October Means Great Timing

"Congratulations men. I am happy to report to you that this is the first Signal Officer Basic Course class that will NOT be going to Vietnam."


October has always been a magic month. The warm days and cool sleeping nights, not to mention the kaleidoscopic colors in the trees have long made it my absolute favorite month. There is something about the feel of the air and the cast of the Autumn shadows that lends itself to daydreams and reflections that are far away in other seasons.

It was thirty-seven years ago this month that an Army major came down to Fort Gordon, Georgia from the Pentagon to deliver the news that probably saved my life. I was just another freshly minted second lieutenant in the Signal Corps who was being made ready to command a forward area signal platoon in Southeast Asia. They went through a lot of us in those days. The job involved traveling with and setting up communications for the infantry in combat situations. In the case of Vietnam it meant that you and your men set up the radios and antennas on which "Charlie" zeroed his artillery and combined arms fire. Not a great job.

I was newly married and the father of a baby girl and had been walking around with 'Nam orders for several weeks when the major gave my group the news. I was relieved to know that by shear good timing I had been training at the perfect point to benefit from President Nixon's "Vietnamization of the war" efforts. In his attempt to show the American public that U.S. troops were turning more of the fighting over to the army of South Vietnam, he was slowly bringing home some of the Army and Marine Divisions stationed there. It was a ruse...and I was part of it. Nixon had decided to bring home both the Army's 1st Infantry and the 82nd Airborne Divisions in November. At least that's what he told the American public. What he was really doing was bringing home a small contingent, (Headquarters Company), from each division and moving the bulk of the remaining troops to other units still in country. The Army was to flesh out the 1st and the 82nd with new troops still in the United States. Tricky, but that's what Dick did.

Half of my class went to the 82nd Airborne Division, after first going to Jump School to prepare themselves for the task of falling out of perfectly good airplanes. I, mercifully, was in the group that was sent to the 1st Infantry Division which was being re-located to Fort Riley, Kansas. Another extremely lucky break. This meant that my Army career would involve lots of sleeping on the ground and trying not to shoot cattle on the dusty plain of Kansas as the division trained for its new role in support of NATO forces in Europe. ( It should be noted that no VietCong dared show their face during my tenure in the heart of America.)

It is said that "God looks out for drunks and fools". Since I was both in those days, perhaps I was doubly blessed. Whatever the case, each year about this time I reflect on the good fortune that came to me that particular October and appreciate even more what a grand stroke of luck it was.

Ask me anytime...

Favorite month?

October...hands down.