by, in the spirit of social distancing, we have even celebrated holidays via Zoom.

I have learned the proper protocol for attending said meetings such as self-mute when not intending to speak, especially if you have three dogs. If you need to be checked in by the group monitor, you need to provide a name other than iPad. You should wear the proper attire since you never know when you have hit the wrong button and can be seen when not intending to be!

While watching news interviews this past year, I have learned the importance of aiming the camera at something pleasant to look at in the room like plants or a bookshelf.

Zoom use to be a noise that you made when entertaining a small child playing with a toy car. Now, its new meaning has become a way of life. As a result, when I realized that my iPad was at least ten years old and no longer capable of accepting updates and my phone now struggling to hold a charge, was at least seven years old, I decided to replace them. Normally I would have gone to the Apple store or my phone service provider and bought what I needed and had them set everything up for me. This is not an area where I am at all skilled.

When I called my cell phone provider, the computer that answered the call informed me that in keeping with the new business practices that have become necessary this year, there would not be a person to answer this call and I should go to my computer to make an appointment. After two unsuccessful attempts to find anything other than how to update my service and things to buy that I was not at all sure I needed, I decided to put off my quest to make an appointment and focus on getting the needed equipment instead.

I called the Apple store which is a distance from my home and had everything sent. I ordered a new phone, iPad and everything needed to protect them, a case, screen protector, insurance, I was going to do this right because I might not do this again for another seven to ten years.

One morning, I had taken the dogs to the groomer, the house was quiet, and I decided to try yet again to find the elusive prompt on the web site that would allow me to make an appointment with my cell provider. Now that I had my new equipment, I was anxious to get it working.

I sat down at my desk, cup of tea in hand and decided to give it twenty minutes of effort while I sipped. My late husband who was ever supportive used to say to our daughters and me no matter what the task, “you’ve got this. You can do this.” Because he believed in us so much, we believed in ourselves. So, with that same “can do” attitude, I was determined.

About fifteen minutes into my search there was still no magic button, but I did find a telephone number for technical service. I called and the computer that answered the phone proceeded to list a variety of things that I might need help with, none of which were what I was calling about. To the company’s credit, I was not stuck in a loop with no way-out. When the computer was at the end of its capabilities to help, it said “stay on the line and someone will be with you shortly.” Perhaps, this was in fact, what posed for the magic button I was seeking. I was surprised and relieved when an actual person eventually came on the line. They seem few and far between these days. He asked why I was calling, and I explained that I had a new phone and was trying to get an appointment to get it set up and I had trouble navigating their web site. He said I will help you. The in-store technicians would have to call me anyway for assistance.

I said no, this is not an area I have any knowledge in. He said we will do this together I’m sure it will be fine. It will not take very long “You can do this.” Just like the famous line from the movie, “You had me at hello” he had me at you can do this.

He explained that he was not as familiar with Apple phones as he was with some of the others but let’s get started, he said cheerfully. I was instructed to look in the box my phone came in and find a tool that resembled a paperclip.

I found it and was told to locate the hole into which the tool was to be inserted. He thought it might be on the left side of the phone. There was no hole on that side, but I located one on the right that appeared to trigger a small door. Still not entirely convinced that this was something I should be tackling, I continued to fiddle with the tool when suddenly the little door flew open and like a Genie coming out of a bottle the SIM card flew out and wafted to the floor. As I bent over to retrieve it, my office chair, which is on wheels, began to back up right for it.

“Oh expletive&%#!!!!! expletive&%#!!!!”

Paused on the brink of absolute destruction, the chair stopped moving just in time and I was able to retrieve this minuscule piece of technology before it met with a terrible fate. Since my head was under the desk, I truly hoped he had not heard my outburst. I have after all spent the last year learning proper etiquette for encounters with people not actually in my home.

As I righted myself and regained my composure I said, “I have it. What would you like me to do with it?” The man said, “I would like you to read the numbers on it for me.”

I know that at some point in my life I may have been able to see the numbers on something that small but that has not been in many years. Becoming increasingly more flustered and not at all sure that this was a good idea, I said to him calmly, “Would you mind if I get a magnifying glass?” He said, “Oh, of course, take your time.” When I returned, I read him the number and was amazed at the information stored on something so tiny. He instructed me to replace my SIM card to its rightful place.

Not wanting to sound totally ignorant but wanting to move the process along I asked if there was a certain way it went back in since I did not see it before it took flight and landed on the floor. He assured me there was only one way to reinsert it. With magnifier in hand, I discovered that in fact, the corners were shaped differently so that even a neophyte like me could not make a mistake.

**Little SIM Card Ready to Insert** (Ifixit)

We proceeded on and my confidence was beginning to build until he asked me to plug the phone in. It was then I discovered that the cube that allows the device to be plugged into the wall was not included with the new phone. The old one I was prepared to use didn’t fit. There had been some design changes in the past seven years.

When I opened the iPad box, I discovered a cube which would fit both devices. Hallelujah!! that problem was remedied.

We proceeded on and for about the next twenty-five minutes all went well until we hit a snag. The otherwise calm voice on the other end of the phone seemed a bit perplexed. He said, “May I put you on hold? When I come back, I will have an Apple representative on the line with us and we will fix the problem.”

Being put on hold gives one time to ponder the great mysteries of the world. For instance, was the Holy Grail tiny like a SIM card and perhaps not really hidden but overlooked for centuries? Or if the person who has just put me on hold is having a coffee or restroom break. I could use one of those myself.

The sound of a woman’s voice and my technicians as they returned to the line, brought me out of my revery. She introduced herself as an Apple technician and said, “I would like you to undo everything you have done.” That was not what I wanted to hear but as per her instructions, I did exactly that and now we were back to where we started. Going forward, I followed her instructions to the letter. Eventually she said, “We are at the last step.” The three of us were quite relieved, we were nearing success. How long had we been at this?

“Enter your Apple ID” she said. As I hesitated, she asked if I had forgotten it. I said yes. Since we were all seemingly on the same team trying to bring this to a successful conclusion, I said, “Can you tell me what it might be?” She said “No, but I can send it to you.” Ok??

When it arrived, I meticulously entered it so there would be no mistake and I would finally have reached the goal. The phone refused to accept it. The woman said abruptly, “You have a defective phone. You will have to return it to the store.” She promptly left the line. I was left with my technician who was so sure in the beginning we could do this that eventually he had even assuaged my fears.

Apologizing, we prepared to end the call. Suddenly, an eerie sound began to emanate from the new phone that had just been pronounced DOA. It was ringing! The man said “Did your phone just ring?” I said, “Yes. Did you cause that to happen?” He said, “No; perhaps you should answer it.” I picked up the phone poked at the still dark screen and said “Helloooo.”

“Hi. This is the groomer. Just wanted you to know the dogs are ready.” Reality had set in, and I realized it had been two and a half hours since I had originally sat down with my cup of tea. I felt like my head was in a vice and I had the urge to put my head back under the desk, my new-found sanctuary, and scream. Instead, I thanked the man who was truly a credit to his company and said goodbye.

A few days later my son-in-law who I could not love more if he were my own and who knows all of my faults as well as all of my passwords, found the problem with my phone. Apple had given me an obsolete password during set up. Although my confidence was shaken, I actually could have done this and almost had. All in all, the experience taught me that for the next time, if there ever is a next time, I’ve got this!

Aug 30 2021

Nick’s FARRP #13 – The Military Services – 1978

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, Kenny, have you ever done anything with any other military branches?”

* * * * * *

I was talking with an Army guy sitting on a barstool across from me in my bar, named Nick’s FARRP, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Captain Kenny Wayne has told me lots of stories about his time as a paratrooper here at Fort Bragg, just outside town. My Uncle Nick, who served three tours as a combat helicopter pilot in Vietnam, opened this bar, the FARRP, after he had to leave the Army because of cancers he got from some chemical over there. When he finally died, he left his bar to me. My name, by the way, is Gil Edwards. Since I know nothing about the Army, I am always asking questions of the Army guys who hang around here in the FARRP.

* * * * * *

“Well, Gil,” began Captain Kenny, after draining his mug of beer, “the first thing is to get the terminology right. The word ‘branch’ means one of the different career fields in the Army, such as infantry, armor, artillery, or in my case now, engineers. If you are talking about the other parts of our military forces, the proper term is ‘service.’

“There are three military services: the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps, plus the Air Force, who are almost military. So that makes four, unless you count the Coast Guard. They only come under the Department of Defense in wartime, where they serve as part of the Navy. Coast Guardsmen are taught that their service is ‘that hard nucleus around which the Navy forms in time of war.’

“Hey, Peggy,” Captain Kenny went on, “could you bring me a refill on my beer?”

Miss Peggy is my manager of the FARRP. She is the widow of an Army helicopter pilot who was a close buddy of my Uncle Nick. Her husband was shot down on his third tour in Vietnam. When my uncle opened the bar, he asked Miss Peggy to be his manager. She actually runs everything here, but at least she lets me hang around, so I can pester these Army guys.

“It’s kinda confusing,” Captain Kenny continued, “because the civilian oversight of the military services in the Pentagon is organized with three Defense Departments, working under the Secretary of the Army, Secretary of the Navy, and Secretary of the Air Force. The Department of the Navy oversees the military services of the Navy and the Marine Corps, plus sometimes the Coast Guard.

“So, Gil, I think your question was, have I ever worked with any of the other services? Thank you very much, Peggy.”

“Right, Kenny,” I responded. “Sorry about the wrong word. Have you?”

“Well, Gil, I have made over 60 parachute jumps from Air Force aircraft. The Air Force works closely with the Army for tactical airlift, including parachute drops, troop and equipment transport and special supplies, as well as close air support from the Air Force fighter guys. We call them ‘Zoomies.’”

“Gil,” interrupted the stout older guy sitting next to Captain Kenny, the one I knew as Chief Rod Jordan. “The various services are really different in a lot of ways. They don’t even speak the same language. Take a simple word like ‘secure.’

“If you tell a sailor to secure a building, he will turn out the lights. If you tell a soldier to secure a building, he will lock the doors. If you tell a Marine to secure a building, he will post a platoon on guard around it. And if you tell a zoomie to secure a building, he will buy you one.”

“Yeah, Gil,” added a tall Army guy I knew as Major Tony, sitting on the other side of Captain Kenny at the bar. “Take the machine that pulls a train. The Army calls that an engine. The Air Force calls it a locomotive. And the Marines call it ‘choo choo.’

“Or take the helicopters that Chief Rod and I fly. To the Air Force they are known as ‘rotary wing aircraft.’ Army guys call them ‘choppers.’ To the Navy they are ‘Hee-loes.’ But Marines just point in the air and grunt ‘uhhh.’”

“Hey, wise ass,” replied Chief Rod. “Don’t make fun of my Marines. They have more determination and willingness to sacrifice than any other service. I flew in support of them during the Tet Offensive in 1968, and they poured out their blood and guts retaking parts of I Corps in Vietnam. They may do things the hard way, if that is what they are ordered, but guaran-damn-tee they will pay whatever price is required to accomplish their mission.”

“If you old-timers would allow me to answer the lad’s question, I’ll go on,” resumed Captain Kenny. “The main time I worked with the Air Force was on my first tour here at Fort Bragg in 1970. Back then I was an Armor lieutenant assigned to 1-17^th Cav, the airborne armored cavalry squadron of the 82^nd Airborne Division. The squadron designated me an Air Movement Officer (AMO), so I attended a two-week course run by the Air Force. They taught me how to plan and prepare Army units and equipment for deployment on Air Force cargo aircraft, primarily the C-130, a stout four-turbine prop plane with incredible tactical versatility, and the C-141, the four-engine jet cargo plane.

“Our cav squadron had twelve Sheridan light tanks, but there were no training ranges at Fort Bragg large enough for tank gunnery qualification. So that April our entire squadron deployed by air to Camp Pickett, in south central Virginia, for thirteen days of tank gunnery qualifications.

“The Sheridan is a very light tank, but it still weighs over 17 tons. The maximum load for those early model C-130s was 35,000 pounds, almost exactly the weight of our Sheridans. Because I was AMO qualified, I was supposed to supervise the loading of our tanks, one each on twelve Air Force C-130 aircraft.

**Sheridan Tank loaded in a C-130** (Combat Reform)

“During the AMO course, I had learned how to calculate the dimensions of all the Army vehicles, as well as the clearance dimensions of all the Air Force cargo aircraft. Checking the technical manuals, I compared the height of a Sheridan’s highest point, the tank commander’s machine gun mount, with the clearance between the back of a C-130 cargo floor and the top of the cargo ramp. To my astonishment, I found that our tanks were two inches too tall to fit through the C-130 cargo ramp.

“Fearful that our tanks would rip apart the Air Force cargo plane, I rushed up to the Air Force loadmaster who was supervising the first Sheridan getting loaded into the aircraft. Breathlessly, I told him the tank was two inches too high to fit into the C-130. The loadmaster replied, ‘Thank you very much, lieutenant,’ and continued directing the tank up the cargo ramp into his bird.

“In fear that the steel machine gun mount would rip apart the aluminum C-130, I watched the tank slowly climbing the rear loading ramp. As my tank continued up the ramp and began to cross the point where the angled ramp meets the flat cargo floor, the road wheels of the tank track compressed about three inches. With almost no room to spare, the tank cleared the ramp and proceeded into the aircraft. Completely chagrinned, I kept my mouth shut for the rest of the loading operation.

“When all twelve C-130s had been loaded with our tanks, they began to take off. With the Air Force crew members plus the tank drivers and their gear on board, the cargo aircraft were actually loaded slightly heavier their legal rating. Each aircraft used every foot of the Pope AFB runway trying to get aloft, and they barely cleared the fence at the base boundary as they struggled to gain altitude.

“In those days the Air Force was just starting to receive the gigantic cargo jet called the C-5A. One was assigned here for the ACE Board to develop Army jump procedures for the aircraft.”

“Wait a minute, Kenny,” I interrupted. “What does ‘ACE Board’ mean?”

“That’s Airborne and Communications Electronics Board, a special Army organization located at Pope AFB, just on the other side of Fort Bragg. Their job is to develop Army doctrine for working with new Air Force equipment. Every type of cargo aircraft that comes into the Air Force is required to be certified for Army parachute operations.

“Most of our troop training and tactical jumps are from the C-130. To jump from the -130, troops are taught to vigorously jump ‘up and out’ of the side doors, so they will clear the tail of the airplane before their parachutes deploy. It is usually a pretty rough exit.

“But jumping from the Air Force cargo jet, the Lockheed C-141, is totally different. The -141 has a blast deflector in front of the jump door, so it requires a weak exit. You simply step out the door and drop. It is the most beautiful jump in the world.

“When Lockheed designed the C-5, they used exactly the same jump door as the C-141 had: same dimensions, same blast deflector, measured exactly the same distance back from the nose. When the ACE Board began jump testing the C-5A, to be safe they started with dummies. They put the test dummies out the door with a weak exit, the same that works so well with the C-141. Trouble is, the C-5 is way longer than the -141, so with the jump doors so far forward, the dummies smashed all the way down the side of the aircraft, ‘bam-bam-bam-bam.’ Live jumpers weren’t going to like that very much.

“So next they tried the vigorous ‘up and out’ exit required for the Lockheed C-130. The dummies were ejected directly into the jet blast of the huge turbofan engines of the C-5, where they and their parachutes were incinerated. That wasn’t going to work either.

“After months of unsuccessful testing, the ACE Board decided to use a half-and-half technique, a weak-vigorous exit. This time, the dummies were sucked into the jet blast, where they were incinerated, then flung back against the side of C-5, where they left flaming scorch marks as they went ‘bam-bam-bam-bam’ all the way back.

“Finally, the ACE Board gave up using the jump doors. They got some Green Beanies from 6^th and 7^th Special Forces Groups to jump one time from the tailgate of the giant bird. Trouble there was that the C-5 was never designed to have the tailgate open during flight, so the aircraft became highly unstable.

“The Air Force screamed they would never allow that again, but the ACE Board replied, “Never mind. We accomplished our mission, which was to jump-qualify the C-5 with live jumpers. Now we will never jump the damned bird again.”

In memory of Bill and Terry and Eddie and Jerry

Aug 30 2021

Nick’s FARRP #12 – Green Berets – 1978

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, tell me what you have done in the Army.”

* * * * * *

I was talking with a tall Army guy on a barstool across from me in Fayetteville, North Carolina, that I knew was called Major Tony Williams. I inherited this bar, called Nick’s FARRP, when my Uncle Nick died of cancers he got from some chemical in Vietnam during three tours as a combat helicopter pilot. My name, by the way, is Gil Edwards. Since I know nothing about the Army, I am always asking questions of the guys here in the bar.

* * * * * *

“Well, Gil, as you know, I am a proud Texas Aggie. I graduated from the Texas A&M ROTC program in 1965 as an Infantry Second Lieutenant. After my initial infantry training at Fort Benning, I was assigned to a mechanized infantry battalion in the Panama Canal Zone. Maybe the fact that I took three years of Spanish at A&M had something to do with them sending me to Panama.

**Army headquarters for the Canal Zone**

“Panama was a lot of fun in the sixties. In addition to my mech battalion, the US Army Southern Command, called USARSO, also had a leg infantry battalion and an airborne battalion, plus the 8^th Special Forces Group, who ran the Army’s Jungle Warfare School and a school for Latin American officers which included a jump school.

“As a mech platoon leader I got to train my troops in jungle operations. I had the weapons platoon of C Company, 4-20^th Infantry, which meant my guys had the company’s mortars and heavy anti-tank guns. When training was slow, I got to go through Jungle Warfare School, earning what the Army called ‘the coveted Jungle Expert badge.’ I also got to go through the jump school down there, earning my airborne wings.”

“Yeah, Tony,” interrupted the guy sitting next to Major Tony. He was another of the regulars here at the FARRP I knew as Captain Kenny Wayne. “You didn’t go through the real jump school at Fort Benning. You might as well have gotten your jump wings out of a Cracker Jack box.”

“All right, smart ass master blaster,” replied Major Tony. “I made five parachute jumps and was awarded the very same jump wings you got. And I got ‘silver wings upon my chest’ over a year before you did. In fact, I was a ‘flash-qualified Green Beret’ before your cadet ass got to Benning the first time.”

**Green Beret with the 5^th Special Forces Flash**

“Hey, Peggy, would you bring us over a couple more beers?” Captain Kenny said. Miss Peggy was my bar manager and guardian angel.

“Nice way to change the subject, Kenny,” replied Major Tony. “Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. Going through all the training down in Panama, I really got to know some of the Special Forces guys, and decided I wanted to become a Green Beret like them. Infantry branch officer assignments approved my request, but they held me in Panama several months for the next Special Forces Officer Course opening at Fort Bragg.

“This was late 1966, and all the Infantry lieutenants in the Army were getting sent to Vietnam. All of a sudden, I was the senior lieutenant in the battalion. While I was waiting for orders to the SFOC at Fort Bragg, better known as the ‘Q Course,’ they made me Commanding Officer of Charlie Mech. With only 18 months in the Army, dang if USARSO didn’t pin captain’s bars on me, too. I had my company command ticket punched before I even got to Vietnam.

“Thank you very much, Peggy. After graduation from the Q Course, I served in Vietnam with the 5^th Special Forces Group, most of that time commanding an Operational Detachment Alpha, commonly known as an A Team. We were way the hell back in the boonies, amidst the Montagnards. They are an indigenous people who live in the mountains of central Indochina. The Vietnamese look down on them as barbarians, but they were very effective fighters against the Viet Cong infiltrators, whom they despised.

“My specialties in Special Forces were intelligence and weapons. A couple of months into my tour in Vietnam, 5^th Special Forces Group was beginning to stand down. So, the Army sent me back to Benning for the Infantry Officer Advanced Course. While in the Advanced Course, I applied for flight school, since they were still sending aviators to Vietnam. I got accepted and completed flight school in 1971. I got in a full year tour back in Vietnam flying Hueys.

“I was at Fort Bragg during 1970,” interrupted Captain Kenny. “That was when the post started filling up with 5^th Special Forces Group guys coming back to civilization. After years and y ears of combat in the boonies, some of them had a hard time fitting into ‘the world.’

“I remember one day a newly-arrived senior SF NCO was bopping his way through the officers’ housing area coming back from the PX. As he passed in front of a colonel’s house, a little tiny dog behind the picket fence started yapping at him. Without even thinking, the Green Beret reached across the fence, picked up the little dog and impaled him on the picket fence, and kept on walking.

“The colonel’s wife was looking out her front window and saw what happened. Hysterical, she called the Military Police. The NCO was a couple of blocks down the street when two MP cars descended on him. He put three Military Policemen in the hospital before reinforcements arrived and subdued him. The guy never understood why everyone was upset.”

“Yeah, Kenny, I know that’s a true story,” replied Major Tony. “Unfortunately, some of the most effective guys in a combat zone couldn’t adapt to life back in the civilized world. Maybe the country needs some place to warehouse these super warriors in between wars, so they don’t disrupt society while they are being kept on standby for the next conflict.”

“I thought that’s what Fort Bragg is for,” interrupted an older Army guy sitting at the bar, with a huge grin. Chief Rod, I knew, was one of the regulars in the FARRP. Actually, his real name is Chief Warrant Officer Rod Jordan, a master Army aviator. Chief Rod had been best buddies with my Uncle Nick and Miss Peggy’s late husband Miguel.

“Fort Bragg is a place no one else in the country wants,” Chief Rod continued, “so they gave it to the Army. All the animals in the Army seem to be assigned here. You got the airborne and the Special Forces, and over in the old Post Stockade there’s a bunch of gorillas that nobody knows what to do with.”

“That bunch of gorillas,” replied Major Tony, “happens to be a supposedly ultra-secret unit known as SF Operational Detachment Delta. They call themselves OD Delta, or Delta for short. They got formed up just over a year ago to be the nation’s anti-terrorism strike force. With all the acts of international terrorism in the news these days, the Army was tasked to form a unit specializing in counter-terrorism operations. And these really are the kind of guys who don’t have any other place in a peace-time Army. But they sure are good at what they do. Someday, the country will call on them, and they plan to be ready.”

“Your Special Forces guys must have really made rank fast in Vietnam,” said Captain Kenny. “In the spring of 1970, my armored cav squadron in the 82^nd got a new Command Sergeant Major, just back from 5^th Group in Vietnam. He had gone over in 1962 as a brand-new Spec 4, not even a sergeant yet. In less than eight years he was back as the highest enlisted rank in the Army.”

“Yeah, Kenny, that could happen,” replied Major Tony, “but a lot of that advancement was the result of combat vacancies. Fifth Group took a lot of casualties over the years.”

“So, Tony,” I said. “Keep telling me about what you did in the Army.”

“Right, you go, young civilian,” Major Tony continued. “By 1972 the Army had concluded that I probably didn’t show much promise as a conventional infantry officer, so they decided to let me stay in special operations. Because of my Special Forces experience and language aptitude, they selected me to enter the Army’s Foreign Area Officer specialty track. By this time, I had three strikes against me in the eyes of my Infantry branch. First, I was a Special Forces officer, which they considered some sort of an anti-social cult. Then, I was an aviator, which was even worse. And finally, I chose to be a Foreign Area Officer, which guaranteed I would never see another infantry promotion.

“The Army sent me to graduate school for a master’s degree in Latin American Studies. So, my graduate work was in Latin American political science, geography and history. Plus, for the degree, besides Spanish, I had to complete university freshman and sophomore Portuguese language, for no graduate credit. Having seen the handwriting on the wall that I had no Army future as an infantry officer, during my time in grad school I applied for a branch transfer out of infantry into Military Intelligence.

“While in grad school, the Army inadvertently promoted me to major, and dang if I wasn’t accidentally selected to attend the Command and General Staff Course at Fort Leavenworth. That is a year-long finishing school for officers they plan on keeping around for a while.

“Some insecure officers in C&GSC freak out over the course work. Guys were known to barricade themselves in their studies for nine-months, leaving healthy wives climbing the walls. In my class of over a thousand new majors, we had almost two hundred divorces during the year. Surprisingly, there were actually several dozen cross-marriages of new divorcees.

“Graduating from Leavenworth in 1976, I was assigned as a US exchange officer to attend the Mexican National War College, followed by travels throughout Latin America. Then the Army sent me back here to Fort Bragg to be chief of Latin American strategic studies in the 1^st Psyop Battalion of the 4^th Psyop Brigade. And here I am.

“And I am hoping now to be selected as the JFK Special Warfare Center staff aviation officer. If that happens, I will get to wear my Green Beret on duty again, this time with a JFKSWC flash, in a Lieutenant Colonel slot.”

“Well, Tony,” replied Captain Kenny with a sarcastic grin. “You seem to have salvaged a ‘three strikes’ infantry career OK. Who knows, the Army might accidentally promote you again to Lieutenant Colonel.”

In memory of Bill and Terry and Eddie and Jerry

Honor: The Role of Honor – 2011

Duty: Rwanda – 1994

Technology – 2020

Nick’s FARRP #13 – The Military Services – 1978

Nick’s FARRP #12 – Green Berets – 1978

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