Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces sic-3 Read online

  Meanwhile, as Bill Yarborough was forging his new breed of soldier, the "big" Army continued on its more traditional paths, casting an ever-colder eye on the oddball operation in North Carolina, with its presidential favor, its substantial funding ("What they get, 1 lose" — the military has always operated in a zero-sum mode), and its license to raid the best units for their best men — especially their best NCOs — and "take them out of the Army," as one four-star general put it.

  Generals, as generals will, began to murmur among themselves against the Green Beret upstarts and Bill Yarborough's "private army." The talk never became public, but a consensus was building in favor of the tried and true: "They've been feeding soldiers Laotian food down there at Fort Bragg. What the hell for? Firepower wins wars. Not lousy food." Or more generally: "They're going their own way down there. They don't respect the rules. They do things their way and not the Army way."

  Some of these charges were not without substance. Though Yarborough never actually broke regulations, he bent them; and where there were holes, he slipped through them. A strict interpretation of regulations would not have been kind to him.

  In his defense, he was never dishonest. When you have to improvise, you almost inevitably find yourself slipping between rules. In fact, it's hard to imagine how else to build an organization the rules never foresaw.

  The negative currents came to a head soon after John Kennedy's assassination. General H. K. Johnson, the Army's very conventional-minded new chief of staff (he took over from General Maxwell Taylor when Taylor became ambassador to South Vietnam), was one of those generals who simply did not understand the new breed of soldier. He was terribly bothered by what Yarborough was doing. He was just getting away with too much.

  Johnson's solution: He had to show Bill Yarborough who was the boss. The Army had several layers between Yarborough and the President. In Johnson's view, Yarborough had ignored them.

  Johnson was, in fact, a good and honorable man, and a hero — he'd been a Japanese prisoner during World War II. Before he moved, he visited Yarborough's s operation — and he left very impressed. "I'll tell you," Johnson told another general friend, "he's put together a heck of a fighting team."

  Even so, Yarborough had to go. And besides, he had been on the job for four years. It was time to move on.

  By then, Yarborough had gotten his second star, as major general, and he was sent to Korea, where he represented the UN command as the Senior Member of the Military Armistice Commission at Panmunjon. There he dealt with the North Korean and Chinese negotiators in a way that only his experience in Special Forces could have prepared him for. The job called not only for negotiating skills, but also for PSYOPs and propaganda skills. Most observers called him the toughest negotiator the Communists faced at Panmunjon.

  From Korea, he served at the Pentagon, where his most important job was to run Army Intelligence (his official title was Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence). IIe was later (in 1966) promoted to Lieutenant General and given command of I Corps Group in Korea, and then in 1969 he moved on to Hawaii as Chief of Staff and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Army, Pacific. He retired in 1971, after thirty-six years of active service.

  During Bill Yarborough's tenure as commander of Special Forces, his Green Berets not only carried out their mission in Southeast Asia but were also active in a number of other parts of the world.

  From a base in Panama, several teams were sent to the countries of Central and South America, always at the invitation of those countries. In Colombia, for example, ten years of insurgency, called "La Violencia," had vielded something like 300,000 deaths. Green Berets and Colombian security officials worked together to produce the first comprehensive plan — based on civic action to help the local economy, health, and education — to deal with the terror. Though Colombia was to suffer from later terrors, La Violencia ended.

  Green Berets in arctic gear worked their way by dogsled, snow weasel, and airplane around the northernmost perimeter of the United States, bringing medical and dental care and planning skills.

  Other Green Beret teams worked in the Pacific on islands of the American Trust Territories, building roads, schoolhouses, and recreational facilities. Others worked in the Philippines. Still others worked in Ethiopia and Congo (later Zaire, later Congo again).

  When Bill Yarborough took command of Special Forces in 1961, he presided over four years of metamorphosis and explosive growth, and left as a major general. No matter how often and how badly he'd ruffled the feathers of his superiors fighting for his beloved Green Berets, his career had prospered.

  During those four years of ferment, a great many warriors joined the now-transformcd U.S. Special Forces. One of them was a young captain named Carl Stiner. It is now time for his story.

  IV

  COUNTRY CARL

  Carl Stiner grew up on a hundred-acre farm in rural northeast Tennessee, eight miles from the nearest town, La Follette. In the 1930s and '40s, the divide between town and country in that part of the world was vast. The main roads were paved; the rest were dirt or gravel. There were occasional trips to town, but people still mostly shopped in country stores. There were few cars, and electricity was scarce, finally reaching the Stiner farm in 1948. People made their own entertainment. For boys, most of that was outdoors — hunting or hiking in the nearby Cumberland Mountains, and swimming or fishing in Norris Lake, the big TVA project built in 1936.

  It was a God- and country-loving community. Everybody went to (mostly) Baptist churches on Sunday, and every able-bodied young man served his country.

  A bus line ran twice a day between La Follette and nearby Middlesboro, Kentucky. Stiner still has vivid memories of looking out across the fields at age six or seven and watching older boys walk toward the highway to catch the bus to the induction center in La Follette during World War II. Whether they'd been drafted or volunteered, they all went. Later, he listened with respect as the returning boys, now men, recounted their combat experiences — the dread, discomfort, and pain, but the fun, too, and the joy of parades through newly liberated towns. The sacrifices had a purpose that even a ten-year-old could recognize.

  When the time came, he knew he owed his country no less service than these men had given.[5]

  Like most folks in rural Appalachia, the Stiner family's roots in America went far back.

  The Steiner (the original spelling) family came to this country from Germany around 1710. Five Steiner brothers settled in Pennsylvania, then Steiners moved to Virginia and North Carolina. In 1820, Henry Stiner (the spelling had simplified by then) crossed over into East Tennessee, looking for land. He found what he was looking for at the Great Bend of the Powell River. The soil along the river was rich, the woods were full of deer, the river was abundant with fish, and only four other families were living nearby. Henry purchased 1,000 acres and then went back to North Carolina to collect his family. Several other families returned with them to the Powell River Valley. By 1889, the settlement had three stores, a steam sawmill, and a gristmill; living there were twenty-seven families, including more than a hundred children; there were thirty-five dogs and sixty-five horses.

  Later, in 1936, the rising of Norris Lake displaced the community at the Great Bend of Powell River. Among those forced to move were Emit Stiner and his family. Emit was Carl's father.

  Carl Stiner remembers his family this way:

  Starting in 1936, my father worked as a diamond drill operator and powder man for the Tennessee Valley Authority, constructing Norris Dam as well as some of the other TVA dams that were built in the thirties and forties. He drilled foundations for the dams and set the charges for blasting out rock or spillways. By the time the war started, he already had several children, which meant he was not drafted, but was instead taken into service for the construction of the Oak Ridge nuclear plant (a few miles from La Follette).

  When he was not building dams and nuclear plants, my father farmed. But during the war, Oak Ridge took precedence.
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  The plant was started in 1942 (though its existence was not officially known until President Truman announced production of the atomic bomb in August 1945). It was a crash program, and security was very tight. The facility was protected by a high Cyclone fence, armed security guards patrolled on horses, and construction workers had to live like army forces in a barracks on the plant complex (where they were often kept busy seven days a week). But occasionally my father could get loose and come home on the weekends. When he was away, my mother, Hassic Stiner, supervised the farm and took care of the family.

  I was the oldest of five — three other brothers and a sister. And my paternal grandparents also lived with us.

  We all worked hard. Counting leased land, we farmed about two hundred acres, raising tobacco, grain crops, and cattle — and that was before tractors. Horses and mules did that job. About the time one of the boys turned six, he went to the fields to work; and during the growing season (when we weren't at school) we worked sunup to sundown, weather permitting, six days a week. Even if it rained, there was something to do, like pitching hay, or grinding feed for the cattle.

  It was hard, but our life was not harsh. There was time off on Sunday for church, friends, and play. Since there was only one car per family which wasn't used much for recreation, our friends would congregate at a common place, which was as likely as not our farm. Fifteen or twenty boys might gather there on Sunday afternoons for ball games or boxing.

  The boys liked our farm because of its central location, its large level field for our ball games; and there was plenty of livestock, in case we decided to do a little rodeoing (but never when my dad was around, because he didn't like you messing with the livestock). Sometimes we ended the day by choosing sides and fighting a corncob battle among the barns. One of these could last for a couple of hours. Getting hit on the side of the head with a wet corncob is an experience that's not easy to forget.

  There was also plenty to enjoy up in the mountains (they call it hiking these days; we called it climbing) — cave formations, waterfalls, spectacular views; and the copperheads were an ever-present but exciting challenge. Nearby Norris Lake always beckoned for swimming, boating, and fishing. It was a beautiful lake, nestled in the mountains, narrow, deep, and huge, with lots of jags and branches running up into the hollows — more than eight hundred miles of shoreline. We'd go fishing on a Friday or Saturday night, build a big fire, and sit there and fish until the next day. In season we went hunting.

  My dad was a superb hunter, and he always owned a pair of splendid bird dogs. From the time I was old enough to recognize what a shotgun was for, I wanted to go with him. He started letting me do it about the time I started to help him work the farm. Not that I was old enough or big enough to carry a gun or shoot. But I could stalk thickets and brush piles, and flush birds out; and 1 could learn weapon safety from him, as well as all his hunting tricks.

  I was thirteen when I was given my first shotgun. It was a single shot, and I couldn't load it until a dog was actually pointing. That way I'd have a chance at hitting the bird, but wasn't otherwise dangerous. If I missed the bird, my dad still had time to shoot it himself.

  When I was older and had learned everything he felt I needed to know about hunting, I was allowed out on my own. In high school, a bunch of my friends and I would always go out on Thanksgiving Day, rain or shine, for our annual quail hunt (for safety purposes, there were never more than four in a single hunting party). We'd be out all day, without stopping to cat. And then our mothers would put out the big turkey meal in the evening.

  It was a great place to be young. We found adventure in everything we did. If it wasn't there already, we made it that way. We went out and found things to do that gave us enjoyment, and learned to see the good and the purpose in whatever we were doing — even the heavy, manual farm labor. This meant it was pretty hard to be bored and frustrated.

  I always enjoyed what I was doing and took a lot of satisfaction from it. And this has stayed with me. I live and farm there still. Something just clicked in me, I guess. I left just after college, and spent most of my life away. But I had to go home and make whatever contribution I could for what my community had given me in my younger days.

  Looking back on those days, I feel very fortunate to have been reared in a home where discipline, love, respect, and adherence to principles were the standards by which we were raised.

  The most powerful influence on me, without a doubt, was my father. He was tough — hard as the concrete he used to work — but fair, and expected every person to pull his own weight. He was a man of high principles, and required us kids to conform to them. Yet he was not rigid. He cared deeply for everyone in his family, and wanted us all to be (in the words of the old Army ad line) "all we could be." He would have made a good first sergeant.

  It's worth mentioning some of his principles that have stayed with me and that I have tried to apply in my own life:

  • Always respect other people, unless they give you reason not to.

  • Don't run with sheep-killing dogs, unless you are willing to suffer the consequences of being caught up with them.

  • Anything that is worth doing is worth doing right. Nothing good ever comes without hard work.

  • Don't ever accept less of yourself than you are capable of.

  • You've got to set the example for anybody who works for you. Don't expect them to do anything you wouldn't do first. (For us kids, he expected us to do more work than any man he could hire.)

  • Look beyond the end of your nose, and work toward what you want to become.

  My father had few illusions. He never wanted us to follow in his foot-steps and bend our backs to a lifetime of brutally tough construction and endless farm work. He understood what education would give us (though he himself only got through eighth grade). The older we grew, the harder he and my mother pressed us to get the best education we could. "You don't want to do what I'm doing for the rest of your life," he kept telling us. "Your back won't hold out forever, and you will never be able to give your children what they need to prepare them to support their families." I will never forget his charge when he and my mom dropped me off at college (it was my first time there; I'd never visited the place before I was accepted). He said: "Boy, get an education, or don't come back."

  His advice bore fruit. All but one of the children ended up with college degrees, and most went on for advanced degrees.[6]

  There was another big education motivator in those days. Before the war, college was not in the cards for most young men from Appalachian Tennessee. But the postwar period saw GI Bill — trained doctors, lawyers, and other professionals bringing their expertise back to our Eastern Tennessee communities, and this brought us all long-term benefits. Those who didn't seek college were still able to take advantage of the technical skills and training opportunities they had gained in the army and other armed services to become skilled tradespeople — electricians, mechanics, plumbers, and the like.

  It was amazing to see how all this skill and expertise began to grow our community. And it wasn't hard to apply these lessons to ourselves. So my objective was to go directly into college after high school. I applied to two or three, and all of them accepted me.

  In those days, we didn't have high school counselors to steer us, and in any case, I didn't know much except agriculture. At the same time I was strongly aware of the obligation to serve my country after college (and felt it would be better to go in as a commissioned officer). For those reasons I elected to go to Tennessee Polytechnic Institute, called Tennessee Tech, which was the only one of the three colleges I applied to that offered both a degree in agriculture and an ROTC program. Tennessee Tech was in Cookeville, Tennessee, cighty-two miles north of Nashville.

  Though Tech offered only Army ROTC, that was not a problem for me, since I never considered another service. I guess it was partly because of the influence of the boys I saw going off to the Army and fighting the war, and partly because I
grew up outdoors in the country with lots of friends. The Army offered a continuation of that life. And truth was, I didn't know that much about the other services.

  On my graduation day, June 30, 1958, I was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry. This was a reserve commission; I was offered a regular army commission two years later. Though my mom and two of my brothers attended the graduation and commissioning ceremonies, there was no time for celebration, because I had to report for active duty the same day. I set out within the hour for Fort Benning (near Columbus, in southwestern Georgia), and drove without stopping, so I could report in beforc midnight without being AWOL.

  Fort Benning is a vast military base, primarily infantry — and called "The Home of the Infantry." Housed there are the Infantry School, the Airborne School, the Ranger School, the basic and the advanced officer courses, as well as officer candidate school. Many combat brigades were stationed at Benning, as was the 10th Mountain Division, which had just returned from Germany. I was initially assigned there as an assistant platoon leader.

  My first duties were as "pit" officer (running the targets up and down) for a known-distance rifle range, and officer in charge of a 106mm recoilless rifle range. And at least two afternoons a week the officers taught general education subjects to the NCOs to help them get their high school GEDs.