We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam (22 page)

Moore and Galloway on a condolence visit to Mrs. Nguyen Huu An’s Hanoi home, where she has created a shrine to her late husband.

Moore, Galloway, and Maj. Ed “Too Tall to Fly” Freeman lead a veterans’ march at the Wall.

Most historians agree that Gen. Robert. E. Lee was a leader of the highest character and integrity. But his poor judgment in ordering Pickett’s division to charge across a half mile of open fields into the entrenched guns of the Union Army resulted in a terrible slaughter of his soldiers and General Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg. The general, after the disaster, offered his resignation. That exhibited his character and integrity but did not excuse his bad judgment.

I have always been keenly interested in why leaders fail. I learned early in my career to have a trusted confidant with broad experience, sagacity, and wisdom close at hand. As I moved up I tried always to find such a person and put him directly under me as my operations officer, chief of staff, or special assistant. I wanted someone who was loyal enough to me and the unit to be the “skunk at the picnic”—to tell me candidly when he thought I was about to go off on a wrong tangent. Sometimes I agreed; sometimes not. But that was the essence of loyalty—to me, to the unit, and to the mission. General Lee had such a loyal adviser—Gen. James Longstreet—who strongly advised against sending Pickett’s division on that suicidal charge, but Lee rejected that advice. When I was a battalion and brigade commander in Vietnam, my loyal adviser, my sounding board, was my S-3, or operations officer, Capt. Greg “Matt” Dillon. It was the voices of Dillon and Sergeant Major Plumley that I listened to as we prepared and planned the assault into LZ X-Ray. Once we were engaged in decisive battle there was little time for further discussion; only the hard lonely duty of command.

Another maxim I have used in my life is
When there’s nothing going wrong, there’s nothing wrong—except that nothing’s wrong!
This is when a leader has to be most alert and proactive.

In a work unit, in a family, or in the military, complacency and inattention can often permit an explosion of trouble. In the military the two worst examples of this were the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and our Pacific Fleet on December 7, 1941, and the December 16, 1944, German attack in the Ardennes Forest—the Battle of the Bulge.

For me this maxim is underlined in my memory by the events at Landing Zone X-Ray in the early morning on November 15, 1965. After the previous day’s hard fighting it had been a fairly quiet night, and it was still quiet in the predawn. But I was uneasy. It was too quiet. The birds were not singing. I was nagged by a gut sense that something was wrong. Nothing seemed wrong, but…

I immediately ordered my four companies on the defensive perimeter to send out patrols to their front—recon patrols to check for any sign of the enemy. The recon patrols forward of the Company A, B, and D defensive positions made no contact, but the patrols from Charlie Company ran straight into a large force of enemy moving forward in an assault aimed directly at the C Company defensive positions. A heavy firefight ensued as the C Company patrol, taking casualties, fought a delaying action as they fell back to friendly lines. I called in heavy air and artillery fire. That terrible battle went on for three hours, and spilled over somewhat to the adjoining companies on either flank of Charlie Company. Charlie Company suffered heavy casualties, losing all its officers killed or wounded and most of its sergeants. But the surviving troops held their ground. Had not those early-morning patrols been sent out, on a hunch, and made early contact with the enemy, the outcome could have been far more disastrous.

This early-morning battle and how it began are good examples of the idea that when things seem just fine and dandy is precisely when your instincts should begin clanging out the warning.

In a fast-moving situation instincts and intuition amount to an instant estimate of the situation. When seconds count the leader must act quickly, make the decision, impart confidence to all around him, and not second-guess his own decisions.

Let’s take it from the beginning: When you are put in a position of leadership the first thing you must do is visit the people on your team. Let them see you. Briefly state your vision and outlook and let them know your primary policies, expectations, and goals. Do a lot of listening. See what’s going on. Sniff the air. This is vital. The absolute worst first thing a new leader can do is go into his new office, sit at his desk, and begin shuffling papers.

In mid-July 1969, I was a one-star brigadier general and chief of plans and operations for the U.S. 8th Army in Korea. My office and my staff were in the 8th Army Headquarters in Seoul, South Korea. As part of my job I visited with military units on the front line of the Demilitarized Zone to check on the defense plans and to get to know the terrain, roads, and the principal commanders and to check that my boss’s, Gen. John H. Michaelis’s, orders were being carried out on the ground. I was in my office by 5:45 a.m. six days a week—and for a few hours on Sunday mornings until it was time to take my family to church.

All the military police and operations logs from across Korea from the previous night were on my desk every morning. During the later Vietnam War years of 1969–1971 Korea was a hotbed of racial tensions and heavy drug use in American military units in our Army. Altercations between black and white soldiers were frequent. Marijuana grew in the ditches and prescription drugs of every sort were readily available and cheap. Bars and houses of prostitution were thick outside the gates of all military bases and did a booming business. Many draftee soldiers kept their own woman in money, food, and lodging in the nearest Korean village.

It was just after 8:00 a.m. on a beautiful spring morning in early May 1970 when it happened. I’d been waiting for the call for a couple of hours because in the wee hours just after midnight I was awakened by my duty officer reporting that black soldiers were rioting in the two main camps of the 7th Infantry Division north of Seoul. Several buildings were burning, including the Post Library. Barracks had been trashed in fighting between soldiers. I phoned that information immediately to the chief of staff in his quarters and raced to my office.

Not long after that my intercom squawked: General Michaelis wants to see you immediately. I ran up the stairs and reported to him. “Moore, you know what’s happened in the Seventh Division. It’s in a hell of a shape. I’ve relieved the division commander. I’m going to frock you with your second star and give you command. Get up there and straighten out that screwed-up outfit!” I left immediately and headed north to the 7th Division Headquarters.

The 7th Division consisted of 16,000 officers and men. No families. No women or children. A brigade of three battalions (1,800 to 2,000 men) was on the defensive line on the DMZ dividing North and South Korea. The division was scattered over South Korea in twenty-three camps. Its headquarters was at Camp Casey, twenty-six miles north of Seoul, just outside the notorious large village of Tongduchon, with its whorehouses, bars, and drug dealers.

Given the choice of taking command of a red-hot, top-drawer, really good outfit
or
an outfit in bad shape, I’ll take the one in bad shape every time, because there’s no way it can go except up with strong leadership. It’s always challenging and satisfying to shape up an organization in trouble. In the military and civilian organizations I’ve led, my principal goal was to create an institutional culture of skillful, smooth teamwork and an institutional personality of a winning outfit. A positive, upbeat institutional persona is critical in achieving success.

In any large organization, some subunits will be in excellent shape, others much less so. Some will have good leaders, some won’t. Some will have people in the ranks who are troublemakers, or inefficient, or are a negative influence on the workplace environment. Some have workers who should be rewarded with recognition, promotion, more authority, and more responsibility but haven’t been because of poor leadership.

All of that was true about the 7th Infantry Division when I inherited it. There was the added challenge that some of the troops were rioting and setting fires on their posts. Word of that trouble had spread swiftly throughout the 7th Division camps and stations across Korea. The officers, sergeants, and troops in the ranks were rightfully curious about their new commander and how I would tackle the situation.

When an organization is beset with problems in some areas or departments and a new boss is brought in to shape it up, he should not assume that the entire organization is rotten. He must take action quickly to stem the infection and halt its spread. In doing so he must be careful not to give the better parts of the organization the erroneous impression that the new boss is down on them, too. He should determine swiftly and accurately which subunits are in trouble and which are not before taking action. This also requires a hard look at the leadership in those units.

The first thing the new boss has to do is travel to and stand up in front of every person in his outfit and tell them his policies, standards, and goals. He should visit each subunit personally. He should never tell an outfit that it’s screwed up. If he does it will be screwed up. Why? Because the boss said so. If a unit is below standard they know they are—in which case the boss should simply tell them after doing his homework that it is good in certain areas but needs to improve in other areas—which
will
happen. Concurrently he should be learning about all of his responsibilities and what each of his subordinate units is charged with accomplishing and a status report on each—and on the boss of each.

Over a ten-day period I flew my helicopter to each of the division camps in South Korea and talked for fifteen minutes or so to every unit. Since the biggest problem facing me, and the reason I was sent to command the 7th Division, was the highly flammable racial situation, my top priority was to get that cooled down and under control. My principal message was that I would see to it that every man was treated fairly and it was up to each man to rise as far as his abilities would take him.

To deal with the racial problem, I first had to get the facts on the scope of the problem. I knew if there were perceptions of unfairness and racial discrimination then those perceptions had to be dealt with just as carefully as real problems and with just as high a priority.

I quickly located the units and the camps with problems and promptly took corrective actions with commanders and with troublemakers, whether white, black, or brown. Many were sent home to the United States and discharged from service.

Early on it was clear to me that many of the race relations problems, and perceptions and real cases of discrimination, occurred at the small-unit level. As I checked into that, other small-unit leadership deficiencies came to light. So we picked some good, experienced officers and senior sergeants and created an Officer’s Leadership School for lieutenants and captains and an NCO school for noncoms up through squad leader—each a week long, Sunday through Saturday. Our instructors were carefully chosen from across the division. I taught a couple of classes myself. These schools went a long way toward reducing the racial and drug-abuse problems.

Acting on experience and from past study of successful commanders, I instituted really tough day and night training; off-duty high school and college classes for credit; and all kinds of athletic team competitions. We won the 8th Army boxing and football trophies. Bus trips to historic Korean War battlefields were organized. High standards of individual and unit discipline were established and enforced. Over the months, the division passed with high marks all inspections by very demanding, tough teams from the Pentagon, Far East Command, and 8th Army. I placed great emphasis on discipline and confidence.

I had two principal advisers. One was Col. Jack Bishop. He was a three-war Parachute Infantry veteran who began his military service in the California National Guard as a private, age sixteen. He’d risen through the ranks, knew all the moves, had heard all the stories, and experienced most of the problems. He had four combat jumps in World War II and one more in Vietnam. He was my chief of staff—dead loyal, dead honest, and very candid.

The other was the senior noncommissioned officer in the division—Command Sgt. Maj. Don Peroddy, a big, tough fireplug of a man who wore a handful of Purple Hearts and Silver Stars from Vietnam. He worked only for me, took orders only from me, and had unlimited access to me day or night. He ran the NCOs of the division; set the standards; checked up on them; and was utterly fearless. My first order to him: “Sergeant Major, I don’t want any more problems in the villages around our camps. No more fights. No more problems with the Koreans.” He straightened things out fast and kept them straight by putting NCOs in the bars and on the streets working with the military police. Early every morning and late every afternoon, I met with each of those men and we talked about immediate problems, developing situations, and whatever they or I wanted to bring up.