Chapter 14: Little Man, Big Man 091825

     Lastly, little man syndrome predisposes its victims to continually dream up superficial ways to prove themselves and gain attention. They seldom spend the time to do the in-depth critical thinking needed to produce better solutions to problems. A little man continually knee-jerks instead of taking the time to solicit ideas from subordinates for a better solution. Thus, the organization suffers much more from the destructive consequences of knee-jerking than it would otherwise. Those harmful consequences may not happen immediately. Everything may run fine until an organization experiences some external pressure, which then becomes the trigger. I can think of no other external pressure greater than that of combat in the jungles of 1967 Vietnam.
     However, having said what I have just said, it’s only fair to ask what the reader may already be asking. What gives me the right qualifications to criticize any leader, anywhere, in any endeavor, since I have never been one myself? It’s true. On June 13, 1967, while this 1st and 16th battalion commander was just four days away from getting his men shot to pieces for the last time, I was one of the lowest-ranking grunts in the 1st Infantry Division. I also went on to become a college dropout who would never be given a leadership role of any kind. In other words, I would always be a grunt. Again, what gives me the audacity to think that I can accurately assess the mental condition of others who have strived to achieve a lot more in life than I have? The answer to that question may come as a surprise. I have great credibility here in understanding little man syndrome because I was one. Before I submitted my mind to be conformed to the mind of Christ, not only was I a little man, but my affliction was so severe that I could easily have been mistaken for a Lilliputian.
     Now, let’s take a look at the command situation in my unit as this little man in that other unit was about to be given the lead in executing Operation Billings. It had been a little more than three months since Dick Cavazos took over my unit. That was a lifetime in Vietnam. Once again, our unit was being sidelined. We had also been sidelined while our former battalion commander was in command. Major General DePuy was our 1st Infantry Division commander at that time. He was smart and tough. No doubt he noticed our former commander’s poor performance. I cannot remember a single time that Duchess 6 had us dig a foxhole according to SOP. Supply problems abounded. We got no hot meals, except during our rare visits to home base at Dĩ An. Sometimes, we lacked even an adequate supply of drinking water. Looking back now, I see a commander who was more than likely burned out. Although brave, our previous commander was not suited to command an infantry battalion. General DePuy was still our division commander when that battalion commander left. He had served only two months in the field. I believe DePuy fired him because he fired a lot of battalion commanders for incompetence. Duchess 6 never received another promotion after he left Vietnam. However, I would discover years later that he was not a little man.
     God creates many personalities, and our nation needs them all, then and now. That battalion commander’s removal from command and then retirement from the Army freed him to begin developing his real gifting, which was in technology. His work in that field later contributed significantly to his nation and earned him the standing necessary to become a notable role model for his community. For goodness’ sake, top leadership in any organization needs to be able to spot people who have an aptitude for the job and also spot those who don’t. They then need to find another fit for those who don’t or set them free to find that fit for themselves. I am happy to say that Duchess 6 found a fit for himself. I would wager that there was at least one Christian legacy influencing his ability to make that enlightened and radical change in his life. DePuy was removed by Chief of Staff Johnson shortly afterward. Johnson thought he was firing too many battalion commanders. Major General Hay became our next division commander. General Hay moved much more slowly than DePuy and was committed to maintaining the status quo. Hay kept most of DePuy’s staff. With the arrival of Hay, the climate at the top changed—and not in Dick Cavazos’s favor. No one was interested in keeping a critical eye on battalion commanders anymore. Wherever one was rated in the lineup, that’s where they stayed. At this time, Cavazos had no big battles under his belt, which wasn’t unusual. Most battalion commanders never fought a single major battle in Vietnam. However, the 1st and 16th battalion commander did. He also had a doctorate in showboating, so initially, he had managed to pull the wool over DePuy’s eyes. Therefore, he was now rated at the top of that lineup. DePuy had liked him, so Hay liked him. At this moment in time, Hay knew next to nothing about the real leadership abilities of any of his battalion commanders.
     I have just given very good reasons why Dick’s current working environment was against him ever having a star pinned on his shoulder, much less four of them. However, there was an even greater reason for that not to happen. Dick’s values were fixed. The legacy of the ranch had molded him into a staunch throwback, firmly grounded in biblical principles at his very core. That meant that he was not about to manipulate his circumstances to make himself look better. Instead, for those first three months, Dick focused on doing his job. At the end of those three months, he had turned us into the best battalion in the division, but who knew? No one, and I mean no one, could beat Dick in his ability to show us how to maneuver in large formations through thick jungle and coordinate covering fires at the same time. He looked straight past rank to see the soul. He could recognize a person’s ability to get the job done, as well as those who couldn’t. A good spotter for calling in artillery or air strikes could be anyone, as far as Dick was concerned. He could be a point man, an RTO, an FO, a squad leader, or a company commander, to name a few. “Just get the job done” was his motto. We had a lot of people who were skilled at what they did, but we also had a constant influx of those who weren’t. Dick was quick to recognize and set the bad ones free.
     Besides people, Dick made some other very underrated and unnoticed improvements in our housekeeping. You might ask, “What in the world does that have to do with creating a superior fighting force?” Well, let me explain. Our DePuy bunkers were our homes away from home. Very shortly after Dick arrived, they were fitted out to meet Dick’s good housekeeping seal of approval. He did this by making some simple changes, which allowed us to build these fortifications much faster and much stronger. He had our supply sergeant reconnoiter and secure two essential homemaking tools. One was a mattock, and the other was Marston matting. The mattocks allowed us to bust up hard laterite ground at least three times faster than other units using only entrenching tools. We repurposed Marston matting—ten-foot-long, fifteen-inch-wide perforated steel planks—for overhead cover, laying them beneath sandbags to add structural support. These planks made a much stronger roof, which could take direct hits from mortar rounds. They were heavy, so they were flown out to us in Chinooks while we were digging in. They kept us from having to spend valuable time and energy chopping down small trees for overhead supports. The time saved gave us more time to chop firing lanes, run trip flares, and lay Claymore mines. Since we were not as tired, we were more alert. The number of mishaps was fewer because we did not have to use machetes to chop tree limbs for roof supports. A weary soldier swinging a machete was a recipe for accidents. He could easily miss his mark and chop into a leg bone. Many units used C-4 explosives and hand grenades to soften up the ground for digging. How dangerous was that? Yes, Dick’s seemingly little changes made a big difference. However, they also went largely unnoticed by senior command.
     Many patrols in the 1st Infantry Division were enticed into walking trails. Dick was adamant that we never walk on trails. Since we didn’t walk on trails, we experienced fewer surprise encounters with the enemy and/or their booby traps. My only job in my squad was walking point, and I did that for nine months. During that time, I never ran across a single booby trap because I never walked a trail. Also, Dick was blessed with some proficient NCOs, none finer than my Sergeant B., Sergeant Robert O., “Mac” McLaughlin, Gerry C., John M., and First Sergeant Pink D. My squad thump gunner, Walker, was one of the best in the division. Our weapons platoon people were top rate too. They could drop a mortar round on target every time. Dick was also blessed with a recon platoon, which was very stealthy. In all the interviews, written reports, and stories, I could not find a single remark about our recon platoon. It’s as though these guys did not exist. Believe it or not, that speaks volumes about this little band of brothers. It was a recon platoon’s primary duty to gather intelligence about the enemy without being noticed. These guys were specters. They were flesh and blood, but they were also ghosts. Their platoon leader had been scrutinized closely by our “ole man” before he was given command of that platoon.
     A hot meal in the field was something that made a huge difference. Dick expanded the one hot meal a day to include dehydrated vegetable beef soup and fresh hot donuts in the morning. Most battalions were fortunate to get one hot meal a day. Still, I have never read about a single Vietnam veteran getting piping hot donuts, airfreighted to him in the middle of the jungle every morning. However, we did. Yes, I know they were not suitable for a young man’s long-term health, but they were “gooood” not only for boosting morale but also for giving us the sugar high we needed to carry an extra eighty pounds of gear in sweltering ninety-five-degree temperatures. Clean fatigues were also supplied to us more regularly after Operation Junction City. No doubt, Dick had a hand in that. It is surprising what Dick could get our people in the rear to do just by treating them the way he expected others to treat him. This tactic worked much better than treating his people like we were recruits just getting off the bus.
     Yes, in three months, Dick had turned my unit into the best line unit in the division, and probably in all of Vietnam. That’s not just my opinion. Everyone whom I interviewed and who served with him said the same thing. His animated way of initiating and explaining the benefits behind routine commands always had an earthy and unmatched characteristic—unique to him alone. I never heard of him bullying or trying to intimidate anyone. When he spoke to the battalion, every man listened intently, and many remembered his words fifty years later. Why? One reason was that Dick never brought the conversation around to himself. Instead, he talked about his people and how proud he was of us, but not in a “mushy” way.
     There were always various contacts with enemy patrols and sappers, but Dick never micromanaged. He trusted us to do our job, and so we did. Yet, while Dick trusted us, he also enforced his own little bag of tricks by making them standard procedure. For example, he had our patrols zigzag instead of performing those dumb cloverleaf maneuvers. He also had patrols in force change directions and even return to base camp, and then go in a totally different direction. At the beginning of a march in force, Dick always had our single column count off. Even numbers knew to flank to one side, while odd numbers knew to flank to the other side when we made contact with the enemy. Dick never let his mind think that it was acceptable to trade our dead bodies for more enemy body counts. When we made contact, we would always withdraw at least fifty meters while calling in artillery on that vacated ground. Dick continually made time to think about the tactical aspects of his job and always had. This helped him nip things in the bud, becoming too wily to be baited into a trap. Like an old moss backed buck, he was continually honing his instincts for slipping the noose.............  Much later in Dick’s career, shortly after he was promoted to four-star general, Norman Schwarzkopf’s career had been sidelined in a dead-end job. However, Dick suggested to Norman’s boss that he choose Schwarzkopf to lead the Grenada Campaign. Norman then became a shoo-in to lead coalition forces against Iraq to free Kuwait. Leading troops into Kuwait was a life-changing event for Norman and a great victory for freedom across the world. It would never have happened if Dick had not been allowed to prove himself on the battlefields of Vietnam. Still, in June 1967, it seemed that Dick would never get that opportunity.
     To make matters worse, he was not predisposed to do anything about it. To do that, he would have had to become a self-promoting little man. Dick was just too big a man to fit in those little man shoes. It seemed destined for other battalion commanders to continue being 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 and create 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.