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-- Essays On The Vietnam Conflict --
The Courage of Sam
Bird
By B. T. Collins
Date: Tue,
06 Jun 2000
THIS WONDERFUL
PIECE below was forwarded to me this AM. It was written
by the late, great, BT Collins, a one legged, one-armed
soldier--as a result of wounds in VN-- who, despite
being a hawkish Republican, was Jerry Brown's Chief of
Staff in Sacramento. BT also served as Director of the
California Conservation Corps, California Youth
Authority, and Assemblyman. He was the main organizer in
the drive to raise $3 Million for the CA Vietnam
Veteran's Memorial. BT came to De Anza College to participate in
this course (numbered as ELIT 30Z in those days) six
times as a guest speaker. He beat up the antiwar
students and was generally outrageous and inspiring. He
was an early leader in the drive to recognize the
contribution of women in Viet Nam. Two days before he
died, waiting to have lunch with Colin Powell, I called
BT and told him that he had been selected by the De Anza
College students to be the guest speaker at graduation. The
irony of that, as I explained, was that the key in the
student committee were two students who were members of
De Anza College Students Against War whom BT had flailed in
class--they loved his wit and his warmth. Gov. Jerry
Brown filled in for BT that year as a substitute
graduation speaker at De Anza College -- for BT
Collins.
Both Bill Hunt
and Michael Kelley also served on BT's Commission that
raised the $3,000,000 for the CA VN Veteran's Memorial.
Go and see it trip to Sacramento. Thanks Bill, and
Michael,
and BT.
Regards,
JKS
THE COURAGE OF SAM
BIRD
By B. T. Collins
I met CPT
Samuel R. Bird on a dusty road near An Khe, South
Vietnam, one hot July day in 1966. I was an artillery
forward observer with Bravo Company, 2nd/12th
Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, and I looked it. I was
filthy, sweaty, and jaded by war, and I thought "Oh,
brother, get aload of this". Dressed in crisply starched
fatigues, Captain Bird was what we called "squared
away" - ramrod straight, eyes on the horizon. Hell, you
could still see the shine on his boot tips beneath the
road dust. After graduation from Officer Candidate
School, I had sought adventure by volunteering for
Vietnam. But by that hot and dangerous July, I was
overdosed on "adventure," keenly interested in survival
and very fond of large rocks and deep holes. Bird was my
fourth company commander, and my expectations were
somewhat cynical when he called all his officers and
sergeants together.
"I understand
this company has been in Vietnam almost a year and has
never had a party," he said. Now we officers and
sergeants had our little clubs to which we repaired. So
we stole bewildered looks at one another, cleared our
throats and wondered what this wiry newcomer was talking
about.
"The men are
going to have a party," he announced, "and they're not
going to pay for it. Do I make myself clear?" A party
for the "grunts" was the first order of business! Sam
Bird had indeed made himself clear. We all chipped in to
get food and beer for about 160 men. The troops were
surprised almost to the point of
suspicion -- who, after all, had ever done
anything for them? But that little beer and bull
session was exactly what those war-weary men needed. Its
effect on morale was profound. I began to watch our new
captain more closely.
Bird and I
were the same age, 26, but eons apart in everything
else. He was from the sunny heartland of Kansas, I from
the suburbs of New York City. He prayed every day and
was close to his God. My faith had evaporated somewhere
this side of altar boy. I was a college dropout who had
wandered into the Army with the words "discipline
problem" close on my heels. He had graduated from The
Citadel, South Carolina's proud old military
school.
If ever a man
looked like a leader, it was Sam Bird. He was tall and
lean, with penetrating blue eyes. But the tedium and
terror of a combat zone take far sterner qualities than
mere appearance. Our outfit was helicoptered to a
mountain outpost one day for the thankless task of
preparing a position for others to occupy. We dug
trenches, filled sandbags, strung wire under a
blistering sun. It was hard work, and Sam was
everywhere, pitching in with the men. A colonel who was
supposed to oversee the operation remained at a shelter,
doing paper work. Sam looked at what his troops had
accomplished, then, red-faced, strode over to the
colonel's sanctuary. We couldn't hear what he was
saying to his superior, but we had the unmistakable
sense that Sam was uncoiling a bit. The colonel suddenly
found time to inspect the fortifications and thank the
men for a job well done.
Another day,
this time on the front lines after weeks of awful show,
we were given something called "coffee cake" that had
the look and texture of asphalt paving. Furious, Sam got
on the radio phone to headquarters. He reached the
colonel and said, "Sir, you and the supply officer need
to come out here and taste the food, because this rifle
company is not taking one step further." "Not a good way
to move up in the Army," I thought.
But the
colonel came out, and the food improved from that
moment. Such incidents were not lost on the men of Bravo
Company. During the monsoon season we had to occupy a
landing zone. The torrential, wind-driven rains had been
falling for weeks. Like everyone else I sat under my
poncho in a stupor, wondering how much of the wetness
was rainwater and how much was sweat. Nobody cared that
the position was becoming flooded. We had all just
crawled inside ourselves.
Suddenly I saw
Sam, Mr. Spit and Polish, with nothing on but his
olive-drab undershorts and his boots. He was
digging a drainage ditch down the center of the camp. He
didn't say anything, just dug away, mud spattering his
chest, steam rising from his back and shoulders. Slowly
and sheepishly we emerged from under our ponchos, and
shovels in hand, we began helping "the old man" get the
ditch dug. We got the camp tolerably dried out and with
that one simple act transformed our
morale.
Sam deeply
loved the U.S. Army and traditions. Few of the men knew
it, but he had been in charge of a special honors unit
of the Old Guard, which serves as the Tomb of the
Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery and
participates in the Army's most solemn ceremonies. He
was the kind of guy whose eyes would mist during the
singing of the National Anthem. Sam figured patriotism
was just a natural part of being an
American.
But he knew
that morale was a function not so much of inspiration as
of good boots, dry socks, extra ammo and hot meals.
Sam's philosophy was to put his troops first. On that
foundation he built respect a brick at a time. His men
ate first; he ate last. Instead of merely learning their
names, he made it a point to know the men. A lot of the
soldiers were high-school dropouts and would-be tough
guys just a few years younger than himself. Some were
scared, and a
few were still in partial shock
at being in a shooting war. Sam patiently worked on
their pride and self-confidence. Yet there was never any
doubt who was in charge.
I had been
around enough to know what a delicate accomplishment
that was. Half in wonder, an officer once told me,
"Sam can dress a man down till his ears burn, and the
next minute that same guy is eager to follow him into
hell." But he never chewed out a man in front of his
subordinates. Sam wouldn't ask his men to do anything he
wasn't willing to do himself. He dug his own foxholes.
He never gave lectures on appearance, but even at
God-forsaken outposts in the Central Highlands, he would
set aside a few ounces of water from his canteen to
shave. His uniform, even if it was jungle fatigues,
would be as clean and neat as he could make it.
Soon all of Bravo Company had a reputation for looking
sharp.
One sultry and
miserable day on a dirt road at the base camp, Sam
gathered the men together and began talking about how
tough the infantryman's job is, how proud he was of
them, how they should always look out for each other. He
took out a bunch of Combat Infantryman's Badges,
signifying that a soldier has paid his dues under fire,
and he presented one to each of the men. There wasn't a
soldier there who would have traded that moment on the
road for some parade-ground ceremony.
That was the
way Sam Bird taught me leadership. He packed a lot of
lessons into the six months we were together. But the
troops first. Know that morale often depends on small
things. Respect every person's dignity. Always be ready
to fight for your people. Lead by example. Reward
performance. But Sam had another lesson to teach, one
that would take long and painful years, a lesson in
courage.
I left Bravo
Company in December 1966 to return to the States for a
month before joining a Special Forces unit. Being
a big, tough paratrooper, I didn't tell Sam what his
example had meant to me. But I made a point of visiting
his parents and sister in Wichita, Kansas, just before
Christmas to tell them how much he'd affected my life,
and how his troops would walk off a cliff for him. His
family was relieved when I told them that his tour of
combat was almost over and he'd be moving to a safe job
in the rear.
Two months
later, in a thatched hut in the Mekong Delta, I got a
letter from Sam's sister, saying that he had conned his
commanding officer into letting him stay an extra month
with his beloved Bravo Company.
On his last
day, January 27, 1967 - his 27th birthday - the men had
secretly planned a party, even arranging to have a
cake flown in. They were going to "pay back the old
man." But orders came down for Bravo to lead an airborne
assault on a North Vietnamese regimental headquarters.
Sam's helicopter was about to touch down at the attack
point when it was ripped by enemy fire. Slugs shattered
his left ankle and right leg. Another struck the left
side of his head, carrying off almost a quarter of his
skull. His executive officer, Lt. Dean Parker, scooped
Sam's brains back into the gaping wound.
Reading the
letter, I felt as if I'd been kicked in the stomach. I
began querying every hospital in Vietnam to find out if
Sam was still alive. But in June, before I could
discover his fate, I was in a fire fight in an
enemy-controlled zone. I had thrown four grenades. The
fifth one exploded in my hand. I lost an arm and a
leg.
Nearly a year
later, in March 1968, I finally caught up with Sam. I
was just getting the hang of walking with an artificial
leg when I visited him at the VA Medical Center in
Memphis, Tenn. Seeing him, I had to fight back the
tears.
The wiry, smiling soldier's soldier was
blind in the left eye and partially so in the right.
Surgeons had removed metal shards and damaged tissue
from deep within his brain, and he had been left with a
marked depression on the left side of his head. The
circles under his eyes told of sleepless hours and great
pain.
The old clear
voice of command was slower now, labored and with an
odd, high pitch. I saw his brow knit as he looked
through his one good eye, trying to remember. He
recognized me, but believed I had served with him in
Korea, his first tour of duty. Slowly, Sam rebuilt his
ability to converse. But while he could recall things
from long ago, he couldn't remember what he had eaten
for breakfast. Headaches came on him like terrible
firestorms. There was pain, too, in his legs. He had
only partial use of one arm, with which he'd raise
himself in front of the mirror to brush his teen and
shave.
He had the
support of a wonderful family, and once he was home in
Wichita, his sister brought his old school sweetheart,
Annette Blazier, to see him. A courtship began, and in
1972 they were married. They built a house like Sam had
dreamed of - red brick, with a flag-pole out front. He
had developed the habit of addressing God as "Sir" and
spoke to him often. He never asked to be
healed.
At every table grace, he thanked God
for sending him Annette and for "making it
possible for me to live at home in a free
country."
In 1976, Sam
and Annette traveled to The Citadel for his 15th class
reunion. World War II hero Gen. Mark Clark, the school's
president emeritus, asked about his wounds and said, "On
behalf of your country, I want to thank you for all you
did."
With pride,
Sam answered "Sir, it was the least I could do." Later,
Annette chided him gently for understating the case.
After all, he had sacrificed his health and career in
Vietnam. Sam gave her an incredulous look. "I had
friends who didn't come back," he said. "I'm enjoying
the freedoms they died for."
I visited Sam
in Wichita and phoned him regularly. You would not have
guessed that he lived with pain every day. Once,
speaking of me to his sister, he said,
"I
should never complain about the pain in my leg, because
B.T. doesn't have a leg." I'd seen a lot of men with
lesser wounds reduced to anger and self-pity. Never a
hint of that passed Sam's lips, though I knew that,
every waking moment, he was fighting to live.
On October 18,
1984, after 17 years, Sam's body couldn't take any more.
When we received the news of his death, a number of us
from Bravo Company flew to Wichita, where Sam was to be
buried with his forebears. The day before the burial,
his old exec, Dean Parker, and I went to the funeral
home to make sure everything was in order. As Dean
straightened the brass on Sam's uniform, I held my
captain's hand and looked into his face, a face no
longer filled with pain. I thought about how unashamed
Sam always was to express his love for his country, how
sunny and unaffected he was in his devotion to his men.
I ached that I had never told him what a fine soldier
and man he was. But in my deep sadness I felt a
glow of pride for having served with him, and for having
learned the lessons of leadership that would serve me
all my life.
That is why I
am telling you about Samuel R. Bird and these things
that happened so long ago. Chances are, you have
seen Sam Bird. He was the tall officer in charge of the
casket detail at the funeral of President John F.
Kennedy.
Historian
William Manchester described him as "a lean, sinewy
Kansan, the kind of American youth whom Congressmen
dutifully praise each Fourth of July and whose existence
many, grown jaded by years on the Hill, secretly
doubt."
There can be
no doubt about Sam, about who he was, how he lived and
how he led. We buried him that fall afternoon, as they
say, "with honors." But as I walked from that grave, I
knew I was the honored one, for having known
him.
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Note: At the time that this article was written,
Mr. B.T. Collins
had
recovered from severe war wounds to become the highly
acclaimed
director of the California Conservation Corps and later
chief of staff to
the
governor of California. He later became
California's deputy state
treasurer.
He is
now deceased.
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