Robert J. Dvorchak - The Golden Brigade: The Untold Story of the 82nd Airborne in Vietnam and Beyond

A KNOX PRESS BOOK

An Imprint of Permuted Press

ISBN: 978-1-63758-469-9

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-63758-470-5

The Golden Brigade:

The Untold Story of the 82nd Airborne in Vietnam and Beyond

2020 by Robert J. Dvorchak

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Permuted Press, LLC

New York Nashville

permutedpress.com

Published in the United States of America

Dedicated to the 227 All Americans of the 82 nd Airborne Division who perished in Vietnam, the 1,100 who were wounded and their brothers in the Golden Brigade who have preserved their memory. All The Way!

Table of Contents

I found the beginnings of this story the way a genealogist discovers an overlooked branch of a family tree. It was there all along but had been orphaned by history as a bough best forgotten. Even those who were part of it never spoke of it. Yet it remained alive because part of their code compels them to remember their fallen brothers. As part of a unit that fought in Vietnam, they had each others backs in the crucible of war and will have each others backs until the day they die. It wasnt just any unit either. Their identity stems from the battle flag of the 82 nd Airborne Division, the renowned Army organization that considers itself family and lives by the motto All The Way. Despite everything ever written about Vietnam and the Baby Boomers who came of age in the 1960s, their sacrifice and the way they have honored their comrades has never been fully acknowledged. They are as proud to be part of their parent organization as any generation that ever served. More than a missing chapter of Airborne history, they hold within their hearts an untold piece of Americana.

The back story began with the 100 th anniversary of the founding of the division, one of the best known but least understood clans in the world. Its not a family one is born into but rather one in which a place is earned, the bond of shared sacrifice having the same cohesive quality as a bloodline. From far and wide, even from overseas, comrades-in-arms made a pilgrimage in 2017 to the Rosen Centre Resort Hotel in Orlando, where the only thing thicker than the August humidity of central Florida was the pride of those who regard the 82 nd Airborne as their parent organization. Hats, shirts and vanity license plates bore the family crest of a Double A patch that stands for All Americans.

The coat of arms originated in World War I when it was noted that the original members of the 82 nd Division came from every state in the country. The All Americans spent more consecutive days on the front line than any other Army unit in that war to end all wars. Its most famous character was Sergeant Alvin York, a sharp-shooting Presbyterian elder from Tennessee who was awarded the Medal of Honor for single-handedly overcoming an entire German battalion. Yorks motivation for fighting and killing was to put an end the fighting and killing, the eternal paradox of war.

A generation later, the Airborne tab was added when the division became the first Army unit trained to reach World War II battlefields in gliders or under the canopy of parachutes. The All Americans made four combat jumps in the bloodiest war in history, the third of which was the night drop into Normandy ahead of the amphibious landings on D-Day. They also fought in the climactic Battle of the Bulge, during which one grizzled All American said of the German advance, Im the 82 nd Airborne, and this is as far as the bastards are going to get. Within months, division commander James Gavin accepted the surrender of an entire German army in the wars final days. The Airborne acquired the additional title of Americas Guard of Honor, so named because General George S. Patton said the divisions honor guard was the best he had ever seen. Insiders refer to themselves as the Brotherhood of the Silk, except females now jump and parachutes are made of nylon, but the Family of Synthetic Fabric doesnt have the same poetic ring. By whatever name, they are the best soldiers in the world. Just ask one of them.

A third crop of All Americans, the sons of the Greatest Generation, got the mission of Vietnam, and their story was obscured the politics and policies surrounding Americas most unpopular war. At the time, the 82 nd Airborne was Americas 9-1-1 force, a combat unit that was ready, willing and able to respond on a moments notice to any emergency anywhere in the world and capable of parachuting out of airplanes, if necessary, to take the fight to the enemy. The Pentagon had no plans to send the Airborne to Vietnam, but an emergency in the form of the Tet Offensive forced the hand of decision-makers.

By happenstance, I was in Florida to have dinner with retired three-star general James H. Johnson Jr., the former division commander who was the first one out the door during a combat jump into Panama in 1989 and who led the division when it drew the original line in the sand in the ramp up to Operation Desert Storm. As a New York City-based war correspondent with The Associated Press, I had witnessed war at the foxhole level with the 82 nd Airborne and published a journal about that experience entitled Drive On: The Uncensored War of Bedouin Bob and the All Americans. Having read the book, the general wrote me a letter saying that it was first-rate history. He also called me the Ernie Pyle of the 82 nd Airborne, a reference to the famed war correspondent who told the story of World War II from the point of view of the infantrymen who fought it. A writer could have no higher praise, and a man could have no higher honor than to be called a brother by an Airborne paratrooper. For me, it felt like a long overdue welcome home.

In retirement, Johnson was also the Honorary Colonel of the association representing the 505 th Parachute Infantry Regiment, known by the motto H-Minus because it jumped in before everybody else. He invited me to speak at the regiments business meeting in one of the hotels hospitality suites. As humbling as it was to talk about the life-changing experience of going to war with the 82 nd Airborne, I said that my time with them was the most meaningful episode of my professional life. The All Americans were the most colorful characters, and the people with the most character, that I ever met.

At the same time, inside a brotherhood within a brotherhood, the dwindling survivors of a last mans club attended to their own business in the same room. In a quaint custom, they had already set aside a pricey bottle of Woodford Reserve Kentucky Straight Bourbon so that the last living member could make a final toast to the sacrifices of his deceased comrades. The amber-colored spirits, along with a ceremonial sipping glass, were encased in a custom-made wood cabinet adorned with handles and hinges hammered out of melted shell casings and gun barrels. This last mans club represented the Golden Brigade, the name given to the 82 nd Airborne in Vietnam.

Whats more, the members of the Golden Brigade Association, with money from their own pockets, were in the process of creating something to remember them by. The concept was a Legacy Bowl, an oversized silver chalice adorned with gold inlets and 15 goblets representing the subordinate units that were like the spokes inside the wheel of the brigade. The plan was to unveil the bowl at a 2018 reunion marking the 50 th anniversary of the units deployment to Vietnam. Their big event, named Operation West Point, would be held at the U.S. Military Academy.