Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 8:55 AM
Subject: Re: Signal OCS Association
Richard, the new website
is great. We exchanged some snail mail correspondence in 2005
when your “found list” found me in Class 12, 1942, where I
graduated as the “goat” behind everyone else. More than 90% now
are deceased. I am 90 years old. Most of my military service
involved branch immaterial assignments. I served in two Signal
Corps outfits during the next 30 years, the most important of
which was command of the 50th Signal Battalion (Airborne) at
Fort Bragg, 1962-63. Bryan Foley, my successor nearly five
decades later and now a National War College student, invited me
to regale members of that no-longer-airborne battalion at a
formal banquet almost five decades later. The text is attached
for your possible entertainment. Attachment 2# depicts me
shortly before retirement on 31 May 1972. Attachment 3# reveals
Geriatric John today. JOHN COLLINS
50th Signal Battalion (Airborne)
Early
Growing Pains
My
sainted mother wrote that introduction, but she omitted the most important
point. Not many people realize it, but Colonel Foley appointed ME as his
personal adviser when he took command of the 50th Signal Battalion. Well,
what he actually said was, “John, when I want your advice, I’ll ask for it.”
I thought he’d never ask, but he’s finally invited me to compare this
battalion with its predecessor 48 years ago.
First, let me introduce myself, so you understand how
poorly I’m equipped to tackle that task.
The United States Marine Corps and Navy turned me down
on 8 December 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor, because my eyesight wasn’t
perfect, but a buddy with a high sugar content in his blood used my urine
sample to become a rear rank Marine, then made three amphibious landings on
Japanese-held islands in the Pacific. I thereupon signed on as a switchboard
installer with Western Electric, lasted six weeks, failed miserably, quit,
and joined the Army as a private. I fancied myself as a parachute
infantryman, but (you guessed it) the Signal Corps welcomed me with open
arms.
I was a two time high school dropout, but KP duty in a
consolidated mess from 0300 until midnight soon convinced me I was officer
material. I applied for OCS in the summer of 1942, when quickie
courses churned out “Ninety Day Wonders,” graduated last in my class, then
landed in the Provisional 859th Signal Service Company, which had no
mission, no authorized personnel, no weapons, or equipment. I was the Unit
Supply Officer (although the unit couldn’t requisition anything) and Motor
Transport Officer (although the unit had no vehicles). After that useless
outfit disintegrated in October 1943 I hop-scotched across England, France
(beginning in Normandy), Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany for 26 months as a
IX Air Force traffic controller aboard a ton-and-a-half truck with a plastic
turret tacked on top for observation.
Fast forward 17 years, during which my only connection
with crossed flags was as commander of a 14-man signal intelligence
detachment in Thule, Greenland. Newly-minted Lieutenant Colonel Collins,
promoted en route from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Bragg on 25 June 1962, took
charge of XVIII Airborne Corps’ 800-man (no women) 50th Signal Battalion, an
assignment that gave previous commanders gas pains, because its disciplinary
record was lousy.
The Good Lord fortunately blessed me with classy
executive officers, company commanders, and NCOs who ran
communication-electronic shows while I kicked asses and took names. Best of
all, my immediate predecessor, Vincent J. McGrath, had just started to point
the 50th in the right direction. He plastered the battalion area with
replicas of a pony, to illustrate the story he repeatedly told formations
about two little boys locked up for 24 hours, one in a roomful of toys, the
other in a roomful of horse manure. The boy in the roomful of toys was in
tears when released the next day, because too much wasn't enough. The other
boy was laughing and playfully throwing turds in the air because, "With this
much horseshit there must be a pony nearby."
This battalion was quartered in World War II wooden
buildings that featured coal-burning stoves and furnaces. We lived in a
different world than you do today, because the All-Volunteer Force was a
decade away. Your forthcoming mission is to provide signal support for
widely scattered elements of U.S. Central Command, whereas ours was to
connect the headquarters of Strategic Army Corps (code-named STRAC) with
four divisions, corps artillery, a flock of cats and dogs including other
Services, and anyone else the three-star commander wanted to contact.
Insurgency and terrorism are the main threats you face, whereas we prepared
for a nuclear showdown with the Soviet Union, Communist China, or both.
Colonel “Bourbon Bob” Sink traveled light when he
commanded the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment throughout World War II, but
three-star XVIII Airborne Corps commander Sink and his staff luxuriated in
humongous expandable metal vans when they ventured into the field during the
mid-1950s. Dragon Main, which seldom displaced, did so only after advance
parties prepared positions well in advance. Small tactical CPs, if
established at all, were rooted in concrete. That lash-up simplified signal
support, but invited disaster in the Nuclear Age.
Enter Lieutenant General Hamilton Hawkins Howze, an
armor officer punching promotion tickets, first in the 82d Airborne Division
(where I was his Assistant G-2), then XVIII Airborne Corps. He lightened the
load almost immediately by junking all vans in favor of tents and tasked the
50th Signal Battalion to support six echelons simultaneously: a parachute
assault element, two tactical command posts that played musical chairs,
Dragon Forward, Dragon Main, and a rear echelon near departure airfields.
Nobody envied the 50th’s haggard heroes who had to rip
out by the roots all communication in both tac CPs and reinstall it
somewhere else every 24 to 48 hours. Moving ponderous Dragon Main took two
or three days under ideal conditions before General Howze abandoned it. That
Stone Age relic thereupon ceased to be a command post and became a support
base destined to remain indefinitely in staging areas far distant from any
combat zone.
Our abilities to perform essential feats resided with a
headquarters company, command operations company A, and field operations
company B. The TO&E in each case lumped all radios in one platoon, all wire
ops equipment in another, and all communication center gear in another, but
we permanently task organized all three companies to support the corps
commander’s demands without reshuffling.
Communication equipment was primitive in 1962. Military
computers were nonexistent. Twelve-channel line-of-sight radio relay sets,
which reached 25 miles at best, provided the backbone. Positioning relay
sites on high ground every 20 miles or so theoretically could
triple or quadruple that range, but proper terrain and working reserves of
personnel and equipment weren’t always available. Single-sideband radio
circuits deteriorated after dark. FM relays aboard fixed-wing aircraft and
helicopters extended their range from 15 to 50, 60, even 75 miles, but life
expectancy in the real world would have been low and the Law of Diminishing
Returns further limited utility. Three overworked pilots in the 50th’s
private air force, for example, logged 166 hours in less than a week during
one field exercise.
All wires in each CP led to a patch panel, the nerve
center of signal operations that interconnected radio relays, radios,
telephones, and 200-pound teletypewriters that now are as defunct as
dinosaurs. Patch panels, which routed, rerouted, monitored, and tested all
circuits, were like pianos in one important respect: even one sour note
could reverberate throughout the corps.
Superb maintenance of more than 2,400 pieces of signal
equipment and a slew of trucks was essential, because system failures at any
point would cause communication to collapse. The battalion, for example,
woulda been out of business if many of its 190 generators failed to work.
Maintenance problems were doubly demanding, given personnel turnover that
approximated 100 percent every year because junior enlisted men were mainly
draftees.
Even more importantly, the 50th was almost as flightless as a gooney bird
in 1962, because founding fathers who converted it from straight-leg to the
world’s only airborne corps signal battalion five years earlier saddled it
with 2,000 tons of paraphernalia. Results reminded me of Mark Twain’s
fictional Jumping Frog of Calaveras Country, who couldn’t get off the
ground, because some city slicker had filled him to the chin with quail
shot.
The principal villains were something like 230 trucks
and 200 trailers, including more deuce and a halves than an entire airborne
division. Those pachyderms, which were too heavy or too bulky to
fit into C-119 and C-123 tactical transport aircraft, sopped up much larger
C-130s, C-124s, and C-133s like a sponge when loaded with ponderous shelters
and equipment. Modern mainstays like C-141 Starlifters and C-5 Galaxies,
which now are older than most pilots, were still experimental or on drawing
boards.
The 50th Signal Battalion’s heavy drop capabilities
vested the three-star corps commander with initial communications no better
than airborne battle group colonels enjoyed. Even tactical CPs depended on
air-landed serials, which the uncertain availability of suitable airlift,
the scarcity of suitably located airstrips, and time constraints made
STRAC’s slogan “Any war, any time, any place in the world” an impractical
boast.
Ways to lighten loads consequently deserved a high priority. Major General
Earle Cook, then the Chief Signal Officer, recommended Spartan rationing,
but torrents of telephone chatter continued. The 50th Signal Battalion
accordingly became an experimental organization in many respects. Civilian
single sideband radios, purchased off-the-shelf on the open market,
captivated prospective beneficiaries when we packed ‘em into
parachute-deliverable jeeps, but our first attempt to helicopter a heavy
communications shelter onto high ground flopped when a snap unfastened at
500 feet. “Wow!” wailed the lieutenant in charge when he viewed the
wreckage. “Do you think I oughta tell the colonel?” His platoon sergeant,
tongue in cheek, said, “Sir, you probably can’t keep it a secret.” I
concealed such boo boos from superiors as best I could, but Army magazine
published my article entitled “The Artful Dodging of STRAC’s CPs” in October
1963.
A few special occasions during my tenure as battalion
commander merit special mention.
Bits of the battalion furnished communications when 82d and 101st Airborne
Division troopers helped James Merideth become the first negro to
matriculate at the University of Mississippi in September 1962, after
rioters killed one man and injured many others.
Advance elements of this battalion were scheduled to
parachute onto Los Baños Airfield in October 1962, then head for Sloppy
Joe’s Bar in Havana during the Cuban missile crisis. A second echelon
prepared to air-land, while a third increment loaded aboard landing craft at
Mayport, Florida. My staff and I assembled in our small, smoke-filled
conference room immediately after warning orders arrived, then used paper
templates cut to scale to determine how many troops and equipment we could
shoehorn into the mix of allocated aircraft. It took all night, because
allocations changed five times between dusk and dawn so, bleary-eyed, we
repeatedly had to restart from scratch. General Howze returned from the
Pentagon a few days later with news that the operation was 99 percent GO!
Monstrous morale problems ensued when the crisis subsided and the battalion
stood down, because all hands were hot to trot.
The 50th Signal Battalion shortly thereafter held its
first prop blast in response to orders dated 23 November 1962. Stick 1, led
by Captain Enos, initiated eight neophytes. Stick 2, with Captain Oelberg in
charge, put seven more through the ordeal. A grand time was had by all,
except the blastees. They received laminated prop blast cards signed by me
as President of the Board only after a rowdy evening during which inebriated
“novices” in fatigues made repeated exits and landings from a mock aircraft
door until they pleased previously blasted jumpers clad in Class A uniforms.
Initiates also answered a slew of facetious questions (one of S-3 Major
Jesse Wang’s requirements was to explain Chinese fire drills). Each
applicant finally had to drain our ripcord-handled Dixie Cup filled with an
evil, alcoholic mixture while colleagues slowly chanted "One Thousand, Two
Thousand, Three Thousand, Four Thousand,” the time it took a properly packed
T-10 parachute to open.
The battalion’s silver punch bowl and personalized
silver cups inscribed with each owner’s name appeared about that time and
still occupy an honored spot outside Colonel Foley’s office. Those beauties
were the focal point of attention during each formal party that featured
dress blues or white mess uniforms for officers and cocktail dresses for
their ladies. A warning sign by the bowl read PANTHURPIS some nights and
TIGURPIS on others.
Finally, we periodically conducted a bells and whistles
demonstration that helped sell the battalion’s capabilities to potentates,
beginning with then Major General William Childs Westmoreland and his staff
shortly after Westy succeeded General Howze as corps commander. My pitch
opened with these words: “Congress makes generals, but it takes
communications to make commanding generals, because flag officers who
operate in a vacuum only command their aides.” Country boy General Sink put
it best when he said, “If you ain’t got communications, you ain’t got nothin’.”
A dazzling display of crisscrossing trucks slammed on
brakes in front of the bleachers at that moment and began to set up shop,
while I explained at length why this unique battalion was the corps’ most
important asset. The demonstration ended when I told the assembled
multitude:
“If you’ve ever watched the Untouchables on TV you know
that Al Capone’s enforcer Frank Nitti used to say, ‘Al ain’t sellin’
excuses, Al’s sellin’ whiskey!’ Well, we ain’t sellin’ excuses either.
Nearly 100,000 men in this corps depend on us. Either we’re professional or
they’re up Ess Creek without a paddle. We’ve put these complex systems in
from scratch before your very eyes. They’ll work. You can bet your life on
it.
“The music goes into the phone on your right,” I
crooned, “bounces in and out, round and about through a relay in the 82d
Airborne area, then back to the telephone on your left. Step up,” I told the
senior officer present, “and call Champion Six, the 82d’s CG. The sergeant
will show you the drill.” Another hot shot took the phone marked Champion
Six to complete the circuit. I made the sign of the cross at that point,
which always got a good laugh - - but, thank God, connections never failed.
Relationships with the Corps Signal Officer were
perennially sour, but that brittle-boned chicken colonel pleased me twice,
because he broke his left leg during a prop blast ceremony, then broke the
right one when he leaped with the battalion one frigid morning.
50th Signal Battalion officers and men whom I was
privileged to command for 15 months evoke much happier memories with one
exception. Larry Zietlow, the battalion sergeant major, who later became
Lieutenant General Bill Rosson’s top enlisted Soldier at I Field Force in
Vietnam, died of grievous wounds early in 1968 after Viet Cong guerrillas
hit the headquarters at night. Larry’s name is eternally enshrined on the
Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC.
The Signal Corps and I parted company permanently while
I was Director of Military Strategy Studies at the National War College.
Displeased personnel managers told me, "No more branch immaterial
assignments. Return to Vietnam, command a signal group, and we promise that
you’ll become a brigadier general." I thereupon bid the United States Army
"Bye Bye” and retired on May 31, 1972 as a bird colonel with 30 year’s
service.
I spent the next 24 years on Capitol Hill as Senior
Specialist in National Defense at the Congressional Research Service,
authored 12 books about military matters, then recruited and steered the
Warlord Loop, an email net devoted to national security. Its roster, which
spans the public opinion spectrum, counts more than 460 heavy hitters,
including a former Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The words that President Kennedy uttered on 29 April 1962 at a
dinner party honoring Nobel Prize winners equally well describe the Warlord
Loop's overachievers: "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of
talent that has ever been gathered together, with the possible exception of
when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." That’s the end of my trip down memory
lane. I wish you well during your forthcoming deployments across CENTCOM’s
AOR and will cheer your accomplishments from the sidelines.
Good luck and God bless. I salute all of you.