|
| Tomorrow is Veterans Day 2021.
The tradition that became Veterans Day started as a commemoration of Armistice Day, the time of temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany that went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”
An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday—a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as "Armistice Day." Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I, but in 1954, after World War II had required the greatest mobilization of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen in the Nation’s history; after American forces had fought aggression in Korea, the 83rd Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word "Armistice" and inserting in its place the word "Veterans." With the approval of this legislation (Public Law 380) on June 1, 1954, November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.
For more information, see:
The service that made me a veteran ended 51 years ago. On this Veterans Day 2020, I would like to recognize all American veterans, but especially those with whom I served in Vietnam, including the men of the HHC 159th Engineer Group, 20th Engineer Brigade. For my story, see “To Vietnam and Back.”
Also, I would like to recognize Councilmember Nat Bates, a Korean War veteran who is the only other veteran on the Richmond City Council.
Figure 1 - Staff of HHC 159th Engineer Group, 20th Engineer Brigade, Long Binh, RVN, 1969
My relatively short two-year military career began in the spring of 1968 when I arrived at Ft. Belvoir, VA, to begin the Engineer Officer Basic Course. Six weeks later, I was a fully trained Army engineer officer. With an architecture degree and Army engineer training, imagine my surprise when the Green Machine sent me to Ft. Polk, LA, as a Basic Combat Training Officer responsible for turning raw recruits, mostly draftees, into trained killers. I was far more proficient with a T-square and a triangle than with an M-14 and hand-to-hand combat, but I learned fast. Ft. Polk, incidentally, perennially makes the list of the worst U.S. military duty stations in the world. Business Insider listed Ft. Polk s the Army’s worst duty station.
Figure 1 – 2nd Lieutenant Tom Butt at Company E, 4th Battalion, 2nd Training Brigade, Ft. Polk, LA, in 1968. The uniform is the standard work or “utility” olive green cotton fatigues, Army standard from 1952 until the 1980s. On the collars are rank and branch insignia. The left shoulder has the unit patch. The hat is an olive green “baseball” cap with a 2nd lieutenant’s bar. The sleeves are too tight to be rolled up in 100-degree heat.
After about nine months at Ft. Polk, it was almost a relief to find myself on a plane to Southeast Asia on my 24th birthday. I ended up with an assignment as assistant S-3 (operations) and liaison officer at the headquarters of the 159th Engineer Group, 20th Engineer Brigade, finally doing something I was trained to do. For the next year, I monitored, reported on and trouble shot the hundreds of missions undertaken by the three battalions and attached companies, comprising some 3,000 engineer troops, under control of the 159th Group. These included construction of roads, bridges, airfields and bases, land clearing and quarrying and producing crushed rock and asphalt. For some grainy but interesting home movies, see:
- Tom Butt, Vietnam 1969-70, HHC 159th Engineer Group, 20th Engineer Brigade
- Mission to Ham Tan, Vietnam 1969
- Construction of Corduroy Road, MSR Zinc, Vietnam 1969
- Saigon from the Rooftop1969
- The Streets of Saigon 1969
- Mission to Vung Tau, Vietnam 1969
- Party for Children of Mama Sans, Long Binh, Vietnam 1969
- Vietnam from Above 1969
- Phu Cuong Float Bridge, Vietnam 1969
- Changing of Command, 159th Engr. Gp., Vietnam 1969
- R&R in Sydney, New Year 1970
Figure 2 – 1st Lieutenant Tom Butt at the Phu Cuong Bridge across the Saigon River, on a road connecting Long Binh to Cu Chi. The bridge was built in 1968 by units of the 159th Engineer Group and then rebuilt in 1969 after the Viet Cong destroyed part of it. The uniform is olive green “jungle fatigues” – very comfortable. Rank and insignia are on the collars, and the 20th Engineer Brigade patch is on the left sleeve. The hat is an olive green baseball cap with rank insignia.
Figure 2 – This is my Army dress uniform, which I rarely wore. Never in Vietnam. The castles on the collars indicate the Corps of Engineers branch, and the rank insignia is on the shoulders. On the right shoulder is the 20th Engineer Brigade patch, indicating deployment with that unit in a combat zone. Ribbons indicate the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, the Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal, the Bronze Star Medal and the Army Commendation Medal. Someone stole my Class A uniform hat at Ft. Polk, and I never wore it again.
Figure 3 - My military career summed up in three column inches
My tour ended in March of 1970, and I took a trip around the world, going west, instead of coming directly back to the U.S.
I did not come from a “military family,” but military service in my family goes way back, at least to the Civil War.
Civil War – William Alvin Butt
My great grandfather, William Alvin Butt, joined the 126th Illinois Infantry, Company C, in 1862 when he was 19 years old and served during the Civil War as a musician until he was mustered out as corporal in 1865. During the American Civil War, military leaders with the Union and Confederate Armies relied on military musicians to entertain troops, position troops in battle, and stir them on to victory — some actually performing concerts in forward positions during the fighting.
Figure 4 - William Alvin ButtWilliam Alvin Butt. Alvin Sr. was a farmer, and after the Civil War worked on the railroad. He lived at Fairbury, Forest, Niantic, Bement, and Decatur, IL. About 1885, he moved his family to Green Forest, AR, where he stayed the rest of his life. After Anna Weaver Butt's death, he married Mattie T. Lytle, a widow. They had no children. Alvin, Sr., had a knee length beard of which he was quite proud. His sons could only trim it when he was asleep. Picture of Alvin, Sr. shows him in a black frock-style coat, believed to be made during the 1880's. He was a justice of the peace, road commissioner, carpenter, and farmer in Carroll County, AR. (Photo) As reported in the Bethany ECHO 1902: Wm. Butt of Arkansas is here visiting with relatives. He attracts much attention as he walks the streets, for he has a beard that's 30 inches long. (provided by Dorothy D. Butt, Bethany, IL)
There were two types of historical traditions in military bands. The first was military field music. This type of music included bugles, bagpipes, or fifes and almost always drums. This type of music was used to control troops on the battlefield as well as for entertainment. One example of controlling the troops was the drum beats setting the march cadence for the troops. Following the development of instruments such as the keyed trumpet or the saxhorn family of brass instruments, a second tradition of the all brass military band was formed.
Figure 5 - The postcard (two sides shown) was sent by William Alvin Butt from DeValls Bluff Arkansas in January 1864 where he was part of the Union occupation. DeValls Bluff was strategically important to both the Union and Confederate armies as a major White River port and as head of the Memphis and Little Rock Railroad. It became a key Union supply depot after its fall 1863 occupation, as well as a haven for refugees, both freedmen and white. Mounted Confederates operated around the town during 1864, attacking the railroad and Union troops on the nearby prairie.
From the Green Forest Tribune, February 22, 1907:
W.A. Butt - In putting before the public an edition of the Tribune devoted to a writeup of Green Forest and the resources of Carroll County, together with its business and professional men, the name of Mr. W.A. Butt, the worthy and efficient mayor of our city, should occupy a prominent place.
There are generally men in every community who, by reason of their individuality, make their mark upon the public. Such a one is Mr, W.A. Butt, progressive, prominent and always influential in everything for the welfare of our city and county.
As mayor of Green Forest he has exercised sound judgement and marked ability and no better man could be found to fill this important office.
In relation to his business he is known as one of the most successful undertakers in this part of the state. He is a skilled embalmer and a competent funeral director and keeps constantly on hand a full line of coffins, caskets and burial robes and all kinds of funeral supplies.
From the Green Forest Tribune Booster edition 1978 - provided by Dorothy D. Butt, Bethany, IL)
The very busiest man who ever lived in the town. Hot or cold, wet or dry, in season and out of season, he has ad something to engage his attention. He has been in "office" without cessation for all these years, often loaded to the guards with "honors" of this character. He has been 'Squire for eighteen years, in recognition of the efficiency of which service the Tribune suspended the rules and dubbed him "Judge" at the end of his fifth term on the "bench" and we wish to say that no chancellor ever wore the title more becomingly.
He has been mayor of the town over and over, school director, time after time, city treasurer, secretary of the Masonic Lodge, master of the lodge, tyler, steward of the church and the Lord only knows what manner of public burden has not fallen on his broad shoulders since he cast his lot in this town.
But under all of the loads with an unbroken record for faithfulness to his trusts, Judge Butt has managed to keep the wolf a comfortable distance and has retired with a competency sufficient to keep him through his remaining years.
Nor has Judge Butt's liberality in public affairs been limited to the time he has devoted to public service. He has been exceedingly liberal with his means, often going to the long black book he carries inside of his coat pocket to answer a call for support of charity, the church or to help out with some public improvement fund.
Taking that broad view of life, that his wealth is measured by good deeds, and that the things one has done to promote the comfort and happiness of others, our good friend Judge Butt is a millionaire in the best sense of the term. I recall my grandfather and grandmother telling us stories about their ancestors in the civil war when we were little, and regretfully have forgotten most of the details, but one of them, William Butt, was in the lines opposing the enemy across the river, presumably the Mississippi River at DeVall’s Bluff, when a deer came through the ranks, was eagerly shot for meat, but made its wounded way into the river and started swimming for the other/enemy side. Our forbear, sharpened stick in hand, jumped into the river, swam after and caught the deer and stabbed through it’s back leg to capture it and towed it back to his side of the river.
Civil War – Andrew J. Cox
My other great-grandfather on my father’s side, my grandmother’s father, fought for the Confederacy. He was a member of the 27th Arkansas Infantry, Carroll Regiment Company E. He was born in Lauderdale County, Alabama, in 1840, but by the time of the Civil War had moved to Carroll County, Arkansas. He was severely wounded and appears to have mustered out early.
Figure 6 - Andrew Jackson Cox
WWII – Thomas Franklin (Tom) Butt
My father, Thomas Franklin Butt, died in 2000 at the age of 83 after serving 50 years as Chancery and Probate Judge of the Arkansas Fourth Judicial District. At the time of his retirement, he was the oldest sitting judge in Arkansas and, at 50 years on the bench, the longest sitting judge in Arkansas history.
He was a native of Eureka Springs, where my grandfather practiced law for 77 years and served as a state legislator and mayor. He graduated cum laude from the University of Arkansas School of Law in 1938 and was admitted to the bar at age 21. For the next two years, he practiced privately in Fayetteville and served on the faculty of the University of Arkansas Law School. Commissioned as a second lieutenant of infantry at graduation, he was called to active duty in 1940 and spent the next six years in the U.S. Army as an infantry training company and battalion commander in the U.S. before shipping to Europe in 1944 as a legal specialist in foreign claims. After leaving active duty as a major, he remained in the Army Reserve, retiring after 34 years as a brigadier general in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. He held the mobilization designation as chief judge of the U.S. Army Judiciary, receiving the Legion of Merit in 1970
About the onset of WWII, my son Andrew transcribed the following from my father in 1991:
I was in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on a Sunday afternoon on December 7, about two o'clock. My roommate and I had just finished a late lunch and were just starting to play bridge with our two girlfriends and had the radio on. We were both in the army at the time and were second lieutenants. Of course we were shocked, that is shocked in the sense of being startled and depressed that this had happened so unexpectedly, and beyond that we were not particularly surprised because it had been thought by many people both in the government and just ordinary citizens for a year or more that there was a good chance that the United States might sometime get drawn into the war. I had been in the army over a year before Pearl Harbor was bombed and worked as an instructor at the University of Arkansas for the ROTC program. We were sorry to know we were at war and that it would probably be a long war and that many people would be killed and that it was a bad thing, but having realized that, we were very patriotic and we were very full of energy and very anxious to be a part of it and to get on with it and to whip the hell out of the enemy.
After Pearl Harbor we were just kept on duty at the University, because all of the military services, the Army, the Navy, the Army Air Corps, the Marines set about immediately to augment and increase the number of young men in the ROTC and training programs, so we stayed right here at the University and in the space of six months we had about two thousand young students training in the program where before that we only had about five hundred. My father was called to active duty in 1940 and met my mother at the University of Arkansas, where he was assigned as an instructor in ROTC, and she was a sophomore student. My mother and father were married April 25, 1942. They were lucky to stay at the University of Arkansas for a time, but my father was moved around from assignment to assignment, with my mother following until I was born on March 23, 1944, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he was at the New Mexico School of Mines in nearby Socorro as an instructor in an Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP). This was a program designed to give special college training to young men already in the military. Many colleges and universities across the nation had similar units.
Figure 7 - My father and me in 1944 before he left for Europe
My mother later wrote:
The then Capt. Butt had received Army orders in December 1943 to go to Socorro where he would work in an Army officers training program at the School of Mines there. We made the long trip out slowly as I was about seven months pregnant. Upon arriving, we went to a little old hotel (the town’s only) at the end of the road, staying there for a few days looking for housing. We eventually moved into an adobe duplex which had originally been a one-family house, the home-place of a ranch complex. It was a dreary vista for any eyes and a difficult one for a pregnant, sickly female. Shopping was traumatic, with only naked, cold rabbit offered in the grocery meat counters, or fried, the only meat on the menu in the two town restaurants. Overly hot Mexican food was an alternative. There being no doctors or hospital in Socorro, our frequent weekends to Albuquerque to see the obstetrician offered a chance to enjoy the hospitality of the lovely Alvarado Hotel there. The Santa Fe charged right up to the doorway of the hotel where Indians in native garb waited to show and sell their arts to incoming tourists. Literally, it was a "Gateway to the West" as the sign over the entrance gate stated.
To return to our arrival in Socorro, and the little hotel there where we went on our arrival night, there was much scurrying about as a large party was to be held that evening. Since visitors at the hotel were few and Tom's position at the local college made him already known, we were invited to join in the festivities. The party was a birthday celebration to honor the grand dame of Socorro, the beloved Senora Baca. All the town seemed to be there to pay tribute to the tiny little lady of 90, beautifully dressed in an ankle length black silk of an earlier day, with lace and jewels to make a picture perfect image. She and her family were among the earliest, and surely the most distinguished, of the Socorro citizens and one of the few aristocratic Spanish families to still be social, political and economic leaders. Her late husband, El Fago Baca, had been their sheriff in territorial days, as well as U.S. Marshall and legislator.
The senora reigned that evening as a queen might, graciously greeting all well-wishers from her throne-like seat in the large hall. We were enchanted. It was nearly a year later, back in Batesville, that I learned from Aunt Dan that the same Senora Baca had been her dearest friend in those much earlier days when they were frontier wives together at Socorro, the senora of landed Spanish gentry and Aunt Dan, who followed the Santa Fe through the wilderness of New Mexico. Time and the world become swiftly small for us. The new orders for overseas duty had arrived the day after the baby’s arrival in a hospital in Albuquerque.
My father spent a short time in Ft. Worth at another high school ROTC program before shipping to Europe as a legal specialist in foreign claims. He disembarked at Omaha Beach in Normandy in September, 1944, about three months after D-Day, and then followed the front through France and Belgium where he commanded a small detachment (Claims Office, Team 6816) settling claims of Europeans against the American military.
He moved from place to place through northwestern France and eventually into southern Belgium until the war ended in the spring of 1945.
More of Andrew’s 1991 interview:
I saw service in the United States, and in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, and Germany, (pause) Oh, and England. I went overseas in 1944 after the Normandy invasion. I arrived at a little bitty town on the west coast of Scotland, called Greenock spelled G - R - double E - N - O - C - K, and it was a port capable of handling large ocean - going vessels, and I went over on a former French luxury liner called, the Isle de France, and it had been put into war service and stripped of all its elegant interior and arranged for enough bunks and space to carry about four thousand or five thousand soldiers. Because I was a lawyer, the army had sent out word to various installations all over the United States saying that there was a need for lawyers and insurance agents and doctors and real estate claims adjusters to work with what were called foreign claims teams in the foreign claims service, and our job was to set up a place to work on the European continent and there received the complaints of the civilians who claimed that the American soldiers had stolen or damaged or ruined their property. They were making a claim against the United States to pay them the value of their lost, damaged, or stolen property, caused by the thievery of American soldiers or the wrongful damage of property. That entire operation was called the foreign claims service, and our job, as I say, was to receive the foreign citizens, to investigate them, and to determine if the claim was fair and to determine if the American soldiers had done the damage, and if so authorize payment, but equally to determine if the American soldiers didn't do it and if they were not negligent in doing so, than the claim was denied. There was an absolute rule that any damage caused by combat action, the United States would not pay for, because that was just a necessary result of warfare and of course the United States had treaties with all these countries, and it was agreed that the U.S. would not be obliged to pay for any damage caused by combat. But for example if a soldier got drunk on pass and broke windows or ran his jeep into the fence of a citizen, or whether he was drunk or not, if he was just a no good bum and he broke into a bakery shop and stole a bunch of bread or whatever, he was just a plain thief, and when that was established the United States would pay.
I found it extremely interesting to get to know something of the country of France and Belgium and Luxembourg and Holland simply by being in a foreign country that I'd never been in before, and getting to know a good many of the citizens of those different countries, England too of course. The foreign claims service and the unit I belonged to was not a combat army unit, we were not a fighting unit, but since we were on the continent and in the area of operations following immediately behind the area of combat we saw firsthand the results of fighting and battle damage and saw the results of the heavy bombardment by the English and American air forces, and of course we could see and hear the bombers flying over, day and night, and that was inspiring. Those are ours, those are our airmen up there; we're just whippin' the hell out of those Germans, (laughs).
I never did see any of the enemy in wartime, but I saw a good many German prisoners immediately after the war, and they, of course, had either surrendered or been otherwise captured and for a few months after the war in Europe was over, I was still there waiting to get sent home, and we were mainly just marking time waiting for our orders to be sent home. We had to have a place to live and to eat and keep alive, (laughs) like anybody does any time and for quite a while we, meaning a large number of American officers were assigned quarters in, oh I guess what you could call hotels and apartment buildings, that sort of thing, and German prisoners were there to cook and serve and make the beds and keep house for us.
When I arrived in September, of 1944, and you will remember that what we called and what history calls D-Day was June 6, 1944 and the actual fighting, the invasion was very, very heavy fighting, so, although I didn't actually land in France until about the first week in September, which would have been three months after the invasion, the fighting was still going on less than fifty miles away. So the first thing I saw were bombed out bridges and burned villages and chewed up ground, where the tank warfare had taken place, and just the general wreckage of heavy warfare. We landed on Omaha beach, where the invasion forces had, and the great big steel barriers that the Germans had put up were still in the water, and lots of barbed wire, and all the German pill boxes, heavy concrete bunkers were up on the ledge overlooking the coast with the knocked out German guns, they were all still there. There was very extensive battle damage of bombardment and artillery damage all through France and Holland. We were stationed in the Ardennes forest, where the heaviest tank fighting and infantry fighting during the so called Battle of the Bulge, took place. And we were stationed after the fighting of course, but there were just burned out tanks all over the place, and you could see where trees had been just mowed down by artillery fire and so on, so that was just quite a thing to see that, in the wake of battle, the damage that had occurred.
WWII - James Edward (Jimmie) Ryland
Shirley’s father, James Edward (“Jimmie”) Ryland and her mother, Mary Chew (“Chew”) Brummett grew up in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. They graduated from high school in 1936 and were married on June 16, 1941. They moved to Memphis, where Jimmie had been working as a salesman for a paper products company since 1936. In 1942, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps as an Aviation Cadet Candidate. This was the first time that non-college graduates were offered the opportunity to become pilots.
Shirley’s older sister, Katherine Amy (“Katie”) was born November 6, 1942. Jimmie was called to active duty in 1943 and spent over a year in an accelerated college program, from which he graduated in March 1944 and was commissioned a second lieutenant. Chew, meanwhile, moved back with her parents in Pine Bluff.
After completing 48 weeks of flight training in Chattanooga, TN, Maxwell Field, AL, Lafayette, LA, Walnut Ridge, AR and Stuttgart, AR, Jimmie qualified as pilot of a B-24 Liberator and was ordered to the European Theater on September 19, 1944.
Flying with a stopover in the Azores, he reported first to North Africa. He was scheduled to fly next to Italy, but during takeoff, one of his engines malfunctioned, and he turned back. All of the other planes in his group were lost in a storm over the Mediterranean.
Figure 8 - Jimmie Ryland with daughters Shirley and Katie in 1945
Figure 9 - From left to right, Chew, Shirley, Katy and Jimmie after Jimmie’s return from Europe in 1945
Jimmie flew five combat bombing missions over German-held territory from Italy. On his fifth mission, his plane took flak while bombing Vienna on October 17, 1944. His tail gunner was killed, and Jimmie was severely wounded in his calf muscle. He returned to base safely, but it ended his flying career, and he spent the next nine months recuperating in hospitals. Shirley was born November 10, 1944, while her father was in a hospital in Bari, Italy until December 15, 1944, when he boarded a hospital ship to return to the U.S. he learned of Shirley’s birth through the Red Cross.
Jimmie finished out his military service as a Transition Dispatcher at an Air Transport Command Base and was separated from the service on October 1, 1945. He was awarded the Air Medal, Purple Heart and the European-African-Middle Eastern Theater Ribbon with three Bronze Service Stars.
In 1945, Jimmie resumed his sales career, and the family moved back to Memphis where Jimmie and Chew raised three daughters and as son and remained the rest of their lives.
Vietnam - Martin Andrew Butt
My younger brother, by three years, Martin, enlisted in the Marines in 1966 and spent most of 1967 in Vietnam. For the full story, click here. Martin died in an automobile accident in 1969 at the age of 22.
Figure 10 - In early 1967, Martin Butt at Da Nang, Vietnam, assigned in a support role, including guard duty, in Marine Aircraft Group 11 (MAG-11) Group Supply.
Korea - William Jackson (Jack) Butt II
My youngest brother, Jack, attended the University of Virginia on a ROTC scholarship and was commissioned a second lieutenant upon graduation in 1972. He received his J.D. with Honors in 1975 and went on active duty with the Army, was promoted to captain, and served a year in Korea as a military lawyer with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. While on active duty he completed his masters in tax law at George Washington University. Jack was honorably discharged to the reserves in 1979, where he ultimately was promoted to major.
Figure 11 - Jack Butt of Fayetteville stands along the White River at Buffalo City in June after hiking and paddling his way down all 132 floatable miles of the Buffalo River from Ponca to the White River. Butt embarked on the journey to celebrate his 60th birthday.
Jack joined the Davis Law Firm in Fayetteville, AR, in 1981 after four years’ practice with the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps and two years’ private practice in Fairfax, Virginia. Jack regularly litigates in state and federal courts and before various administrative agencies. He was first qualified as an Arkansas Board Recognized Tax Specialist in 1986; has been rated AV-Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell since 1994; was recognized by the Arkansas Times 1995 and 2000 polls as one of the top 10 business lawyers in Arkansas; and is listed in Best Lawyers in America in Trusts and Estates and in SuperLawyers in Commercial Litigation. Jack was President of the Washington County Bar Association in 1996-1997; served as President of the Northwest Arkansas Estate Planning Council from 2004-2006; and is an emeritus member of the William B. Putman Inns of Court, serving as President 2010-2011. He received the Arkansas Bar Association’s Outstanding Lawyer Citizen Award for 1999-2000. Jack is a member of the Washington County and Arkansas Bar Associations, and is admitted to practice before the United States Tax Court and the United States Supreme Court.
Elected to the Fayetteville School Board in 1985, he served until 1991. Afterward, he took up the creation of the Fayetteville Public Education Foundation in 1992 and served as its president for the next ten years. In 1997, Arkansas Times named him as one of five “Public School Heros” for his service to public education. In 2000, he initiated a pro bono challenge to a $6 million dollar attorneys’ fee in the Hickstax refund case that resulted in a reduction by over two million dollars in lawyers’ fees, to the benefit of the public schools and taxpayers. He has served on the boards of the Fayetteville Youth Center, Lifestyles Foundation ,Rotary, and Downtown Fayetteville Unlimited. Jack and Anne have three children: Mary Claire, Anna, and Jackson.
Jack recalls;
As to details of my military experience, I was commissioned into the Regular Army from ROTC as a 2nd Lt. in 1972, put on excess leave and temporarily assigned from Medical Service Corps to JAGC to complete law school, which I did from GW in 1975, whereupon I received a regular Army commission as captain in the JAGC, obligated to four years of active duty. I successfully completed airborne and ranger schools in the process. After being commissioned, my assignments included the Military District of Washington (where the law school was ) a summer duty assignment to the 3rd Infantry Division in Germany, upon graduation from law school, HQ, I Corps, Korea, and then two years at Vint Hill Farms Station, Virginia a small, isolated military post doing exclusively military intelligence, with the Army Security Agency, which became while I was there the Intelligence and Security Command. I was discharged from the Regular Army in 1979, commissioned in the reserves, and did reserve duty from 1979 until 1992, resigning my commission as a major in 1992. My highest award was the Meritorious Service Medal.
Jack Butt: Operation Paul Bunyan: My Presence at the War that wasn’t After three years of bitter fighting, the Korean War stalemated in 1953. It took over 50,000 American lives and wounded 100,000 more. A truce was declared and each army withdrew 2,000 meters from the line of battle along the 38th
parallel, leaving a 4,000 meter wide de-militarized zone. Truce talks began at the destroyed village of Panmunjon, in the middle of the DMZ. For the next fifty years it remained the potentially hottest battle of the cold war between Communism and Democracy.
When I arrived 22 years later in 1975 as a young captain, both sides were still claiming victory, no peace terms were agreed, heated negotiation continued daily, and the 38th parallel was the most heavily armed border in the world. The threat of war was underscored regularly by attacks in which dozens of Americans died.
Technically, I was assigned to the 19th support brigade headquartered safely in the heart of South Korea. It provided bullets, beans, transportation, medical support, and in my case legal services to the front line troops. We were what the real soldiers called REMF’s – rear echelon mother “f .” However, I was detached forward.
The Southern edge of the DMZ was defended by 13 Korean combat divisions: over 200,000 entrenched, heavily armed troops, looking out of their foxholes 24 hours a day to their enemies 4000 meters away, truly believing that the war could start the next day
The U.S. Army’s Second Infantry Division anchored the line because North Korea needed to know that any aggression would trigger the full involvement of the United States of America.
Figure 14 - 2nd Infantry Division patrolling south of the DMZ
10 miles to the rear of the DMZ was the I Corps Headquarters whose commander, General James Hollingsworth commanded in those 13 divisions the largest field Army in the world.
Attached to this HQ was a Signal Battalion which provided General Hollingsworth, whether he was in a jeep, tank, foxhole or helicopter, 24/7 instantaneous communications to each of his division commanders, the Pentagon, and the President of the United States.
Also attached to the Corps headquarters were several attack helicopter squadrons, and artillery and missile batteries, charged with the defense of the Corps HQ in the event of war.
I was the legal assistance officer and defense counsel for these I Corps HQ support troops.
These were all front line positions, where if combat occurred, we would be in it. I was issued full battle gear, and when the frequent alerts sounded in the wee hours of the morning, I mustered promptly to my duty station (my law office) fully armed and packed for deployment .
I returned home on leave in May 1976 to be married, and returned with Anne. This remote duty provided no support for wives. My wedding gift to her was a bicycle, because we were prohibited personal cars in that tactical situation .
Two months later, on August 18, two American officers took a work detail into the truce zone to cut foliage blocking visibility of the approaches. The trimming, though previously approved through official channels, was challenged by a much larger group of North Korean guards. When the Americans did not stop, the North Korean officer in charge struck and killed the senior American officer, Captain Boniface, with a single Karate chop to the neck. A general melee broke out and the work detail fled; the second officer, Lt. Barrett, sought refuge in a ditch, where he was found and chopped to death with the hatchets abandoned by the work detail.
The officers of the Corps Signal battalion were friends of mine, and of course they provided the communications between General Hollingsworth and the Pentagon. The day after the murderous attack, the executive officer of the Battalion, Major Jack Hayman, approached Anne and me and said, “This tree thing is not over; when the balloon goes up (army slang for when the stuff hits the fan), you will have no duties here. Take your weapon, all the Korean and U.S. cash you can carry, get on your bicycles and ride south – do not take a cab or bus, because the roads will be closed. That’s the best advice I can give you.”
Three days later, Anne and I arrived on post for the duty day, to find that of the thousand personnel normally present, only 4 people were left – the guard at the gate, the post chaplain, Anne and me. The entire HQ was tactically deployed – to the air, to the field, to secret bunkers. We spent a very long, nervous day in the deadly silent officers club with the chaplain, sipping coffee, wondering what to do next - and the poor chaplain didn’t even have a bicycle!
Late in the day, units of the 51st Signal Battalion started filtering back in. It took a week to get the whole story. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had pushed for bombing North Korea, but the Pentagon prevailed: On August 21st,a special squad of combat engineers armed with chain saws moved into to the treaty area….., surrounded and defended by two heavily armed platoons of infantry and 50 black belt South Korean special forces soldiers;……… the access bridges into the area from the North had been secretly mined by Army rangers with explosives and were under the calibrated sights of heavy artillery;……….. 4 squadrons of fully armed cobra helicopter gunships lifted into in the air within sight of the DMZ;……… the full tactical air force in South Korea, hundreds of U.S. and south Korean jet fighters, went aloft loaded with munitions and within sight, hearing, or radar of the DMZ…….., and above them, squadrons of B-52 heavy bombers had left Guam the night before loaded with maximum bombardment and were now overhead,……….. all augmented by the full deployment of the aircraft and battleship long guns of the Seventh Fleet and its aircraft carrier Midway which had steamed within range the day before……… Every firing tube of every artillery unit of 13 divisions along the 150 mile- long DMZ were loaded, and aimed, at tactical targets north of the DMZ…
….. and then we just cut the damned tree down.
Despite North Korea’ s persistent, belligerent, and sometimes deadly posture, North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung blinked. No reciprocal action was taken, and Anne and I heaved a vast, a vast, sigh of relief that we would not be riding our bicycles south.
This is a list of the Units, and the over 300,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen involved in cutting down the single tree.
And that was my presence at the war that wasn’t. |
