Witness to History

Reflections of a Cold War Soldier

This book is a first person account of military service during the Cold War in Europe from the erection to the destruction of the Berlin Wall. It is also about combat in Vietnam as an artilleryman in the Central Highlands and as an infantry advisor in the Mekong Delta. The author participated in the investigation of a fragging incident that killed an NCO, he put down an attempted mutiny and directed the first artillery counter-battery attack on Soviet artillery manned by North Vietnamese regulars in the tri-border era of VietnamLaos, Cambodia and Vietnam. He worked with the CIA in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam managing the Phoenix Program while assigned to Tam Binh District where he met the legendary John Paul Vann and hosted visits by Sir Robert Thompson, the British guerrilla warfare expert and John Erlichman, advisor to President Richard Nixon. Between tours of duty in Vietnam, he returned to Germany with a Pershing Missile unit that experienced severe discipline problems including drugs, assault and attempted murder. This book is about a thirty-three year military career from private to colonel during a particularly difficult time for the US Army. He served in Germany, Vietnam and Belgium and conducted missions in Africa. While in Belgium he served at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), the American Embassy and finally NATO headquarters. The author participated in a NATO Summit attended by President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher and completed his career on the faculty of the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania where he participated in the first uniformed visit to Warsaw, Prague and Budapest following the demise of the Warsaw Pact.