SIX

KATHERINE AND THE girls went to Michigan and I caught the first train for Fort Bragg. I’d shaved the morning we docked but not again. I rode all night, arriving in Fayetteville, North Carolina, around 10:00 A.M. I took my bags and grabbed a cab to Smoke Bomb Hill, the location of the 7th Special Forces Group. It had been a year since I’d been in my old headquarters and I saw many new faces. I told the adjutant who I was and that I had, just the day before, returned from England. “Well,” he said, “you need to see the deputy commander.”

I was still in civilian clothes and probably looked somewhat scruffy. But I really didn’t care. I was a man with a mission. I found Lt. Col. Ed Mattice seated behind his desk. I don’t remember exactly how he put it, but his meaning was clear. “Captain, you’ve been gone for a year and we got things here that are happening every day. I’m going to assign you down to A Company and you can sort of put your report in when you want to.” In other words, “We don’t really care where you’ve been or that now you’re back.” I spent a lot of time listening and he did a lot of talking, trying to impress me with his experience. The only thing he impressed me with was that he seemed to be an old man who was worried about getting promoted to full colonel.

A few minutes later Lt. Col. Mert Kelty, who commanded A Company, came along followed by his little Dalmatian dog. This particular officer was a bachelor who lived with this dog. Colonel Kelty immediately told me that I needed a shave and a cleanup. He said I was to accompany him down to the Company area.

We started across the parade ground. I said to the good colonel—he, too, seemed a somewhat elderly gentleman—“It’s a beautiful day, sir. Why don’t we drop down and knock off fifty push-ups? Which hand, sir, right or left? You just make the choice.” Colonel Kelty was flabbergasted. I’m sure he thought to himself, How in the hell did I get this buffoon hung around my neck?

We marched into A Company’s headquarters building, and behind a desk sat a forty-pound-overweight sergeant major who I’d casually known in the 82nd and who, I knew, had never been in the mud of the Special Operations business. The sergeant major immediately snapped, “It’ll cost you fifteen cents, Captain, for having your hat on.” I told the sergeant major I wasn’t paying no goddamn fifteen cents for having no hat on.

In Colonel Kelty’s office I said, “Sir, I don’t think A Company is big enough for me and you, and since you are the commander here, I think I should leave.” He said, “I think you should, too.”

I marched out of A Company about five minutes after I’d arrived. I suspect at that moment Lieutenant Colonel Kelty called up Lieutenant Colonel Mattice and the two of them tried to figure a nice way, without embarrassing themselves, of drumming old Beckwith out of the 7th Special Forces Group.

I went back to Group Headquarters and said to the adjutant, “I would like to have permission to look around and find a home somewhere out of the Special Forces community. I’m disgusted.” All this happened within half a day. I was disillusioned and frightened. After lunch I sat back and thought that this was the most ludicrous thing in the world to have happen. I said, “Hey, boy, you’re too smart for this.”

I remembered that Col. Clyde Russell, who had commanded the 7th Special Forces Group for about nine months while I was in England, had just been reassigned to the XVIII Airborne Corps as the operations officer. I’d known Colonel Russell and always gave him high marks. I determined I’d go see him to get some guidance. I couldn’t see him that afternoon, but made an appointment for the next day. The rest of the first day I spent going around visiting some of my old friends, sharing my feelings with them. Most of them didn’t really understand where I was coming from. Instead of a year, it felt as if I’d been away from Bragg for a lifetime.

Late the next afternoon I met with Colonel Russell. I explained what had happened—my year in England, my return to Fort Bragg, and now how I was very disillusioned and upset. He made it clear to me that he’d made four combat jumps with the 82nd Airborne Division in World War II and that he didn’t have much time for the Brits. He further explained that he thought the exchange program with the SAS was a big waste of time inasmuch as only one officer got the benefit of the program and not the entire Special Forces. Dead end! Now, I didn’t know which way to run.

The next day, back in the 7th Special Forces Group area, I was walking across the street on my way to one of the mess halls to get a cup of coffee, when a lieutenant colonel who I’d never met before walked up to me. “My name is Buzz Miley, and I’m the commander of B Company. I understand you’re just back from England. I’ve got the responsibility of setting up an exercise that’s going to involve some of the Brits, and I need some assistance. Will you help me?” It was like someone had just picked me up out of the gutter. “Come on,” he said, “let’s go have a cup of coffee and talk about it.”

Over the coffee, Lieutenant Colonel Miley explained, “I have to leave tomorrow to make arrangements for an exercise up in the Pisgah National Forest. There’s a small contingent of four or five people going with me. I’m told you know the Special Forces business and that in England you obviously learned something. I could use you. What do you say, Captain, want to help?” I was so happy I wanted to hug him. I explained my situation, and he told me he’d take care of everything with Colonel Mattice. And he did. I wasn’t assigned to B Company, but I was attached for the duration of the exercise. I suspected Group Headquarters was just going to watch to see what I would do.

Crossing the Atlantic I’d finished my big report, the one stating what I’d learned from the SAS and how this information could assist our side. The recommendation I made in this report was that the United States Army organize as soon as possible a unit along the lines of the British SAS. But now, in Bragg, I didn’t know what to do with this report. I knew if I gave it to Colonel Mattice it could end up in the trash can. The new Group commander of the 7th Special Forces, Colonel Evans-Smith, who was coming out of the Army War College and had never served a day in Special Ops, had not yet arrived. I nevertheless felt that Evans-Smith was my best bet, so I determined the clever thing to do was to hold the report until he got on post, then get him to read it. I had to hope he was the kind of senior officer who would listen to me.

Then I outsmarted myself. Johnny Johnson was the 7th Special Forces Group operations officer. He’d served in Korea with a Ranger unit. I trusted him. Johnson’s assistant, Bud Sydnor, was the officer who had preceded me as the SAS exchange officer. Bud had been the first officer to be exchanged, so I felt I had one friend up at Group and no doubt two, because Bud would by now have converted Johnny Johnson. I felt confident. I knew that Johnson, being operations officer, had some clout. So I gave my SAS After Action Report to Major Johnson and asked him to read it. This proved to be a mistake.

The next day I went up into the Great Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina with Lieutenant Colonel Miley. We were there about a week, and I had a hell of a good time. I never will forget how one night, pretty late, we wheeled into this motel. Everybody was worried about what it was going to cost Uncle Sam to put his officers up. The discussion went on about how many officers could share one room. Aw, shit! I thought, so I grabbed my sleeping bag out of the back of the jeep. I found me a tree, and I crawled up under it and went to sleep. American Army staffs often worry about piss-ants when elephants are stomping them to death.

The exercise went well. We found a very good place near Andrews, North Carolina, up in the Nantahala National Forest, to set up our base. What didn’t go well was that most everyone spent one hell of a lot of time worrying about creature comforts; where the troops were going to sleep, how their bowels were going to be taken care of, whether the tents were in good shape, would the visitors have a nice place to sit and watch from? We were even directed to go as far as to bring in a Special Forces Demonstration Team, which rehearsed each of the parts it was going to play. If we had visitors from Washington, D.C., it was thought we should look good. But that was phony. This particular team’s actions were canned. I couldn’t come to grips with that. I was disgusted. It was like being in showbiz.

About that time, maybe fifteen days had gone by up there in Andrews, when one SAS squadron reinforced arrived. John Woodhouse, who I’d met in Aden on my return from Malaya, brought them over, and Peter Walter was with him. Boy, was I glad to see them. I really had more in common with them than I did with my own people. The Brits laughed at the size and magnitude of the exercise. All they wanted were tents—didn’t need any floors in them. As for water, they found their own.

Brig. Gen. William P. Yarborough, the commander of the Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, found the time to talk to John Woodhouse about me. I’d gone earlier to General Yarborough and told him, “Sir, you know you’re really missing something if you don’t take a good hard look at this SAS concept.” General Yarborough was a great guy and a very polite man. “Captain,” he said, “you don’t understand. I have a full plate here handling what I got.” He was very nice to me, but not at all sympathetic. I was making waves, no question about it. Anyway, General Yarborough talked to John Woodhouse and told him I was getting unmanageable.

John buttonholed me one evening. “Charlie, you need to slow up a little. I know what you’re going through and I’m sympathetic with you, but you gotta live here and we don’t. What I’m saying, old chap, is that you want to take your time with this. You’re going to catch more flies with honey than you are batting them around.”

I appreciated what John said. Yet, no one wanted to hear one goddamn thing I had to say. It was like being hit in the ass with a canoe paddle. I’m a very emotional person, so it took some time for me to get over my disappointments. I also knew I had an ace up my sleeve. My report. When it was read it was going to be acted upon. I was sure of that. No one would misunderstand the importance of my message. But I had to wait, had to have patience.

When the exercise ended, Lieutenant Colonel Miley got me off to a corner and said, “When we get back to Bragg I’d like to get you assigned to B Company as my S-3 [operations officer].” I said, “Boss, I’d love to have the job.”