I consider myself one of the luckiest soldiers
going. I had a great career.
Seems like, I was always in the right place
at the right time. I never had a
day after I came to Special Forces in 1962
that I did not enjoy going to
work. As an enlisted guy and as an
officer, I met a few jerks along the way.
My theory was, and is, that in SF
there is very little middle ground when it
comes to the troops. Either they
were outstanding in all respects or totally
fucked up. Fortunately for all of
us, the totally fucked up were in a very
small majority, and that includes officers
and em.
With only about four or five exceptions
I never had a bad boss, enlisted or
officer.
I started out with the 82nd, made E4, went
to Korea, made E5, came back to
the 82nd where I served under probably
the sorriest NCO I ever met. He ran a
lot of good young NCOs out of the Army.
In early 1962, along with Danny
Pitzer, Big John Lowe, and Jimmy Pruitt,
I made the trip across post to SF.
To this day, the happiest day of my life
was the day I came into work on
Yadkin Road and made the right hand turn
to the Hill instead of left to the
82nd area.
I was lucky to be on Bernard J. Meehan's
A team when we went to Nam in 1963,
even made E6 while I was there. After
that, we came back and I went to
Panama where Bull Simons was the Group
CO. Tiny Reynolds was my B Team SGM
and Dick Reid was my CO. Made E7, got a
lot of TDY down or up country, played
al little football then moved on back to
Vietnam. Great guys in Panama that
I worked for or with were Pappy Shelton,
Dick Meadows, Pappy Burdge, Willie
Queen, Frank Helms, George Axtell, Minor
B. Pylant, Bill Garza, and the list
goes on. I also had to work for SGM
McIntosh and couple like him (which
wasn't pleasant).
Returning to Vietnam I was priviledged to
be a Team Sgt (25th Company/A-205)
with the Pleiku Mike Force for about 16
months. Guys like WD Walker, Jim
Murphy, Aussies, Joe Flannery and Jesse
James, Big Foot Ramsey, John Slover,
Gene McCarthy, John Hobbs, Bill Peek, Dave
Lawhon, and two of the greatest,
Lloyd Milner and Charlie Judge.
When I got back to the 3rd Herd, I was a
team sgt in C Co with SGM Bill
Griffin, Mickey Meehan, Earl Young, Ellis
Ferrebee, SGM Matt Schaff, SGM
Moose Brannon and many others. Once
again, met a couple of real losers too.
Got directly commissioned to 1st Lt., was
Bill Robinson's S3 in D/6th, then
got the honor and opportunity to go on
the Son Tay Raid with a bunch of the
greatest soldiers I have ever met:
Dick Meadows, the Bull, Col. Sydnor, Tom
Kemmer, Joe Lupyak, Herman Spencer, Jako,
Billy K Moore, Dan McKinney, Dan
Turner, Glenn Rouse and the again, the
list goes on.
After the Raid, I was Asst S3 in the 6th
and 5th, made a short trip back to
Nam, got shot, and came up. Later
on, I went to JCRC with Sully Fontaine,
Jim Laritz, and so many other great guys
I can't even name them on.
After that, I got to be the lst commander
of A/1/5th Gp - The "George Dickel
Gang" with a wonderful bunch of soldiers.
I hope I did good, I think so. At
least I took care of them.
Was able to throw my two bits in during
the evac of Saigon and was literally
the last SF guy to leave Vietnam (midnight
on the 29th of April, last chopper
out of TSN).
After that a really fun 16 months with the
25th Inf in Hawaii (I'm seerious,
I had a great time as a Bn S3), then back
to JCRC to end my career. Once
again, surrounded by guys like Roger Urbaniak
and Randy Cesani.
I've been out 20 years now almost, but it
seems like yesterday. I consider I
had only one career. The people I
met and were priviledged to serve with
were the finest. Not only the ones
I personally served with but those I knew
like Bill Edge, Bill Pelletier, Charlie
Barksdale, and again, the list can go
on forever.
The greatest thing that happened to me was
going from E7 to 1st Lt. I went
in to being an officer with the hopes of
being able to do the things as an
officer that as an NCO I wanted my officers
to do. I think I accomplished
that.
Anyway, to all of you. Thanks for
the memories. I would do it again in a
heartbeat.