Word: battalion
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
More numerous are the front-line warriors, commissioned and enlisted alike. Lieut. Colonel James Frank Hamlet, 45, of Buffalo, is a hard-riding Negro battalion commander of the 1st Air Cavalry Division (Airmobile), the elite "First Team" that has killed more Viet Cong than any other U.S. division in the war. The 600 men who fly Hamlet's 75 Hueys-and carry many of the Air Cav's troopers into combat-respect him for riding along on even the hottest missions and for talking straight to his bosses. Hamlet, who enlisted as a private in 1943, likes...
Duty & Dogs. In the enlisted ranks, few Negro G.I.s are better known than Sergeant Lonnie Galley Samuel, another Silver Star winner, who leads a "Blue Team" of an Air Cav battalion. His job: to draw enemy fire from a chopper, then land and engage in hopes of provoking a major battle ("Sam" has provoked a batch in the past year). Asked why he does not apply for a commission, Sam, at 41, laughs: "I can't do that, man. I'd be the oldest lieutenant in the Army...
Perils & Glory. Individual Negroes have shown valor in every war: Crispus Attucks was the first American to die under British fire in the Boston Massacre; Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, himself perhaps part Negro, mustered many colored sailors aboard his men-of-war in 1812; a battalion of 600 Negroes turned the tide at the Battle of New Orleans by defeating British General Pakenham's seasoned Napoleonic veterans. Andrew Jackson paid them a glowing tribute: "To the Men of Color -Soldiers! I invited you to share in the perils and to divide the glory of your white countrymen. I expected...
That situation is better today in Viet Nam-but not much. Though more than 10% of the Army troops in Viet Nam are Negroes, only 5% of the 11,000 officers are black. Of the 380 combat-battalion commands in the war, only two are held by Negro officers. Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke, during his Viet Nam tour in March, received many complaints that the Negro is not given the opportunity to attain command; he cites the case of a Negro colonel who, when promoted, was given a desk job that had never existed before simply to keep him from...
Last week, by land, sea and air, the Marines and South Vietnamese hit back in a multipronged, 10,000-man operation, sweeping into the DMZ area south of the border in an effort to drive the North Vietnamese out of it. Five Marine battalions struck from the south toward their own besieged base of Con Thien. A South Vietnamese task force roared northward up Route 1 all the way to the river border, then divided and turned back to push the enemy southward. Due north of Con Thien, a Marine battalion helicoptered into the DMZ to hammer the North Vietnamese...