The Last Full Measure

Before and following the Civil War it was customary to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers or to decorate the graves of one’s family and friends. Decoration Day eventually became Memorial Day, a day when we celebrate those who have given their lives in our country’s defense. Today’s decorations are usually small American flags stuck in the ground at the gravesites of our honored heroes. Memorial Day is celebrated on the last Monday of May, and for many it marks the unofficial beginning of summer.

Veterans’ Day, on the other hand, is celebrated on November 11 and honors all who have worn a military uniform.

And so it is that there are two days set aside to remember and honor our men and women in the services: Veterans’ Day in the fall and Memorial Day in the spring, when we honor and remember those who, as Abraham Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address, have given “the last full measure” in the service of their country.

My time of service was 1966 to 1972, and this, of course, was during the Vietnam War. Like many wars, perhaps like all wars, the Vietnam War was controversial. It was a period of great upheaval in the country. Many believed then, and I was among them, that a young man owed a duty to his country and that military service was the central element for fulfilling that duty. Like our fathers who served during World War II and their fathers who served in the Great War, World War I, we believed that sometime between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five a young man should step forward, raise his right hand, pledge allegiance to the flag and the Constitution, and enter a branch of the military service.

I was nineteen years old when, in the early morning hours of a cold November day in 1966, I climbed the steps of a bus heading to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where I would train to be a soldier. I remember well getting off that bus and lining up in front of a drill sergeant. I remember following the yellow line from the parking lot to the barber shop, sitting quietly in a chair as an old African American man from nearby Fayetteville buzzed my head until there wasn’t the slightest inference of hair. I remember removing and folding my civilian clothes and standing in my underwear as my clothes and shoes were wrapped in a package that would be mailed to my home. I remember walking through a line where our fingers were pricked, blood typed, and shots given in both arms before receiving a duffel bag into which we put our olive drab fatigues, boxer shorts, tee shirts, socks, belts, and boots. I was shocked at the amount of clothing we received, more than I had ever owned at one time in my life.

After we dressed and put on our Army hats we were marched to the mess hall, which I learned was the Army’s word for the place where you eat your meals. In the mess hall we walked with trays down a serving line where soldiers who were assigned to KP, which stood for Kitchen Police, lopped large portions of food on our plates, including meat, mashed potatoes, biscuits, and green beans—good food and lots of it. Along the walls there were large stainless steel canisters of milk.

Most of the men thought the food was tasteless or worse. I thought it was wonderful. My mom was not a good cook. I didn’t long for Mama’s home cooking like my buddies, so I usually ate their portions and mine. They would lose weight, but I would gain twenty-five pounds in the twelve weeks of basic training.

It got better and better for me. Lots of good clothes, even jackets with lining and gloves and a dress uniform in which I would soon get married to my high school sweetheart, Carla, and an overcoat, the first overcoat I had ever owned. I felt as though I had driven into a Twilight Zone episode where every boy was a rich kid. They gave me an M-14 rifle, the best rifle I’d ever owned, though they took it back when I graduated. Then they marched us to our barracks, which were filled with very nice bunk beds, just twenty-four in each bay, with clean sheets and wool blankets and a foot locker where we were told to neatly fold our clothes, the Army way, and prepare for daily inspections. They taught us to make up our beds the Army way.

We had one large bathroom for the forty-eight men on my floor in the barracks, which gave us plenty of time to shower, shave, and do other things in the morning, five minutes each for eight men at a time in the bathroom—more than adequate.

But it got better. We met on the PT field at about zero five thirty every morning for physical training. We got to do push-ups (they really liked push-ups), and the Army daily dozen, which were twelve exercises that worked every muscle in your body. And we got to do more push-ups. Then we marched to the mess hall and there was a chin-up bar at the door. On the first day we had to do three chin ups to get through the door. If you couldn’t do three you had to go to the back of the line. They eventually let you in. I was pretty good at this, and I did four. I got sent to the back of the line for showing off and couldn’t go into the mess hall until the last man made it in. But when I finally got inside there were plenty of young soldiers pining for their mamas’ home cooking, so I had more than enough to eat. All that food again: eggs, pancakes, grits, bacon, ham, milk. It was ridiculous, more food, and good food, than I had ever eaten in my life. I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

Then we went to school. We learned everything we needed to know. The Army is big on “need to know.” We learned what we needed to know, no more and no less. We learned how to march. We marched and marched, hour after hour after hour. The Army was big on marching, and if you didn’t march well, you got to do push-ups. The Army liked push-ups.

At the end of the day we got to polish our boots, straighten our lockers, and hit the rack at lights out, two one hundred hours, 9:00 p.m. civilian time. Forty-eight exhausted men in twenty-four bunk beds, but there were a few who were crying to go home. I couldn’t believe it. Why on earth would anybody want anything else than being in the Army? I just smiled and went to sleep.

And it got better and better. We got to get up earlier on the second day, zero four thirty, because we were going to have the privilege of marching twenty miles in the rain. We met on the parade field in our uniforms and ponchos and started marching out into the boonies of Fort Bragg, ten miles out and ten miles back and this was just two days. I remember getting back, covered in mud and hungry and thinking, well, it can’t get any better than this, but I was wrong.

It got cold, very cold. So we got to get up at zero four hundred hours and exercise in twenty-degree temperatures. The drill sergeant said we were very fortunate because the weather was seldom this bad, and we were getting the benefit of training in horrible conditions, which, of course, would make us better soldiers.

Twelve weeks later we graduated from basic training and were sent off to advanced training. For me it was field artillery and officers’ candidate school. Six months after that I was a Second Lieutenant back at Fort Bragg training to go to Vietnam.

In August of 1968 I landed in Cam Ran Bay in South Vietnam and was assigned as a Field Artillery Forward Observer in the First Air Cavalry Division on the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam. The captain who briefed me said I was very fortunate. The First Cav was the most active combat unit in Vietnam. Wherever the most intense fighting was occurring, the Cav was in the middle of it. And, as a Field Artillery Forward Observer, I would have a front row seat. FOs were, by definition, “forward” meaning we were out front calling in artillery and mortars as well as helicopter gunships. He told me not to worry about the high casualty rate for Forward Observers like me. Yes, it was true that fewer than one out of ten would make it through their tour without getting killed or seriously wounded, but one out of ten was a ten percent chance, and I should take great comfort in those odds.

When I reported in I learned that the man I was replacing had been wounded the previous day. His name was Lieutenant Brown, and he died on a hospital ship a few days later. My recon sergeant and my radio operator had been wounded and evacuated, but my luck was good because a new radio operator, Private Steve Phillips had arrived a few hours before me.

So Steve, a big red-headed kid from Virginia, and I were the forward observer team. Within a few hours we were in the middle of a fierce battle. We learned on the job. Enemy mortar rounds were falling all around us on that first night, and I was crawling in the elephant grass trying to figure out where the enemy mortars were located so I could call in artillery fire in return. I did my best, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t kill any mortar tubes that first night.

But it got better, just as it always did for me in the Army. We had scout dogs, and as I was calling in defensive artillery targets a few nights later a scout dog attacked and took a chunk out of my behind. I got sewed up on the spot and kept calling in artillery.

Then I got bitten by a rat and had to take rabies shots in my gut—six shots over six weeks. But I kept calling in artillery.

We moved south trying to keep the North Vietnamese army from overrunning Saigon as they had done in the Tet Offensive of 1968. My company commander was killed along with six other men in my company on November 2, 1968. Many were wounded. I carried some of the men off the battlefield after reinforcements arrived. Steve and I were getting pretty good at calling in artillery and gunships, but in this first close encounter with the North Vietnamese army we had a lot to learn. We learned quickly. Two nights later we were airlifted to a hot landing zone, our helicopter flying directly into enemy machine-gun fire. We scrambled off the chopper and onto a large anthill, which gave us a good position for calling in artillery. Our company commander, Barry McCaffrey told me we were outnumbered. Our company and what was left of the Charlie company, maybe 200 versus hundreds of enemy soldiers, maybe a thousand or more. The only way we could survive was with the artillery and gunships. I had a big job.

”Don’t get killed,” he said. ”Without you we won’t make it.”

So Steve and I did our best. We called in one volley of artillery after another. We blasted the perimeter with everything we had. When their mortars tried to take us out we fired back with effectiveness because we had learned how to find the mortar tubes and take them out. We fought all night. The next day we got reinforcements. Captain McCaffrey told me our casualties were relatively light due to the overpowering firepower we were able to bring into the battle. He thanked me for not getting killed. I told him it never crossed my mind.

The next day as we advanced out of the landing zone we were hit by a ferocious mortar attack. Steve and I crawled from one mortar crater to another until we had a fix on the direction of the mortars. Then we blasted them out of business with a battery of 105 Howitzers.

From that time, just three months into my tour, I was engaged in many battles. Steve and I did our best. We weren’t always effective, but we always tried. We now know that it was the bloodiest year of the Vietnam War. There were 550,000 Americans in country at the time, but just 20,000 of them were front-line soldiers like us. The overall casualty rate didn’t look so high for 550,000 troops, but for the front line fighting men it was extremely high. Our company of 120 men turned over every ninety days. Steve was wounded halfway through his tour. Captain McCaffrey was seriously wounded and evacuated in February 1969. I got hit hard in the head by an exploding helicopter blade, but my helmet saved me. Near the end of my tour I had a serious case of Falciparum malaria, the most deadly form of the disease. Other than the dog and the rat and the helicopter blade and the malaria, I had no other injuries or wounds. I was shot at many times, specifically by enemy soldiers who knew I was calling in the artillery. Of the eight forward observer positions, I know just two, besides me, who made it through the entire tour. Two were killed and two were seriously wounded. I’m not sure about the others.

Captain McCaffrey recommended me for the Silver Star on November 6, 1968 for the battle on the anthill. Steve got a Bronze Star. In my time in Vietnam I was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, an Air Medal for more than twenty aerial combat assaults into known enemy territory, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, a Vietnam Service Medal with four Battle Stars, two Army Commendation Medals, a shaving kit, and twenty dollars for cab fare when I got home.

I served four years of active duty and two years of active reserves. When I returned to Fort Bragg after my tour in Vietnam, I jumped out of airplanes with parachutes, trained other men to do what I had done, and gave my best to my country. I’m proud of my service, and I still love the Army. But my greatest honor is to have served side by side with many who gave the last full measure, men who gave their lives for the country they loved. They didn’t pick the war or the battles, but they did their best and they gave their all. Most were killed fighting to protect their buddies. I remember them every day of my life, but their names and faces flood my memory on days like today.

Thank you for remembering them on Veteran’s Day and for honoring all who have given the last full measure for their country. Thank you for caring about our country. God bless America and God bless the military services and all who have and are serving.