By Suzanne RIce for Bill

By Suzanne Rice, wife of COL Bill Rice

As an Eagle Scout himself, Bill found a good fit for some of his time – bringing his patriotism and leadership skills to Boy Scout Troop 279 in Peachtree City, GA. He was a Troop Committee member, representative on the Flint River Council Eagle Scout Board and conceived and led a Scouting County  Fair each year among other things. The most obvious connection to his USMA and military life was his effort to teach the Scouts how to do flag ceremonies properly. Before each Eagle Scout ceremony (There were many Eagle Scout award earned by this particular troop.), he met with the younger Scouts participating in the flag ceremony and taught them care and respect for our nation’s flag.

One year, the Troop committee decided to accept 30 new Webelos Scouts (into a troop of only 30 other Scouts), Seeing some problems with integrating so many new, young and inexperienced Scouts, Bill offered to create a new program that he called the Tenderfoot Trail. This was to fill half of every weekly meeting when older Scouts would lead and teach the basics of Boy Scouting to small groups of new Scouts. (Double benefit – the older Scouts had to know the material before they could teach it!) During the Tenderfoot Trail that would last 14 weeks, each young Scout learned the Oath, Laws, Motto, knots, safety, first aid, fitness, emergency preparedness, etc. As Bill suspected, the new Scouts (age 10-11 years old) were hard to keep going in the same direction. One boy in particular was very difficult and it soon became clear that an adult had to be by his side no matter what the assignment was for that week. Each week, no one thought this boy would come back to the troop for the next week’s meeting, but, happily, he continued to come and, eventually, mastered all the new Boy Scout skills.

It was only at Bill’s funeral that the depth of his influence on the Scouts became clear. The unruly young Scout had grown and it was he and his mother that suggested to the parish office (This was a surprise to Bill’s family.) that there needed to be a Boy Scout Color Guard to accompany Bill’s casket into the Church. It was that same unruly Scout who was the first to volunteer to participate. They say that there was a great competition among troop members for who would actually get to carry the colors and participate in the ceremony. It was a touching experience to see the older and now no longer unruly Scout leading the Color Guard, bearing the colors of our nation as we entered the Church. It was heartwarming to each of us to see how Bill had influenced these young Scouts and how they wanted to salute his life. Adding to that, the once young, unruly Scout kept coming back to Scout meetings and eventually became an Eagle Scout himself. What a joy for all!

By Suzanne Rice, wife of COL Bill Rice, Third U.S. Army, Chief of Plans, Fort McPherson, Georgia

Bill’s eldest cousin and her family lived on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. Since that was only a 2 ½ hour drive from our home in Peachtree City, it seemed like a great place to have Thanksgiving dinner. Most Army families are rarely near family, so this was a wonderful opportunity to visit with them and to catch up with their son, USMA Class of 1984, who was on leave at their home. Having only been in Georgia for one year, it was our first chance to spend a holiday with them (Bill was in Saudi Arabia for our first Thanksgiving in Georgia.) We were looking forward to a quiet holiday meal with them. That could not have been further from the truth!

We sat down to dinner just as the phone rang; Bill was called to the phone. The rest of us were merrily eating our turkey and dressing when he came back and said, “We have to leave – NOW!” No other explanation – secret. We didn’t even finish dinner! Bill had been called back to Ft. McPherson where, as a Colonel and Chief of Plans, G-3, Third U.S. Army, he was in the bull’s eye to begin the plans for what would soon be called Operation Restore Hope.

President George H.W. Bush was so sickened by the pictures on CNN of starving children in Somalia, he called for a humanitarian effort to get food to the people of Somalia. Third Army, as the Army component Command for CENTCOM and having responsibility for most of SW Asia and countries around the Horn of Africa, was tasked with this effort. Bill and his Plans section had to get to work immediately so that this mission could be accomplished before President Bush left office in January. President Bush thought it would be a quick and relatively easy thing to bring food and hope to those in Somalia. Who could question an effort to feed starving people? Think again!

It was with the heaviest of hearts that Bill and the men of the Plans Section of Third Army watched from Atlanta when the United Nations took over the task of the humanitarian mission/force protection in March 1993. They knew at the time that the protection force was not sufficient under the circumstances of an unstable warlord, the heavy use of Khat by Somalis, and inexperienced soldiers from other U.N. countries, some of whose countries used foreign missions as a way to put money into their national treasuries. It was out of their hands now. It was later with the deepest sadness that they watched as the Battle of Mogadishu occurred in October, 1993.

A Field Artilleryman at heart with many years of experience, Bill had concluded along with others at Third Army that the food sharing effort needed to be guarded from the beginning by a heavy presence of Army units to keep the peace as the food was distributed. It was not on his own thoughts that this was recommended. They had intelligence from the area and the input of several senior U.S. Ambassadors in Africa indicating that Mohamed Farrah Adid, the strongman in the region, might not take kindly to this humanitarian mission to Somalia. Bill and the leaders of Third Army fought with those in Washington to get the necessary compliment of American soldiers to protect the mission. They were not successful. (They were able to get only one battery of artillery attached to Operation Restore Hope, but only after the Battle of Mogadishu had occurred. C Battery 1-41 FA from Ft Stewart was rushed there to fill the void in mid-October 1993, ten months after Operation Restore Hope began. It was only after that battery was assigned that Bill discovered that the XO of the battery was 1LT Paul Robyn, USMA 1992, the son of a dear friend and classmate, Eric Robyn. Ironically, in 2012, our own son, USMA 2010, deployed to Afghanistan as XO of A Battery, 1-41 FA.)

It was during the Bright Star exercises in Cairo, Egypt in November 1993, only a few weeks after the Battle for Mogadishu, that Bill accompanied the Commanding General of Third Army on a side trip down to Somalia to check on their Area of Operations there. Though it was not the official reason for their trip, in Bill’s mind his mission there was to check on Paul and see how the battery was faring in the turmoil that followed the Battle for Mogadishu. Unfortunately, Paul was out on a mission at the time, so they never saw each other, but it was a reassurance to Bill, even though they took incoming rounds of fire as they drove to the battery area to talk to those on the ground to find that Paul was doing well in the chaos following Black Hawk Down.