JACK'S BLOG
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4/19/2012 2 Comments Did I merit all those demerits?THERE WERE RULES in Officer Candidate School. The curriculum was planted thick with them like the cedar forests back home. There were rules governing every aspect of our lives for those twenty-six weeks. What we ate and how we ate it were regulated. What we wore and how we wore it were regulated. How we displayed the clothing that we weren't wearing at any given time was regulated. How we deported ourselves in any situation in the barracks, in a vehicle, at a training site, on the parade ground, anywhere, anytime. Each Tactical Officer carried a pad of pink demerit slips that he distributed frequently. A loose thread on your uniform would be ignited like a fuse and you were expected to shout “Boom!” when it burnt out. Now that may seem ridiculous to you. It seemed so to me at the time. Only later did I learn the lesson. An infantry officer has to be detail-oriented. For example, we were provided with a detailed diagram of every drawer and shelf in our rooms. We had to roll every t-shirt to a specific width and diameter. Socks and undershorts were similarly described. After we finally got everything just right, the Tactical Officer would shift one thing just a little, maybe a quarter of an inch. If he came back the following day and found that we hadn't corrected it, we received a demerit. Demerits accrued like head lice and just as welcome. There were consequences for collecting too many. When we became infantry officers, we were responsible for details that meant the difference between life and death. Were our men servicing their weapons properly? Did they have enough food, water, and, most importantly, ammunition? The six months that we spent in Officer Candidate School were dedicated to teaching us about weaponry, tactics, and communications. These lessons passed in their time. However, conditioning us to be detail-oriented never ceased. Everything, including what we ate and the way we ate it, was part of that conditioning. I've never lost it. There were no exceptions to the rules. For example, no officer candidate other than a senior was allowed to walk anywhere outside the barracks unless they were in formation (and formations most often moved at double-time). One night I went to the laundry with everyone's tickets. All the others were restricted to study hall until they brought their grades up and I was the only one who was safe academically. Of course, I ran to the laundry. However, on my return, I must have looked like a beast of burden staggering under a load of heavily starched uniforms. We had to “break starch” – change uniforms – sometimes two or three times a day which is why we arrived at OCS with at least ten sets of fatigues. Unfortunately, two senior candidates spotted me and I was berated for walking. They then helped me transfer my load to my back so that I could honor them with twenty pushups without dropping the load. Those of us who successfully completed the first seven weeks of OCS and became intermediate candidates could look forward to an occasional weekend pass. I was about to receive my first when our Tactical Officer decided that I should paint a picture of the U.S. Army Commissioned Officer's Head Badge, on the transom window above the door to his office. (I had a reputation from decorating our platoon halls with my art.) I demurred inasmuch as I expected that I would be off base that weekend. However, I would be happy to do it the following weekend. He looked surprised. “You don't have too many demerits this week?” he asked. “Sir, no, sir,” I replied. We always began every statement to an officer with “sir.”
I found my room papered with demerit slips when we returned from training the next day. A signed blank check sat on my desk with a note to use it to buy whatever supplies I needed. I spent excessively, but he was pleased when he saw the result on his return to duty the following Monday. I believe that my Tactical Officer, Lieutenant John Robb, was somewhat intimidated by me. He was a college graduate as was I, however, I held a post graduate degree in law and he only had a bachelors. Of course, I was older. Maybe “intimidated” isn't the correct word, but I did get away with taking certain liberties. For example, he announced one day that he wanted us to paint our latrine. Candidates were famous for decorating their barracks competitively with other OCS companies. I have heard that some OCS platoons had paneled their Tactical Officers' offices and installed stereo systems. However, this practice was frowned upon by our time at OCS. Lieutenant Robb put me in charge of the project in recognition of my supposed decorating skills. He told us that we could paint the latrine with any color scheme we wanted so long as I approved. He made a point of telling me that his favorite colors were blue and gold. Ghastly! Another weekend was ruined. I had to smile when I saw all of the company cadre standing outside the barracks with their mouths hanging open when they returned early that Monday. The sun hadn't risen yet and our latrine glowed with an unearthly orange light. I had selected a tasteful combination of peach and cream. We even painted the inside of the light globes peach to accentuate the effect. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face even when I heard my name echoing throughout the barracks. Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution.
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4/18/2012 1 Comment Rank hath its privilegesTHERE WERE FOUR paths to a commission as an officer in the United States Army. I say “were” because I cannot speak with authority about present practices. However, in those days, graduates from the Military Academy were commissioned as second lieutenants in the Regular Army. They were obligated to serve at least four years on active duty. It was a fair exchange inasmuch as they had been paid to attend one of the finest engineering schools in the world and their degrees as well as their commissions earned them great respect, especially in the job market. All other commissions were in the United States Army Reserve (USAR). College students who participated in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) were commissioned as second lieutenants when they graduated. (We referred to them as the Royal Order of Trained Cowards – all in good fun.) Enlisted men found their path to commissions via Officer Candidate School. There were eight at one time. However, by the time of the Vietnam War, they had been consolidated into four that I knew of: Infantry, Armor, Artillery, Military Police, and Signal Corps. A direct commission to second lieutenant could be awarded to an enlisted or warrant officer for exceptionally meritorious or valorous service on the battlefield. These commissions, also to the USAR, were commonly referred to as “battlefield commissions.” Most were rescinded at the end of the war during which they were awarded, however, there were notable exceptions with some rising to great rank. Direct commissions to captain were awarded to professionals such as lawyers and doctors. Whereas most commissions in the USAR carried a two-year obligation for active duty, direct commissions to these professionals carried a four-year obligation. When asked why I didn't accept a direct commission as a lawyer, I averred that I didn't want to commit to four years although taking the OCS route committed me to a minimum of three years and going the hard way through all that infantry training. The funny thing is that I ended up serving more than five years on active duty. Truthfully, I have long harbored a notion that doctors and lawyers as well as officers in the non-combat arms, should have been warranted rather then commissioned. All warrant officers – there are four grades from Warrant Officer 1 to Chief Warrant Officer 4 (now there is a fifth level, the Master Warrant Officer) – are superior to all enlisted men and inferior to all commissioned officers. Doctors and lawyers as well as non-combat leaders could have functioned perfectly well, commanding enlisted men only, to accomplish their missions. They didn't need the special rights and privileges enjoyed by commissioned officers as agents of the United States. During World War II, candidates were hustled through a greatly accelerated program and graduated as second lieutenants, known as “90 day wonders.” At the time I attended OCS, the program of instruction lasted twice as long – 26 weeks. Eleven weeks as a Junior Candidate, seven weeks as an Intermediate Candidate, and eight weeks as a Senior Candidate. Senior Candidates were referred to as “Third Lieutenants” – an unofficial rank with power to make miserable the lives of lower candidates. I am told that once upon a time commissioned officers were also deemed to be “gentlemen.” My commission did not contain that appellation. I was merely commissioned as a officer. However, inasmuch as all officer candidates rose from the ranks, there was no presumption that any of us had been exposed to the manners of a gentleman and, thus, we were taught to deport ourselves as such. We had an unbreakable honor code that allowed neither a direct lie nor a lie of omission, known as quibbling. My fellow candidates elected me to our company's Honor Court where all suspected breaches of the code were tried. The lesson was hammered into us repeatedly that it was better to admit a mistake than cover up one. Men lost their lives and battles were lost whenever an officer lied or so much as quibbled. It was said that you could easily ascertain the path by which an officer earned his commission by observing the number of times they “shook themselves” at the urinal. It was also said that those who graduated from OCS didn't bother. I will neither confirm nor deny. I have speculated that those who graduated from West Point may have avoided using their right hands for fear of soiling their beloved class rings.
Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution. 4/17/2012 3 Comments Why did I need Kotex?MY MOTHER HAD one pressing question that she needed answered: Why did I need a box of Kotex sanitary napkins? It was one of many items on the checklist that I had been given when I received my orders to report to Fort Benning for Infantry Officer Candidate School. I didn't know the answer and she made me promise to write with it as soon as I found out. My parents drove me to Fort Benning from our home north of Baltimore. There was an airline strike and tickets were hard to come by. We arrived in Columbus, Georgia, the evening before I was supposed to report, so we had a good meal and spent the night in a motel just outside the gates to the post. We drove to the OCS barracks the next morning with directions that were provided by the MP at the gate. A soldier wearing a blue helmet and white cravat, both bearing the OCS logo met us outside. He greeted us politely and instructed us to say our goodbyes there at the car while I retrieved my duffel bag from the trunk. He then led me around the side of the building as my parents drove away. There were other duffel bags lined up on a concrete patio outside the barracks and the soldier had me leave mine with them. He then instructed me to remove all brass insignia from my uniform and place them in a nearby box. “You won't need them anymore,” he said. “You're no longer an enlisted man. You're an Officer Candidate.” The first letter that I received from my mother contained a comment as to how impressed she was with the polite young soldier who greeted us. It made me laugh. If only she knew. The blue helmet marked that polite young soldier was a Senior Candidate. The lowest ranking commissioned officer in the Army is a second lieutenant. Senior Candidates were treated as “third lieutenants” and it was their mission to inflict the same pain upon us Junior Candidates as other Senior Candidates had inflicted upon them – and then some. He led me to a room where a table and chair were arranged with a tray and silverware from the mess hall. A strip of white tape was placed six inches from the front edge of the seat. I was shown how to sit on just the front six inches at the position of attention: Back straight, knees together, and hands on lap. I was shown how to eat a square meal. The fork or spoon was raised perpendicularly from the tray to mouth level and then returned to the tray along the reciprocal route. Chewing did not commence until the fork was returned to the proper position and the hands were back on the lap. The knife remained diagonally across the upper left corner of the tray when not in use. The Senior Candidate also told me that each table in the mess hall had four seats, and that candidates had to remain standing behind their seats after arranging their trays and silverware properly until the fourth arrived. When he had his articles properly arranged, he would assume the position of attention and command, “Take – seats,” at which time the four sat down in unison. Lastly, I was admonished to avoid “eyeballing” the candidate seated across from me although we were staring directly ahead. I learned later that this required focusing on a point behind the other candidate. If your eyes met, you began laughing. It was unavoidable. He then took me into the hall way to demonstrate the proper method of “making way.” Whenever an officer entered a hallway in the barracks, the first officer candidate to see him would command, “Make – Way!” At this time, all officer candidates in that hallway had to stand at attention against the nearest wall, with a space just wide enough for a sheet of paper to pass between their shoulders, posteriors, and heels, and the wall, and remain their until the officer exited the hallway. With this portion of my orientation complete, the Senior Candidate morphed from a polite young soldier into a bizarre imitation of Sergeant Snorkel from Beetle Bailey comics. It was unexpected. Indeed, up until that moment, I had never experienced harassment at any time during my previous four months of service, in either Basic Combat Training or Advanced Infantry Training. I was shunted into the mess hall where Dante's fourth circle of hell was being reenacted with other Senior Candidates afflicting other Junior Candidates with all manner of vexations. The “real” officers, our cadre, arrived that evening and introduced themselves. We had a captain – the company commander, a first lieutenant – the company executive officer, and one second lieutenant assigned as “Tac” officer for each platoon. I was assigned to the second under Lieutenant John Robb. We were assigned in pairs to our rooms where we each had a bunk, a wall locker, and a footlocker. All were typical for Army barracks. However, we were also given a desk, chair, and chest-of-drawers. There was a diagram explaining not only the placement of the furniture, but also the exact method of folding and placing all articles of clothing, etc. on display in that furniture. We later learned that the “Tac” officer would make the rounds every day, measuring everything with a ruler, and assigning demerits for every deviation from the standards shown in the diagram. We had about three days to get everything in order. It took that long to have “Follow Me” patches sewn onto our left uniform shoulders and OCS decals affixed to just about everything else. We were also issued two pairs of brass OCS insignia that we wore on our uniform collars much like a second lieutenant wears his gold bars. We came to hate that insignia. It was constantly inspected by every passing member of the cadre who would issue demerits if it wasn't perfectly clean. Getting the Brasso polishing solution out of every nook and cranny was virtually impossible.
Everything had to be kept impeccably cleaned and polished. We spent hundreds of hours during that six months spit-shining everything, including the floors. It took a couple of weeks, but we built up a sheen on the floors that looked like a mirror. Of course, we never walked on them. We would take our boots off whenever we entered the barracks and carry them around our necks with the shoelaces tied together so that we could climb from one piece of furniture to another to avoid stepping on the floor. It was sometimes necessary where we could reach a foothold on the furniture, but we limited our path to just a couple tiles so we only had to polish those regularly. Of course, the “Tac” officer walked wherever he liked when he inspected and we had to re-polish and buff those tiles. The Kotex? I know you hadn't forgotten my mother's question. Those were stapled to the bottom of wooden blocks that we placed under the legs of all the furniture. We also affixed them to the bottoms of our footlockers, so we wouldn't scuff the floor too badly when we slid them out from under our bunks. Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution. 4/16/2012 7 Comments Flying without a TSA Pat DownMY RIDE HOME to Baltimore from Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, was one of the most interesting flights of my life. There was a strike against the airlines at the time and only Delta and a few independents were flying. Most everyone else took a bus home, and I figured that if everyone else was avoiding the airport I might have a chance. Silly. Columbia Metropolitan Airport in those days was archetypical of those serving small cities in the American south in those days. An elegant terminal sat parallel to a single runway. A single road approached it with lanes divided by a long fountain. When I got inside, I found the place crowded with hopeful passengers, most of them in uniform. You couldn't travel anywhere in the United States in those days without rubbing elbows with servicemen of every branch. We traveled in uniform to take advantage of cut-rate standby fares. However, looking at the crowd and the lack of any airplanes, I opted for a full-fare ticket. I had some savings that I could bank on when needed. I waited eight hours at the terminal before a single Delta jet arrived. I had passed the time with other servicemen, drinking beer and playing pinball machines. When the jet pulled up to the terminal, we waited expectantly for all of the passengers to unload. The airline agents told us to be patient when we asked where it would go next. "We don't know yet," they explained. Yet? Some passengers collected their luggage and left the airport after deborading. But many joined the waiting crowd until a Delta agent climbed on top of his counter and asked, “How many of you are heading west?” A number of people raised their hands and held them aloft while he counted. He hadn't asked if they were traveling to a specific destination, just a direction. He then asked how many of us were traveling north. I held my hand up until counted with my fellow travelers. There was no need to ask if anyone was headed east. There's wasn't anything but water that way. And, he didn't ask for southbound passengers. I can only speculate why. Those head west outnumbered us and he announced, “This flight is now bound for St. Louis. Anyone wishing to travel there please come to the desk with your luggage and we'll check in as many as we can.” Those of us left behind watched forlornly as the plane loaded and departed, and we settled in for another wait. No one could tell us if or when another plane might arrive and I was tempted to head for the bus station. A second plane arrived two hours later and the same scene was replayed. This time, after hands were counted, the Delta agent announced that the plane was headed for Baltimore and I thanked my lucky stars that was exactly where I wanted to go. I had just enough time to call my family and give them our estimated time of arrival at Friendship International Airport, before we were whisked away as another group of stranded travelers watched in dismay. I had a few minutes at Friendship to watch the same scene replayed as I waited for my father to arrive to pick me up. I wondered why I hadn't seen a Piedmont flight all day. I had flown on Piedmont Airlines to Columbia, South Carolina, when I started Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Jackson. To be more accurate, I flew on Lake Central Airlines from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. And then on Piedmont from there to South Carolina. The first leg of that trip was on a DC-3, twin engine airliner. It was my one and only flight on that classic airplane. I remember well clawing my way up the aisle to my seat. The plane sat on the ground at a steep incline from the rear to the front because it was a “tail dragger.” Its undercarriage consisted of two large wheels, one under each wing, and a small wheel at the tail. The seats were woven wicker. My mother turned white as a sheet when she saw it and I probably didn't help things when I joked that I had been granted a discount in exchange for helping wind up the propellers. We landed at Washington International Airport in Washington – safely, I might add – and taxied to the far end of the terminal. When I got inside, I was directed to the Piedmont boarding gates at the far end. I began walking in that direction and then running when I began to worry that I would miss my plane. I began to believe that the terminal building was longer than the runway. Of course, I arrived in a sweat to learn that my flight had been delayed. Piedmont flew me to South Carolina on a Convair 440 twin engine airliner. This one sat level on the group on tricycle landing gear and the seats were upholstered. Surprisingly, the soldier seated next to me disappeared in a cloud of white smoke when the door was closed. The stewardess allayed our fears when she announced that it was only condensation from the cooling system and would disappear when we reached cruising altitude.
Cruising altitude in a Convair 440 is just slightly higher than a piper cub. In many ways, flying at that altitude was like taking a road trip; you got to see the sights along the way. And, we stopped at many of them, including every small airport. Of course, my fellow passenger disappeared in a cloud of condensation every time we landed at one. Thinking back on those adventures, I believe that I would rather take another flight on a DC-3 or a Convair 440, than every subject myself to a TSA pat down in a modern airport. Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution. Good ReadWINSTON CHURCHILL FAMOUSLY said that “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” I'm not sure if he was being facetious, but I have to wonder what he might have said had he survived long enough to experience discussion threads on the Internet.
As you must have guessed by now, this discussion thread pertains to the review of a book on Amazon. It is but a small portion that includes 1,283 reviews and countless comments. Doesn't it just make you want more? The book or the discussion thread? I don't know, take your pick. They're both fascinating. Obviously, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond, the subject of this diatribe had inspired the passions, not only of the people who read the book, but also the people who read the reviews. Did you know that there was this much drama going on in nonfiction? That's right! Dr. Jared Diamond, PhD, the author, is a respected professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. His academic achievements include awards of the National Medal of Science, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, Japan's Cosmos Prize, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and the Lewis Thomas Prize honoring the Scientist as Poet, presented by Rockefeller University. Guns, Germs, and Steel earned his a Pulitzer Prize. And yet, countless people are willing to rake him over the coals publicly for what? Expounding on the effects of geography, environment, and demographics on the rise and fall of civilizations. I can see your eyes rolling up until nothing but white appears and you're feeling faint. Don't leave me here. He made this really interesting and readable. He begins with Yali's question, a question that you might have asked yourself if you lived in a place and time that wasn't blessed with the treasures of civilization. Yali lived on New Guinea where all manufactured goods arrived on cargo ships. His people had neither the resources nor the expertise to make anything for themselves. Thus, they referred to all such goods as “cargo.” Yali wondered why do some people have “cargo” and others, like his people, do not. If Yali's question doesn't get you wondering, you may as well stop reading here. It's not going to get any better, unless you wonder why people with no appreciable knowledge of history, science, or mathematics would even attempt to criticize an academic tome. That's my question. The truth that Dr. Diamond discovered that the uneven distribution throughout the world of plants and animals capable of being domesticated, as well as the uneven distribution of raw resources such as coal and iron ore, had a significant impact on the uneven success of civilizations around the world. Despite some observations interspersed throughout the aforementioned discussion thread, Dr. Diamond also allows that other factors such as culture and politics had significant effects. However, no one study can include them all.
Now, some people will read this far and still not be inspired to read Guns, Germs, and Steel. However, if your curiosity has been piqued, I cannot recommend a better beginning for your adventure in learning than this book. The rest of you can go back to ranting on discussion threads. This is a major election year and there will be plenty of opportunities for you to rant, and ranting doesn't require knowledge, just an opinion. Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution. 4/14/2012 5 Comments Who Will The Chosen Choose?Sunday OpinionI NEVER THOUGHT that I would see the day when a Democrat would be in danger of losing some part of the Jewish voting block. Not the whole thing, but a significant part of it seems to be at risk this coming November. I joined the Jewish community approximately thirty-five years ago when I converted to marry my wife. Fortunately, I had been circumcised at birth and didn't have to face a mohel – a Jewish circumciser – as an adult. However, even more painful was the pressure to become a Democrat. Although I'm not a member of any political party, the family consider anyone not a Democrat to be a Republican. Thus, every family gathering devolved into a group effort to help me see the error of my thinking. Fortunately, there was at least one other adult member of the family who also shared my sin and we could rely on each other for a friendly ear. Why are Jews so overwhelmingly affiliated with the Democratic party? I don't know. I've speculated that there may be some sort of genetic predisposition towards collective thought. After all, the community has been rigorously assailed in every generation and survival has depended on the group dynamic for survival. Much like herds of herbivores and schools of fish, they form a homogenous mass that is difficult to penetrate. Whatever the reason, no voting block has remained more loyal to Democratic nominees than the Jews. However, there are signs of fissures in that mass. (See Are American Jews Becoming Republican?) This month's edition of Hadassah magazine brought this development to my attention. Last month's issue featured an interview with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee. Inasmuch as we are well involved in a Presidential election cycle, Ms. Schultz took advantage of the opportunity to make the case for the re-election of the incumbent President, Barack Obama. Surprisingly, the editors of the magazine received some push back, enough to inspire them to defend themselves.
Hadassah Magazine Editor's Note: “Hadassah Magazine interviews figures from across the political spectrum in the United States and Israel. In America, given biennial Congressional contests and long presidential campaigns, it is inevitable that some of these interviews take place close to elections. As the letters here indicate, readers often taken issue with people interviewed. We are confident, however, that if readers look back at our interview subjects over the long term, they will find that we present a balanced sample of Republican and Democratic views.” Interestingly, their preamble was not responsive to the content of the four letters they published. Only one objected to the person being interviewed or her party affiliation. This correspondent worried that providing a forum for a prominent Democratic spokesperson might imperil their status as a charitable organization. Highly unlikely. The other three correspondents objected to Wasserman's assertions that the President is a friend of Israel, the fact that she was vindictive in her attacks on the opposition, and that the President's ideology reflects a departure from traditional Democratic values. Fortunately for the President, a major shift in the Jewish vote won't impact the November elections greatly. Only 2.1% of the American population is Jewish. Even though it is a politically active segment, it is hardly enough to sway the outcome unless the election is extremely close. Unfortunately for the Jews, there isn't much respite waiting for them with the Republicans. Other than Republican's unwavering support for Israel, there doesn't seem to be very much difference between the President and his presumptive opponent. Indeed, there is little difference between him and his predecessor. Keep in mind that this last statement is only an expression of opinion from someone who doesn't have any skin in this game. In truth, my dream result this November would be for all incumbents to be replaced if for no other reason than to serve warning to all elected officials that the American public is finally awake and expecting real results. AS WE NEARED the end of Advanced Infantry Training, there was awareness that the next step in our military careers was going to be one of the most challenging in our lives. For most of us, it was a tour of duty in Vietnam. We were supposedly ready. For a few of us, it was Officer Candidate School. It may have seemed a reprieve from the war in Vietnam, but as we later learned, OCS was a challenge that few of us could aspire to and even fewer would master. Furthermore, the second lieutenants that graduated had a lower life expectancy than most infantrymen. I don't know what happened to those other men who shipped out to Vietnam immediately following our graduation. So many young men came into and departed my life while in the Army that it is impossible to keep track of them all. I imagine them hovering just beyond my consciousness and I wonder if we'll meet again in another time and place. We shared so many hardships and fears that I know we will recognize each other in an instant if there is a place for soldiers in heaven. I know that we'll have the answer to the question that we all shared at that time: How will I react in combat? Will I be a hero or a coward? Will I live or die? I imagine that most of us fooled ourselves the same way we all fool ourselves when faced with potential outcomes that we would rather avoid – it won't happen to me – I won't die, I won't run – it'll be the other guy. It reminds me of another time, when the National Safety Council heralded every holiday weekend with a public service announcement designed to scare us into driving safely. “400 people will die on the nation's highways this holiday weekend!” they proclaimed. They were correct. Whatever number they declared, that's the number that died. It makes you wonder how they got it that accurately. Their message was totally ineffective at preventing deaths. Why? Simply because every motorist dismissed the message as pertaining to the other guy. So, we marched off to war clutching to some unrealistic belief in invincibility. There may have been some savant among us who understood the odds, but the rest of us were left to simply cling to unreasoned fatalism. And, we were confident. Those last training exercises gave us confidence. An infantry assault coordinated with armor, artillery, and air support is a terrible sight to behold, especially at night. We crept along trails and ravines to the line of departure. There we spread out in a single rank facing an enemy dug into rifle pits and foxholes. The artillery came first, blasting the enemy positions with high explosive (HE) and white phosphorous (Willy-Peter) rounds while we checked our equipment and established contact with units to our right and left. Then, at a prearranged time, the artillery began to fall directly in front of us and “walk” towards the enemy positions while we followed, tanks rumbling in gaps in our line. We opened up fire with a tracer between every four rounds to help us better aim. Our sights were virtually useless in the dark. All those explosions. All those tracers. It was beautiful, terribly beautiful to behold. How could anyone stand in our way let alone fight us? Of course, what the Army couldn't simulate was the enemy standing and fighting back. Still, it was impressive and it built our confidence. Maybe, just maybe, we would survive a tour of duty in Vietnam. What we didn't realize then was that this was how the Army fought in World War II. We wouldn't learn how to fight in Vietnam until we reached Vietnam. We didn't know that we would be fighting mostly from ambush or while being ambushed. I have to laugh now thinking back on the westerns that I grew up watching in theaters and on television. Hoot Gibson, Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, would sneer in disgust at any “dirty bushwhacker.” Yet we wouldn't survive, let alone prevail, until we learned how to be better bushwhackers than the enemy. Didn't anyone up the chain of command realize that an army of insurgents wasn't about to stand and fight like the Germans?
I didn't have any problems envisioning Fidel's tactics as I wrote Rebels on the Mountain. The lessons I learned in Vietnam taught me well how the Fidelistas would have fought – how they would have had to have fought. Just three hundred of them facing a well-armed, well-equipped modern army of 40,000 couldn't have succeeded had they simply lined up and gone head-to-head with the dictator's forces. The fact that they won told me how they had to have fought. There are no reliable documents of this fight. Both sides claimed victory in every engagement. The dictator's government claimed victories even when there were no engagements. They also proclaimed Fidel's death many times and you can easily see how false those claims were. Unfortunately, for Batista, the dictator who Castro deposed, he didn't have commanders capable of initiative and creativity. He lost. Fortunately for the United States, we had commanders in Vietnam who learned to adapt. They created new tactics. They simply weren't able to propagate them to the training centers in the United States before we graduated. We had to wait until we reached Vietnam to learn them. Fortunately for those assigned to the 9th Infantry Division, they were sent to the Reliable Academy so they wouldn't have to learn everything in the crucible of war. They were given a couple extra weeks to learn those lessons from infantrymen who had survived the battles that they would soon face. I have often wondered if other American units in Vietnam adopted this strategy and set up their own in country training camps. Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution. 4/11/2012 3 Comments Do you believe in fate?STAFF SERGEANT RAMBO had an epiphany during a war game in Germany. He was killed in action while serving as a squad leader. It wasn't a technical call. No umpire walked up and handed him a black card announcing that he was dead. It was sudden and unexpected. A sniper hiding in a tree killed Sergeant Rambo as his armored personnel carrier drove under it. Rambo was riding in the Track Commander's (TC) seat with his upper body protruding from a hatch on top of the vehicle, just behind the driver's hatch. He knew at that moment that he would die in Vietnam.
The Army gave him a stay of execution by sending him to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, before deploying him to the war in Vietnam. There he served as one of the cadre in my Advanced Infantry Training Company. I don't remember making Sergeant Rambo's acquaintance until after we had graduated. It's strange when I reflect on the fact that I don't remember any of our training cadre from that school. I remember everyone from Basic Combat Training clearly, even their names. I remember all four members of my training squad, though I can't remember one of their names. The other three were Mort Beech, Bill Downey, and, of course, me. The fourth, as I mentioned earlier, was a Harvard Graduate. I wish I could remember his name. He is the only Ivy League graduate who I ever met who had an ounce of common sense. Harvard (I'll call him that unless I can come up with something better) drove the sergeants crazy. He always did exactly as he was told. Think about that: “Exactly what he was told to do.” He was once told to put a crate of one pint milk cartons and a block of ice into a cooler. That's what he did, and he crushed the milk cartons under the weight of the ice. (He didn't do it gently.) “Boy, what's the matter with you?” the sergeant screamed. “Don't you have any common sense.” Harvard looked at the sergeant with all the guile of a cocker spaniel puppy. I was prepared to observe, of course he doesn't. He's an Ivy League graduate. However, I learned that there was a method to his madness. Within a week or two, the sergeants never asked him to do anything. They were afraid of the consequences. In fact, the only consequence was that Harvard never had to do anything while the rest of us worked. I wish I could find even one other Ivy Leaguer that smart. I digress. We graduated. The four of us were awarded Zippo lighters with the Army coat of arms and engraved to announce that we were the top squad in the training cycle. I had three weeks to wait before Infantry Officer Candidate School began, so I hung around Fort Jackson for one of them. I had already taken two weeks leave between Basic and Advanced Infantry Training, and could only take two more for the year. There wasn't much to do. The Army was building a replica Vietnamese village at Fort Jackson for training purposes, and layabouts like me were regularly dispatched there to work on it. But, one morning I was called out of formation by Sergeant Rambo along with Harvard for a special detail. Rambo took us to the PX and bought us coffee and donuts. We sat around for an hour, smoking and drinking, and listening to Sergeant Rambo's premonitions of death in combat. Mostly, we were wondering why we were there. An hour later, Sergeant Rambo glanced at his watch and said it was time to go. He drove us to a barracks building where he borrowed a floor polisher. We loaded it into his truck and he next drove to one of the laundries. The PX system maintained a variety of shops on the base that were leased to civilians who operated them. This laundry was leased by a German woman who had married another soldier who was then deployed somewhere overseas. Sergeant Rambo had been looking after her in her husband's absence. The Inspector General was due to inspect her shop later that week and we were being loaned to her to help prepare for it. We spent about three hours cleaning up her place and waxing the floors before Sergeant Rambo returned to pick us up. I remember I had a pleasant time with her. I was able to practice my German (I had been taking an Army correspondence course), and she treated us to homemade strudel (best I ever had). After we dropped off the floor polisher where we had borrowed it, Sergeant Rambo took us back to the PX for another round of coffee and donuts. There we were admonished to tell everyone that we had been working at the Vietnamese village that day. In return for his kindness, I offered Sergeant Rambo the wisdom that I had learned from Sergeant Dunne in Basic Combat Training. Dunne was a fatalist. He told us, “If there is a bullet with your name on it, there's nothing you can do. It's fate, and there was no use worrying about it. However, we should do everything we could to avoid all those other bullets marked 'To Whom It May Concern'.” Somehow, I don't think that Sergeant Rambo was comforted. Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution. WE WERE TREATED more like real soldiers in Advanced Infantry Training than we were in Basic Combat Training. There wasn't any free time in Basic. We were being trained almost every minute of every day. In AIT, we had some time to ourselves, to relax, go to a movie, and visit a craft shop. The craft shop systems operated by Army Special Services (never to be confused with Special Forces) is one of the best kept secrets in the Army. I was in charge of Special Services for a time at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii after I completed my tour of duty in Vietnam. We had woodworking equipment, a color and black & white photo lab, golf driving range, tennis courts, and more. At Fort Jackson I began throwing clay. It was at the potter's wheel that I had time to reflect on the decision I had made to volunteer for the infantry and the possible outcome. The feel of the clay spinning in my hands often lulled me into a fugue state wherein I could think clearly.
I never actually made anything there. I simply threw a lump of clay on the wheel, centered it, and drew a cylinder. I might give it a crude shape like a cup or a bowl. But, at the end of the evening, I scraped the clay off the potter's wheel and threw it back into the bin. It is the most relaxing art media in which I have ever worked. No matter what tensions I took back to the barracks from a day of training, I left them at the craft shop. It wasn't until I ran the Post Theater at Tripler that I came to understand the system. Army Special Services took just about every film that came out of Hollywood including, the good, the bad, and the indifferent. Only a few more than 200 were produced each year and we kept each one only a few days. Every film began with the playing of the national anthem while patriotic images were projected on the screen. Every member of the audience, including military dependents, lept to their feet and remain standing at attention until given the order to “Take – seats!” For those of you who have never served, let me explain. Every order has two parts: Preparation and Execution. You wouldn't hear, “Take seats,” spoken without a pause. The command is given “Take” to prepare you to act in unison, and “Seats” to cue everyone to sit down. When you watch television or a movie, listen to see if they do it correctly. “Atten – tion!” “Stand at – ease!” “Forward – march!” My wife can tell you that I am almost always annoyed by the portrayal of the military on television and in the movies. Few make the effort to get it right. Sloppy hand salutes are particularly grating. The salute is a sign of respect between soldiers and those who do it sloppily are showing disrespect. I am also unhappy when the military are used for comic relief or as the villains. They rush in to destroy aliens without waiting to discover their intentions. They exacerbate any catastrophe by responding precipitously. You'll occasionally find people who hold the military in little regard commenting in this blog. They hold the military in low regard. Fortunately, the military holds all civilians in the same high regard. They will defend your rights and liberties regardless of your political or ideological beliefs. The military doesn't start wars, never have. They end them. And, President Reagan had it correct when he said that the best defense is a strong one. Nothing will deter the bullies of the world like the prospect that they will get their noses bloodied if they mess with you. Pacifism has never deterred war. It has only invited it. This is not opinion. It is historically demonstrable fact. That being said, we didn't serve because we loved war. No one hates war more than soldiers. They know that they will be the first to go in harm's way. Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution. 4/9/2012 3 Comments PlatoonADVANCED INFANTRY TRAINING taught me what a platoon is. Officer Candidate School taught me how to lead one in combat. One other member of my training squad, Bill Downey, shared that journey but I have lost track of him. The only thing I know is that his name doesn't appear on The Wall at the Vietnam War Memorial. Thank God. An infantry rifle platoon consists of three rifle squads and a heavy weapons squad, usually equipped with two machine guns. However, they may be supplemented with other crew-served weapons such as small caliber mortars or rocket launchers – bazookas – depending upon their situation. The platoon is supposed to be led by commissioned officer – a second lieutenant – and a senior non-commissioned officer – a master sergeant (E7). The shortage of lieutenants and senior sergeants in Vietnam left many platoons being commanded by lower grade sergeants. I suspect that Fidel Castro had a similar problem in Cuba. The Fidelistas were ambushed shortly after their arrival in Cuba on board the cabin cruiser Granma. Only about eleven or twelve of them survived. Since their number included Fidel and his brother, Raúl, who served as a capitán of one column, and Camilo Cienfuegos, who served as capitán of the other, and Che Guevara, the group's doctor, there were only seven or eight who had any military training and could serve as platoon leaders. Truthfully, I couldn't find any extant documents describing the organization of Fidel's rebel band. I had to guess at it using my training and experience as well as common sense. Since the remainder of Fidel's small army, about 270 men recruited from the outlaws and outcasts who populated the Sierra Madres mountains at the eastern end of Cuba, it is doubtful that any of them could have served as leaders until they gained some training and experience. I imagined the surviving Fidelistas from the Granma serving in that capacity. They must have led them in training as well as combat. I suspect that they trained as platoons, inasmuch as there weren't enough trained leaders to break the recruits down into smaller training units. Their platoon leaders probably led these smaller units in combat until fire team and squad leaders emerged from the ranks and proved themselves capable. Even then, I doubt if they fought very often in groups larger than squad level. They lacked the means of communications needed to command and coordinate large unit operations effectively, which is why their earliest actions were ambushes. American rifle platoons also include a radio telephone operator – RTO – who is a key member of the team. A fighting force must be able to move, shoot, and communicate to be effective in combat. However, all evidence tells me that Castro did not have any electronic communications devices until very late in the revolution. Thus, he must have had to improvise. Inasmuch as radios have a nasty habit of failing just when you need them most, even the well-equipped Cuban army must have had the same problems (I know we did in the American Army). Even if they had radios and they worked, there would have been other problems. The range at which military radios of that age could communicate was extremely limited in mountainous regions such as the Sierra Madres where the Fidelistas operated through much of the revolution. Thus, I believe that the rebels must have depended heavily on advance planning, and the initiative of their squad and fire team leaders to adapt to the vagaries of combat. In the end, I believe that they prevailed over the Cuban army primarily on their initiative. Battles are organized chaos, and they're often won on small decisions made by leaders with the initiative to seize an advantage when the opportunity appears through the fog of war. The Cuban army seemed to lack the ability to seize an opportunity because initiative is usually punished in dictatorships. No tyrant wants men in power who might seize an opportunity to depose them. Indeed, Fulgencio Batista, the man Castro deposed from power, had risen because he was precisely the kind of man no dictator wants in his army. Batista had been a sergeant, a leader of clerks. He rose to commander in chief by leading the “sergeants revolt in Cuba.” Senior officers had been supporting an unpopular Cuban president, Gerardo Machado. Batista used the unrest in the population to incite the non-commissioned officers who surround a barracks where the officers had barricaded themselves. He then brought artillery pieces to their door and demanded their surrender. No, Batista wasn't about to allow an ambitious army officer – commissioned or non-commissioned – to remain in the army long enough to do the same thing to him.
In the end, his lack of competent leaders was his undoing. Remember, Batista himself was not a combat soldier. He probably wouldn't have recognized an effective leader even if he sought one. Thus, Fidel's highly motivated rebels, just 300 strong, ultimately defeated Batista's modern army of 40,000 soldiers, trained and equipped by his allies in America. Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution. |
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