Fallen Idol
Traditionally, parachuting into hostile territory has been how airborne units enter combat, but, on occasion, the brass finds more creative reasons for a jump. A case in point: putting fans in the stands for the Trooper Bowl, the annual football game between the All Americans from the 82nd Airborne Division and the Screaming Eagles from the 101st Airborne.
In 1959, the game was played at Ft. Campbell, the home of the 101st. To ensure there was a cadre of fans to root for the visiting All Americans, the Friday before the game, a rifle company from the 82nd. was flown from Ft. Bragg to Ft. Campbell. The jump’s other purpose was to celebrate the promotion of a platoon leader to first lieutenant and acknowledge General Westmoreland’s appointment as Superintendent of the US Military Academy at West Point.
At the time, I was an automatic weapons specialist, but for this exercise, I was our company commander’s radio operator. Shortly before we boarded the planes, one of the jumpmasters told me that I was to jump a General Purpose bag. (A little tutorial here on jumping a General Purpose bag in case you ever get the urge to do so. A GP bag contains bulky items and is not to weigh more than eighty pounds, although the one I was to jump was overpacked and weighed well over ninety. The bag is attached to the two D-rings on your parachute harness that also secure your reserve chute. In addition, a fifteen-foot heavy-duty nylon cord connects the bag to one of these same D-rings. Once you’re clear of the aircraft, you release the bag from your harness to dangle beneath you so that when you hit the ground the bag isn’t between your legs where it would have a good chance of breaking one, if not both, of your ankles.)
Back to real-time. We flew for several hours before approaching the frozen solid drop zone, affectionately nicknamed “malfunction junction.” Because I was assigned a GP bag, I was first to go. After my canopy opened, I discovered that the bag had ripped apart and watched as its contents, dozens of olive-drab canisters filled with ammunition, drifted silently in circles as they fell below me.
Once on the ground, I collected my radio from another jumper and hurried to find my company commander. Captain Kliner was standing at the edge of the drop zone with Dwight Beach, the commandant of the 82nd, and William Westmoreland, the commanding general of the 101st. I came to attention and awkwardly saluted all three. Surprisingly, Captain Kliner introduced me with a complimentary comment, adding that I was waiting for my orders for Officers Candidate School. Even more surprisingly, the paratrooper icon General Westmoreland — three stars, regal bearing and all — reached for my hand and said it was a pleasure to meet me. After General Beach followed Westmoreland’s lead, Captain Kliner asked who the idiot was who jumped the faulty GP bag. I said I didn’t know who packed it and left it at that.
Little could I have guessed at that moment how the legendary General Westmoreland — a combat veteran of WW II and the Korean conflict who had been awarded a Bronze Star and the Distinguished Service Medal, and eventually the Commander of the US Forces in Vietnam and the four-star Army Chief of Staff — would be remembered. Who would have thought that Time magazine’s 1965 Man of the Year would ultimately be vilified by many for misleading the American public about our military progress in Vietnam and become known as the general who lost the war? But, on that freezing December morning in 1959, as a twenty-two-year-old soldier waiting to see how my enlistment would unfold, it was an honor to have the great General Westmoreland shake my hand.
A month or so after my encounter with Westmoreland, I was finishing up a freezing, wet week in the field when a jeep crawled through our bivouac area. The sergeant who was driving was calling my name. When he found me, he asked, “Hey, son, how’d you like to go someplace warm?”
The “someplace warm” turned out to be Vietnam. In 1960, the Army was recruiting a small number of volunteers to act as advisors to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. The advisory teams were led by a lieutenant and consisted of a medic, and a demolition, communication, and weapons expert, who were not to engage in combat. I was caught between my pending orders for Officers Candidate School — a move I thought would help me get back into college after failing out of Hamilton — versus doing something that sounded culturally expansive, even romantic, and no more dangerous than jumping out of an airplane. But, in the end, I stuck with my plan and went to OCS.
Years later, after an accelerated curriculum in the University of Pennsylvania’s night school, I applied to become a full-time senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. But, as the Dean of Admissions’ assistant told me later, Dean Owens barely looked at my file and said, “This boy was a paratrooper? Send him to school.”
Even though getting my commission didn’t help me get into Penn, I’ve always thought that going to OCS and not going to Vietnam was a sound decision, although not necessarily the right decision. As a result, choosing the practical over the adventuresome has been a life-long internal debate, but one I will now put to rest by writing this.
