Ed Emanuel - Soul Patrol

Table of Contents

This book is dedicated to
My cousinRicky Vaughn Riley My motherWillie Mae (Shelton) Emanuel

By this time, they were right in front of us and getting ready to pass our position. Deshazo stood up and aimed his M-16 rifle at the enemy and squeezed the trigger.... Click! His weapon misfired! He pulled the bolt back and rechambered another round and fired off a double burst on full automatic. That was my cue to spring into action. I jumped up and leaped across the hedges onto the trail and caught the two soldiers sprinting away side by side. I fired my weapon from the hip, unleashing a burst of about a hundred rounds with the M-60 machine gun. Under the heavy automatic firepower, the enemy soldier on the right went down, hitting the ground hard without breaking his fall. The other soldier helped him up and pulled him into the bushes. They vanished into the foliage.

Get your ass down before you get your fuckin head blown off! Deshazo yelled to me.

But I knew that as long as I kept firing the M-60, Charlie would have to keep his head down. That was one of the beauties and advantages of having the Big Gun on a mission.

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War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares about more than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

The Professional Soldier

Acknowledgments

Yolanda Maria Palomo(Sergeant) County of Los Angeles Sheriffs Department. Without her unwavering support, finishing this book would not have been possible. John Valdertero and his wife, Jackiefor being by my side every step of the way.

My editorsGary Linderer, Kenn Miller, Chris Evans, for their encouraging words, and Carlorline Acklen Bender for her friendship, film, and prayers.

Maj. Ben FrazierU.S. Army (Public Affairs Officer) Always the friend. Sefefanie SpruillWho encouraged me to write this book.

Larry McCormickKTLA Channel 5 NewsA friend who has always been there for me.

Dave PeaceDesigner of the Company F 51st LRP challenge coin.

Mark Allen Miller

George Bennett

Verline Cricket Mallory(photo)

Mara and Steve Mallory(photo shoot)

Diane EnglishExecutive producer of the TV series Murphy Brown and Love & War, for helping me to understand that Writing is re-writing!

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who was interviewed, or sent their films and photographs in for the Silent Heroes documentary. Without your help, we wouldnt have had a complete package to tell the true story of Lurps in Vietnam. Thank you all for your support!

Foreword by Gary A. Linderer

The Vietnam War was often a war of small-unit actions, not the large, pitched epic battles that Hollywood is so fond of producing. The U.S. Armys Long Range Patrols bore the brunt of these actions in a lopsided war of attrition that for years after the fighting had ended had gone virtually untold. In the late 1980s the Lurps began to tell their stories in an expanding series of individual accounts that have preserved their history and immortalized them for posterity. Never has our country produced a finer group of courageous young men who volunteered to take on such impossible odds to accomplish their mission. The LRPs, LRRPs, and Ranger teams of the Vietnam War performed so well during their six-year sojourn in Southeast Asia that the Department of the Army established the 75th Ranger Regiment and several long range surveillance detachments to carry on their rich and illustrious heritage.

Ed Emanuels Soul Patrol is the latest addition to this growing list of outstanding long range patrol autobiographies that have immortalized the exploits of these courageous young warriors. Soul Patrol is perhaps the most unique of these works because it is the first written by an African American member of a long range patrol company. Other African-American Vietnam vets have told their stories, but this book is different, not only in content but in character. In units where the only color was tiger stripe; where men would readily die for each other without a moments hesitation; where teammate meant far more than brother; the racial troubles of the sixties and seventies would never once manifest themselves. Author Ed Emanuels Soul Patrol is a reaffirmation of the love and respect we Lurps still have for each other. Neither time, nor distance, nor circumstance has eroded the loyalties of fellow teammates.

I am privileged to be able to write the foreword to my friends outstanding book. It is a work of love, respect, pain, fear, courage, hate, resolve, and devotion. It is the story of a young African-American from Los Angeles who, along with his high school buddies, answers his countrys call to arms by enlisting in the U.S. Army, volunteering for the paratroops and later the LRPs. His buddies do the same, choosing the Marines and Army Airborne, both elite combat units. Three weeks after the author arrives in Vietnam and joins the LRPs, he is heading back to Los Angeles, escorting the body of his best friend and cousin, a Marine killed in I Corp. It is at this point in his life that Ed Emanuel becomes a warrior. This is all I will comment on in this brief foreword to this wonderful book. The rest of his story is for you to read and enjoy without my preemptive commentary.

Ed and I attended Airborne Infantry training and Jump School together without ever knowing each other. We flew to Vietnam and returned to the USA a year later on the same commercial flights but never actually met. We both volunteered to serve in separate long range patrol units on the very same day. But it would be twenty-five years later that we would actually meet and realize how our military careers had paralleled each other, even converging at certain points in time. Today, I count him among my very good friends, a man I respect, a brother I love.

Soul Patrol is a well-written, detailed, often emotional account of a young soldiers journey into manhood. It will take you through a gamut of emotions that will leave you emotionally drained but ultimately glad that youre an American.

The History and Organization of Company F, 51st Infantry

The unit 51st Infantry was organized long ago and has served with distinction. Company F has been a part of the unit from its initiation in 1917. Yet, units as Long Range Patrol are relatively new and rare. This type of work being ideally suited to Vietnam and this warfare, LRRP and LRP units of various sizes were formed throughout the country, and Company F was given such a designation.

Vietnam has many LRRP and LRP units, but there were only two LRP companies at Field Force level. We were one of them.

Company F reactivated for the Vietnam War, received the parenthetic notion (LRP) and the best of all (ABN). Formed at Bien Hoa Army and situated in the old Brigade area, as a company sized unit its TO&E (Table of Organization and Equipment) required command by a field grade officer. Its ranks were filled almost exclusively by veteran troops from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, and the balance came from units also stationed in Vietnam: The Big Red One, the 25th Div., the 101 Airborne Div. cavalry units, and some units from the States, Alaska, and Panama.