Jim Morris - Death of a Hero, Birth of a Legend

DEATH OF A HERO

BIRTH OF A LEGEND

Jim Morris

Antenna Books

Brooklyn, NY

Copyright by Jim Morris

Cover photo courtesy of the Rescorlafamily

Cover by Doug Grad

A slightly differentversion of this book originally appeared in Soldier of Fortune magazine.

www.antennabooks.com

I first knew Rick Rescorlawhen we were writing students in the University of OklahomaProfessional Writing program. We met at atable of coffee drinkers in the Hester-Robertson cafeteria. All ofus were writing students. The guys were either veterans or gimps orboth. The women were a Seminole Princess, a Ukrainian adventuressand some good ol Okie gals.

I soon ran out of my own war stories andstarted telling Larry Drings, with attribution. Turned out Rickand Dring were OCS classmates.

Look, I said to Rick. I knew Dring forthree years on Okinawa and for a year in Vietnam. Ive never onceseen him in the correct uniform. Hes a great jungle fighter, buthow did he ever get through OCS?

Rick smiled, He spent most of his time in aFrench camo bush jacket and red beret, giving weaponsdemonstrations to ROTC cadets. That was Larry to a T, and thestart of my friendship with Rick.

He was big, good-looking and charismatic. Hespoke in enthusiastic rushes of well-chosen words, in an Americanaccent with just a hint of a Cornish lilt to it. And he was themost conservative looking student on the OU campus. It was highhippie days, but Rick always wore brogans, pleated slacks, usuallywith a dress shirt, and a short haircut.

My wife, Juanita, loved Rick as a friend,and wanted him to be happy. She introduced him to Betsy Nathan, abeautiful young woman she had met in art class. They married.

Cyril Richard Rescorla wasborn in Cornwall, England in May of 1939. I only learned his firstname was Cyril when I read it in LTG Hal Moore and Joe Gallowaysgreat book We Were Soldiers OnceandYoung . Good thing for him, too. Id haverazzed his ass until it bled. He hated the name Cyril.

In Cornwall Rescorla was a soccer star and agood student. There was nothing there for a man of his talents.Everybody expected him to become a pro footballer, but he chose thearmy. He rose to sergeant in 22 SAS on Cyprus, an island in turmoilat the time. He saw a good deal of small-unit combat. This was notlike a US unit where the intel goes up the line, comes back down toan operational unit in a distorted form with a restrictive oplandrawn up by higher headquarters, to be acted on after its toolate. The plan was, bring in a terr at noon, encourage him todiscuss his associates and their whereabouts in the evening, androll up his net about 0430 the next morning. Not a lot of messingaround.

But, as with Cornwall, the British Armydidnt offer enough scope for a bright guy with a lower classbackground. The officers were all named Rupert and Nigel. Theygrew up in 300-year-old houses, and their fathers were earls andlords. No commoners need apply.

Next stop, Bobbie school. As usual Rescorlawas the honor graduate. Most boring job I ever had, Rick saidlater. He was assigned to the Scotland Yard flying squad, perhapsthe most prestigious police posting in England. The paperworknauseated him. He went looking for more interesting work, and foundit in Africa.

What is now Zambia was then NorthernRhodesia. The British were preparing to turn the colony over to theAfricans, but in the meantime order had to be maintained. Rickspolice unit was a paramilitary force, with riot control duties aswell as standard police work. Rescorla was also the star forward ofthe football (soccer) team.

At this point Dan Hill showed up. Hill was arowdy lad from Chicago who had found a home as an instructor at theU.S. Army Ranger School. Before that hed had an interestingundercover assignment, running guns and teaching sniping toHungarian revolutionaries. In Chicago, Hill had picked up fluentGerman, and many of the mercenaries in Katanga were old Wehrmachtand Waffen SS types. Hill was encouraged by some civilians fromVirginia to leave the army and join them. They thought it would benice if he kept them informed of events in Katanga.

He rather unexpectedly (by them) quicklybecame a lieutenant in the mercenary force and won a major battle.He and his mercs, and the blacks of his Katangan police unit letthe UN force, mostly Congolese, get across the main bridge intoKatanga. Then they dropped the bridge, closed the road ahead, andopened up. The Congolese mostly jumped into a ravine, which Hillhad thoughtfully mined, and died. It was a great victory for theKatangans.

The Feds from Langley had hoped for a lowerprofile, and asked him to leave.

He left for Northern Rhodesia and metRescorla his first day in Kitwe. The Northern Rhodesian Rugby teamhad just beat South Africa, and Rick was the star forward.

Dan congratulated Rescorla, who pretty muchresponded, Who are you? Dan told him he was a U.S. Army Ranger,and that was the start of their friendship. He became Ricksroommate and ate in the police mess. No one questioned it.

A nearby village had been plagued by a lionthat was killing off their livestock. They went to the police andRick went out there with a .577 rifle, and staked out a goat asbait. As the lion approached the goat Rick stepped out. The lionforgot all about the goat. He sprang at Rick and Rick shot him inmidair. He wore two of his teeth and the shell from that round on achain until he gave it to Hill when Dan went off to Afghanistan tofight with the Muj in 1982.

I once asked Rescorla howhe happened to decide to come to the United States. He replied, Iconsidered the U.S., Canada, and Australia. In Bob Edwardssdocumentary about Rescorla, Voice of aProphet , Rick says, I was airborne, andthe U.S. Army has the best Airborne in the world.

He was always ambitious, and with an opensociety and a war going on, plus a decent pay scale compared withmost armies, the U.S. probably looked pretty good. Besides, Rick,even as a lad in Cornwall, had loved American ideals, movies andthe myth of the Old West.

As a foreigner it took Rescorla longer toget a security clearance than it did Dan, so he was a class behindhim in OCS. Hill was already a senior candidate when Rick entered.It fell to Hills lot to yell and scream at his best friend. Onceor twice he took him out for punishment runs, which went way downthe road to a picnic basket, some decent food and a cache of coldbeer. Then back to the compound, where Hill ran Rick to thebarracks, shouting verbal abuse.

After OCS Rick wasassigned to the 2d Division, from which his battalion was quicklyconverted to the 2d of the 7 th Cav.

Im assuming that mostreaders of this article have seen We WereSoldiers , and that many have read thebook. If you have youll know that Rescorla was all over the book.Its his picture, bearded, dirty, advancing with fixed bayonet, onthe cover. Ricks own copy of the book was inscribed by GeneralMoore, To Rick Rescorla, the best platoon leader I have known intwo wars.

It galled Rick that the contributions of hisplatoon, his company, and his battalion were glossed over oromitted in the film.

Captain Myron Didurykscompany, including Ricks platoon, was sent out to reinforce 1/7Cav after its Bravo Company was obliterated the day before. Ricksplatoon held against attacks all that night. When things got tenseearly in the morning, he sang to them, old Cornish fight songs, and Britishbattle songs, and of course, GarryOwen . The next day, on a sweep, he and hisRTO, Sam Fantino, approached a machinegun emplacement with whatappeared to be three dead NVA in it. Then one sat up and startedfiring. Rick and Fantino went down in the grass. Rick borrowed agrenade from Fantino and killed the gunner.