Chapter 14: Little Man, Big Man 091825

     

      It seemed destined that other battalion commanders would continue to be chosen to lead operations instead of Dick. His career was weighted toward ending in a fizzle rather than a shooting star. He would have been left with a great retirement, but he would never have been given the chance to become a greater reflection of Henrietta’s eternal legacy. Of course, his career did not fizzle. Instead, just the opposite happened. However, I very much doubt that Dick realized the why or the how of that. Dick was utterly content with his life as it was. In a phone conversation, he once described his promotion to four-star general as “a moon shot.” I cringed when he made this remark. I wanted to say, “No, Dick, it was not a moon shot. Instead, you were made a part of God’s grander picture, which is too large for anyone to comprehend fully.” You see, mediocrity and chance are not words that have any place in describing God’s works, and Henrietta King’s legacy is an eternal work of God. During Operation Billings, the hand of God would turn the tables, creating a much greater opportunity for Dick than he could ever have imagined. That was not done for Dick. Dick had not chosen to develop his own eternal legacy, but he had chosen to be a reflection of that ranch legacy. The grunts, whom Dick commanded and cherished, would greatly benefit from Dick’s reflected values. However, there is an even better way. A better way is to let the light of Jesus Christ burning within us, believers, guide us in charting our personal eternal legacy, even in the total darkness of this world, as Henrietta King and, more recently, Charlie Kirk have done.

      On the thirteenth, when the 1-16 (Rangers) landed at LZ Rufe, they were unopposed. However, intelligence reports clearly indicated that the 271st NVA Regiment had not only been completely rebuilt after the Battle of Ap Gu two and a half months earlier but also moved dozens of miles farther south, using numerous base camps as staging areas to attack the American base at Phuoc Vinh. The area was crawling with enemy patrols, as evidenced by numerous small-unit contacts. Other American units, like Jack Toomey’s 1-2, had air assaulted into an area several klicks SE of LZ Rufe the day before. Toomey, now a machine gunner, arrived in the operational area just after sheets of rain had finished dousing the landing zone with a heavy downpour.

     The 1-16 battalion commander was placed in overall command of both his unit and the Black Lions, who landed after his unit landed. Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Edwards commanded them. That night, the Black Lions had two ambush patrols make contact with enemy patrols. This enemy activity in itself should have been a warning to the 1-16 commander that something was afoot. The next morning, newly minted Buck Sergeant Greg Murry and his A Company made a sweep one thousand meters to the west of their NDP, then turned southeast to go another thousand meters. The fog from the light drizzling rain during the night gradually lifted. Bright shooting rays of sunlight pierced open areas in the overhead canopy. These columns of light illuminated patches of jungle flooring below. At 1215, one of Murry’s machine gunners, Jose G., was in the right place—in the line of march—to catch a glimpse of five VC congregating in one of those bright patches of sunlight. They were startled by the approaching Americans and scattered into the surrounding jungle foliage. Jose squeezed off several three-round bursts, shooting from his hip, before his gun jammed. He missed.