The Boys of Benning: Stories from the Lives of Fourteen Infantry Ocs Class 2-62 Graduates
284
The Boys of Benning: Stories from the Lives of Fourteen Infantry Ocs Class 2-62 Graduates
284Paperback
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781481717120 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 02/28/2013 |
| Pages: | 284 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.64(d) |
Read an Excerpt
The Boys of Benning
Stories From The Lives Of Fourteen Infantry OCS Class 2-62 Graduates
By Dan Telfair, Zia Telfair, Thomas B. Vaughn
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2013Co-editors: Dan Telfair, Zia Telfair, Thomas B. VaughnAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4817-1712-0
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1Prior to Commanding 52nd OCS Company, Class 2-62
After graduating from West Point in June 1955, I was assigned to the Basic Infantry Officer's Course (BIOC) at Fort Benning. I stayed at Fort Benning after BIOC and completed the Airborne and Ranger courses before being assigned to the 38th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Division at Fort Lewis, Washington. I arrived there in the spring of 1956 and was assigned as Platoon Leader of the 105 Recoilless Rifle Platoon and later as a Battalion Communications Officer. I was married to Jane Grassman in July of 1957.
That summer, I received orders to Berlin, Germany with a stopover at Fort Benning for Communications School. In Berlin I was assigned to Company D, 6th Infantry Regiment as Mortar Platoon Leader. Eventually the Regiment was reorganized into the 2nd and 3rd Battle Groups and I remained in the 2nd BG. I became the Honor Guard Platoon Leader and an Assistant S-3. One of my duties was to command the guard at Spandau where Rudolf Hess and Baldur von Schirach were imprisoned after the Nuremberg trials following WWII. (We rotated between the Russians and British.) While with the 2nd BG, I earned the Expert Infantryman's Badge.
To OCS
In the summer of 1960, I received orders to the Advanced Infantry Course at Fort Benning. After graduation I was assigned to the Officer Candidate School Battalion; first to 51st Company as XO and then as Commander of 52nd Company.
This assignment was an awesome responsibility. We were molding the future backbone of the leadership of the Infantry. War was looming in SE Asia and the life and death of these future officers and their men rested in our hands. I have many memories of the training we went through, but I remember vividly a field exercise in the bitter cold winter. The previous OCS Company to undergo this exercise had suffered several cases of frostbite. This was preventable, but it required vigilance and knowing and caring for your troops. I had a death in my family, but because of the seriousness of assuring our OCS men did not suffer frostbite, I cancelled my emergency leave so I could go to the field with the troops. As it turned out we did not suffer any cases of frostbite. This, after all, was what we were trying to instill in our OCS candidates; leading soldiers in dangerous situations.
After 52nd Company
That spring (1962), I received orders to South Vietnam as part of the initial group of advisors sent there by President Kennedy. After training in a Materiel and Training Assistance (MATA) course at Fort Bragg, I was assigned to a short course in the Vietnamese language at the Presidio of Monterey, California.
When I arrived in Vietnam, I was assigned as a Vietnamese Ranger Trainer at Trung Lap (near Cu Chi). We trained small RVN units; first of squad size, then platoon. Our major training device was patrolling. Five or six days a week, we would take these small units out on patrol; first in the daylight and then at night. We had enemy contact often during the day and almost every night. It turned out that Trung Lap sits on top of the vast tunnel system going through the Cu Chi District, which can be visited by tourists today.
In October of 1962, I received word that my father had died and I tried to return for his funeral, but I was too late. When I got back to Vietnam, an urgent requirement for an Airborne Advisor had just occurred, and I was asked if I wanted the assignment. I was due to go to Vung Tao, a resort-like area for Ranger Individual Training, since my assignment to Trung Lap was considered so dangerous. I immediately accepted the airborne assignment and began an intense airborne refresher training course that was completed just prior to Tet 1962. The 7th RVN Airborne Battalion was stationed at the airbase at Bien Hoa, for which they had a defense mission. However, since the Airborne Brigade was the Strategic National Force, we were seldom at our home base. I participated in two combat parachute jumps; one near Tay Ninh, where we routed a regiment of NVA, and the second in the Plain of Reeds.
I was wounded on that operation by stepping on an anti-personnel mine after contact with VC forces. I was evacuated by an ARVN helicopter in a coma to the Saigon morgue. There were several dead and wounded ARVN soldiers on the medevac helicopter, and I suppose the morgue was where they separated the dead from the wounded.
Eventually, I was hospitalized at the USAF dispensary at Tan Son Nhut Airbase. A few days later, I left the hospital without authorization, and with a cast from my toes to my hip. My driver took me to my battalion which was starting a defensive mission at a pacified village. A couple of weeks later, my chain of command caught up with me and returned me to a hospital in Saigon. From there, I was evacuated to Walter Reed.
I spent the next four years at West Point in the Admissions office rehabilitating my injured leg and foot. Since I was the first graduate returning from Vietnam, I was asked to give talks to the cadets and many civic organizations throughout New York State. I took up handball and racquetball and in the evenings after work, drove down to NYC to get a master's degree from Columbia University.
In 1966-67, after my assignment at West Point, I attended Commandand General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. Upon graduation, I volunteered for Vietnam. Initially I was assigned to the 2nd Field Force Vietnam (IIFFV) in Intelligence where I ran the ground reconnaissance effort. Just prior to Tet 1968, as I was promised, I was assigned as the S-3, 4th/47th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division, on the Riverine mission out of Dong Tam.
During this tour, I was awarded the Bronze Star for valor for saving several soldiers trapped by the VC at their river drop off point, by piloting a "Boston Whaler" under heavy enemy fire to rescue them and to recover a couple of bodies. On another occasion, I rescued some women and children from a burning building in no-man's land during a fire fight.
After my second Vietnam tour, I was assigned to the Pentagon, first to Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, and then to the Office of the Chief of Staff. Toward the end of this assignment, I volunteered again and was assigned to be a Battalion Commander in Vietnam, but the orders were cancelled as the war was winding down. Instead, I was assigned as Commander of the 2nd/16th, 1st Infantry Division, at Fort Riley. We deployed on Reforger exercises twice and my command was extended to two years. After that assignment, I attended the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island and was then assigned to the Southeast Asia Task Force (SEATAF) in Vicenza, Italy. My first job was as Deputy G2/G3 and then as G1. While there I was promoted to full colonel. Our area of operations covered Italy, Greece and Turkey, and included our US manned nuclear weapons sites in those 3 countries, a Logistical Command in Pisa, and an Airborne Battalion at Vicenza. While at SEATAF, I won the senior men's championship in handball, racquetball and badminton.
By the time I departed SEATAF, I had decided to retire, as my six children were starting college and I needed additional funds to support them. I was required to spend one year before I retired in 1979 at the Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, PA. I had served four years at West Point as a cadet and twenty-four years of active duty. My decorations included two Legion of Merits, five Bronze Stars (one for valor), two Meritorious Service Medals, one Air Medal, five Army Commendation Medals (one for valor), and the Purple Heart.
Retirement and Civilian Life
I took employment at SRI International in Menlo Park, CA. It is the largest not-for-profit research
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Boys of Benning by Dan Telfair. Copyright © 2013 by Co-editors: Dan Telfair, Zia Telfair, Thomas B. Vaughn. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Dedication.................... ix
Preface.................... xi
Acknowledgements.................... xiii
Chapter 1: Colonel (Retired) Bill Hadly.................... 1
Chapter 2: Colonel (Retired) Rudy Baker.................... 9
Chapter 3: Colonel (Retired) Ed Burke.................... 41
Chapter 4: Colonel (Retired) Dallas Cox.................... 59
Chapter 5: Colonel (Civil Air Patrol) Roy Douglass.................... 75
Chapter 6: Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Chuck Foster.................... 95
Chapter 7: Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Dave Harrington.................... 109
Chapter 8: Colonel (Retired) Tony Newton.................... 127
Chapter 9: Captain (Separated from active duty) Jim Nicholas............... 149
Chapter 10: Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Dan Telfair.................... 161
Chapter 11: Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Ty Trbovich.................... 183
Chapter 12: Colonel (Retired) Thomas B. Vaughn.................... 193
Chapter 13: Captain (Separated from active duty) Terry Vestermark.......... 211
Chapter 14: Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Ken Weitzel.................... 237
Chapter 15: Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Dick White.................... 255
Epilogue.................... 267
About the Editors.................... 269