Joshua Bowe's Blog: Reflections

Many of my dad’s fellow soldiers recalled praying in the field with their battalion priest. Here are some excerpts from our book about the 5/7th Cav’s chaplain, Father Tom Widdel.

…Sometimes the log ships carried a chaplain accompanied by an assistant. The chaplain’s assistant carried a Gospel, chalice, the body and blood of Christ, and all things necessary for a proper field service—as well as an M-16 rifle, as he was also tasked with protecting the chaplain, who traveled unarmed.

Military chaplains are unique from their civilian counterparts in that they minister to soldiers of all different faiths, regardless of their own. Many soldiers find Jesus during basic training, mostly to avoid their sergeants and work detail on Sundays. In the fields of Vietnam, service wasn’t necessarily held on Sunday but rather whenever the chaplain could make it there. The services were held at their encampment or outpost, typically improvising an altar with boxes of C-Rations or ammunition. Each chaplain served the spiritual needs of an entire battalion scattered over three thousand square miles. The services were short on ceremony but meaningful to those who attended.

One chaplain of the 1st Air Cavalry, CPT Henry Hilliard, conducted over five hundred services in the field. He earned his Air Medal—awarded for performing twenty-five air assaults—several times over and two Bronze Stars for Valor. He was also awarded the Soldier’s Medal for rescuing a wounded pilot from the flames of his burning helicopter.

Firebase Mary had a small roofless chapel built by the artillerymen who manned the outpost. Named in honor of the patron saint of the artillery, Saint Barbara’s Chapel was surrounded by a small picket fence. A row of little wooden benches served as pews, and on its altar of stained ammo boxes was placed a brass cross carved from a 105mm canister.

The 5/7th Cav’s chaplain was a Catholic priest, Major Thomas Widdel. Both a soldier and a priest, he was built more like an NFL linebacker, but his manner was more that of a priest. In his mid-forties, he wore glasses and a receding hairline. He wore the same jungle boots and uniform as those he ministered to, with a clerical stole draped over his broad shoulders. He carried their confessions, prayers, and petitions, and offered them up to the Lord. In the 5/7th’s Alpha Company, combat medic Tom Monnier recalled giving his confessions to Father Tom and how his altar was made of water cans.

When not holding services in the field, Father Tom stayed at his tent at LZ English, a major outpost near Bong Son with an airfield and field hospital. This is where most of the dead and wounded of the 5/7th Cav were flown into from the field. He requested to be notified of any incoming casualties.

Father Tom’s fellow officer Bernard Grady notes the irony of a chaplain in the war zone in his own memoir, On the Tiger's Back.

“To me,” Grady writes, “a chaplain at work in the Vietnam bush was a confusion of symbols, contrasts, and contradictions. The country is lush, green, and truly beautiful; but irregularly across its face there are ugly scars of bare earth, dusty landing zones and fire bases gouged violently into the landscape—an area of craters, bunkers and shattered tree stumps. The country is underdeveloped, yet invaded by the most highly developed, powerful nation on earth, possessing all the trappings of warfare gone high-tech. Into that mix of beauty and the destruction which defiles it comes the chaplain…”

Bernard Grady also tells of the many trips he made to the medical tents at LZ English with the chaplain. Often waiting as the medevac chopper or “dustoff” landed, Father Tom would be there to comfort the wounded, most of whom were only half his age.

Last in the row of medical tents at LZ English was the Graves Registration unit, also known as the morgue. Parked outside the Graves Registration tent was a refrigerated truck used for storing the bodies of the dead until they began their journey home. This tent is where the dead were first brought and where Grady and Father Tom often found themselves. Graves Registration could usually identify the dead by their dog tags. Still, military regulation required two individuals to positively identify each body. “Frequently, identification was not easy,” writes Grady. “Men who die violently are often difficult to recognize.”

Although identifying the dead of his flock was not the chaplain’s official duty, it became a rather routine one.

From August 1966 to August 1967, the 5/7th Cav would suffer ninety-six killed in action. Throughout the battalion’s operating area—atop the hills and in the valleys, amid fields of elephant grass and rice paddies, and in the deepest depths of the jungle—Father Tom would hold memorial services for each of them among the men they had served with.

In October 1966, Father Tom held a service in the field for Alpha Company. That night, my dad’s platoon sergeant came to him with an unusual question. SSG Donald Burtis stood before him with PFC Bruce Madison, asking if he could teach them how to pray. As darkness fell upon them, the three skytroopers joined hands and bowed their heads as Will led them in the same prayer Jesus taught his disciples. He wrote this letter home the next day.

12 October ’66 – 41 weeks left

Dear Folks,

Did you ever hear of our Operation Thayer? There have been about three thousand killed in this operation so far. Life here seems so cheap. But the village people are always happy to see us. Some of these people are Catholic. In this hut, they had a picture of Christ and Mary. Thing is, they both had slanted eyes. Went to Mass yesterday, the fourth time since I was back on leave. I go every time I get a chance—well, everybody goes now.

My platoon sergeant is Catholic and told me before Mass started that he never was to church in twenty years. He mentioned about confession, and I encouraged him to go, and he did—received communion also. Last night, I pulled guard with him and Madison and had to teach him some prayers. He wears a rosary around his neck now. I think everyone says his night prayers out here.

Just waiting as a reaction force today. It’s been almost a year since I’ve been in the Army. Doesn’t seem like it. Seems more like a hundred years since I was back in Fort Leonard Wood. Boy, what changes I went through since high school days. I read in the last newspaper you sent that Melvin got picked up for a traffic fine. Ha!

Will

Father Tom Widdel had sailed to Vietnam aboard the USNS Gaffey with the original soldiers of the 5/7th Cav in August 1966. Those who made it to the end of their one-year tour, including my dad, would fly home on a “freedom bird” in August 1967. But rather than going home with the rest of the original battalion, Father Tom chose to stay for another year, preaching to the living, comforting the wounded, and positively identifying the dead.

Just an excerpt I wanted to share from The Ground You Stand Upon…

In the night, Martin Quinn shook Will awake for his turn at guard. He took off his watch with illuminated dials and gave it to Will. In the distance, little more than the skyline of mountains across the valley could be discerned, and the foreground before them was nothing but black shapes. Sitting in their foxhole, Will studied those shapes, waiting for one to move. The vast void was filled with insect and animal noises as the moist air carried the faintest sounds for miles. The distant thumping of artillery echoed through the valley.

Filling his mind were images of home—Dad filling the silo with a cigarette dangling from his lips, Mom working in the kitchen, Mike riding his bike, and their old collie Chester chasing along the yellowish sandstone driveway that ran through the farm. He tried to concentrate on the dark shapes and think of more immediate concerns. He needed his own illuminated-dial watch. He wondered when they’d get to rest at another firebase. He wished his feet were dry.

He thought about how it was October now, and how it would feel like football weather back home, and how it would smell—the leaves, the grass, the popcorn and hot cocoa from the concessions stand—and how there really were no seasons in Vietnam, just rainy and dry seasons that went from wet to hot. And the images from the past continued. His old Ford Custom and his friend Larry Geissler, the night they were all dressed up with their prom dates. Coach Grip leading them onto the field on a beautifully cool Friday night beneath the stadium lights—a vision of midwestern Americana, with the marching band, and the rocket’s red glare, and cheerleaders doing flips and cartwheels, and fans holding up signs that said, “Go Macks!” and waving banners and flags, American flags and Vietnamese flags. Looking for Eddie and Millie, he saw Vietnamese children in the stands shouting, “G.I. numba one!” and SSG Burtis walking the sidelines with a clipboard.

And then it was the last game of the ’63 season, where they were losing to Prairie Du Chien in a drizzling mist. He stood there, helmet in hand, as the players and referees walked off, abandoning the football that lay near the fifty-yard line of the muddy field. The announcer was reading off the names of local boys who’d been killed in Vietnam, and a hard rain fell. Fans with umbrellas shuffled down the bleachers. He looked up into the rain and watched the clock on the scoreboard wind down to zero. And then he was staring at the black shapes in the wilderness, and he was in Vietnam, and it was raining.

He pulled out one of two remaining Camel non-filters. He lit it beneath the ledge of their foxhole, careful to keep its glowing end out of sight. SSG Bobby Hayslip whispered, “You awake?” Will looked back and nodded. “Any smokes left?” They spoke quietly in the darkness for a while, then Hayslip continued checking on his men.

It was April 2023 when I received a call from someone in Tennessee. He said his name was Dallas Hensley, “A.G.’s brother.”

I knew about A.G.—one of the many young men in my dad’s infantry company who sailed to Vietnam in August 1966, SP/4 Arthur G. Hensley was also one of thirty-two killed in action during the company’s first year in Vietnam. Originally published in 2018, The Ground You Stand Upon tells of the day he died.

Later that afternoon, Alpha Company’s platoons were split up and moving on their own. 1LT James Harmon’s 2nd Platoon was searching along a small tributary stream of the Song An Lao, where a narrow offshoot of the valley jutted into the mountains. Marty Scull was walking point, followed by his buddy A.G. Hensley with his M-79 grenade launcher. Just behind was their machine gunner Bill Purdy and assistant gunner Ed Raciborski. The following is Purdy’s account of what happened.

“Following the stream, the going was tough in the thick of the jungle, and we were moving slow. Lieutenant Harmon was on the radio with the battalion command chopper as a result of the slow movement. Following a heated exchange with the command chopper, our platoon was ordered to cross the stream and move on to a parallel trail. Normally, we avoided trails whenever possible due to ambushes. Before moving out along the trail, we took a five-minute smoke break where John Kruetzkamp, Ed Raciborski, and A.G. Hensley and I shared some C-Ration cheese crackers and a canteen of ‘iodine Kool-Aid.’

I can still picture it in my mind as if it were yesterday. When we moved out along the trail, we started across a clearing. Hensley was carrying his M-79 grenade launcher and approximately ten feet in front of me. Immediately ambushed; upon entering the clearing, Hensley was shot and killed, and another soldier was wounded. Lieutenant Harmon was instrumental in recovering Hensley’s body while we returned fire on the enemy’s suspected position. When it was over, Hensley’s body and the wounded were flown to LZ English.”

Purdy thought that if Hensley had just gotten down and waited for the machine gun to be employed rather than immediately returning fire, his life might have been spared. In the ensuing firefight, he just kept firing his machine gun while others tried to get Hensley’s body along with the wounded. Raciborski loaded the ammo chains as Purdy fired, bringing up two more cans of ammunition as they ran low. Then he ran down to the stream and filled his helmet with water to cool off the barrel. When it was over, Purdy’s barrel was overheated, and its rifling worn out.

But aside from the fact that he was twenty-one years old from Limestone, Tennessee, there wasn’t any more about A.G. in our book.

I hadn’t spoken to Dallas—A.G.’s older brother—or any family members of A.G.’s before, but he had come across our book at some point. The reason for his call was to tell me that the Tennessee legislature had just voted to dedicate a bridge in honor of his brother. I told him that I knew some of A.G.’s army buddies who would probably want to attend the dedication.

Aside from Bill Purdy, I knew that John Kruetzkamp, Jim Hardenburgh, and Marty Scull had also been friends with A.G., all of them in the same platoon. But I’d only met them after our book was first published, at an Alpha Company reunion in 2019. Many of their memories are now included in the most recent revised edition published in September 2023.

John Kruetzkamp told of how he was clearing a Viet Cong tunnel when someone dropped a grenade into the other end, sending a wave of angry fruit bats at him—and when one of their lieutenants burnt his own hand while shooting off a flare and was awarded a Purple Heart.

Marty Scull recalled how a seven-foot boa constrictor crept into his foxhole while on guard one night. He also shared some memories of him and A.G. during their training at Fort Carson before going to war.

From Oregon, Marty Scull, known as “Scully,” was best friends with A.G. Hensley from Tennessee. Assigned to 1LT James Harmon’s 2nd Platoon, they’d been together since basic training. He recalled how Hensley chain-smoked cigarettes, how he could just lean against a tree and fall asleep in less than a minute, and how Hensley rented a car one weekend, and they drove out to Pueblo in a gleaming blue Corvette. Hensley liked to drive fast. “Why a Corvette?” Scully asked. Hensley said it was like the one he had back home, and he missed driving it since they wouldn’t let him bring it on post.

He also remembers the day A.G. died.

Scully recalled how 1LT Harmon had ordered them to go through this clearing and across a wide-open rice paddy. It looked like the perfect spot to get ambushed, and Scully argued against it. But Harmon was getting orders directly from battalion command, and there seemed to be no choice.

He told of how he had started across that same clearing Purdy spoke of with Hensley close behind, how they began crossing the rice paddy, how he was shot in the helmet and knocked into the water, how the ringing in his ears was louder than the gunfire, and how their radio operator had also been shot in the back. He faded in and out of consciousness during this time, so his memories are somewhat intermittent. Yet he remembers crawling back to Hensley through the rice paddy, seeing him lying in the water with his neck bleeding, and thinking he looked peaceful. He remembers looking up and seeing others sloshing toward them through the muck, then someone carrying him amid the sounds of yelling and radio traffic—then hearing someone say, “They killed A.G.”

And so it was that in 2023, a bridge was dedicated in honor of A.G. Hensley, killed in action on March 31st 1967, in his hometown of Limestone, Tennessee. His friends Marty Scull, Bill Purdy, John Kruetzkamp, and Bill Hardenburgh each spoke at the dedication on a beautiful July 8th morning. I asked his brother Dallas about A.G.’s Corvette that he had told Scully about at Fort Carson. “I don’t remember anything about a Corvette,” he said. “Perhaps he was wishing he had a car like that back home.”

The 5/7th Cav Association also posted a nice article on their website:

STATE OF TENNESSEE HONORS FALLEN 5/7TH CAV. TROOPER

A.G. Hensley is also remembered on the Wall of Faces.

Last year, another book was written about one of the many soldiers of the 5/7th Cav in Vietnam, Leon Toyne. Brown Mule 7 is written by Leon’s younger brother Mike, who my dad and I had the pleasure of meeting while he was working on his book.

My review on Amazon on Goodreads goes like this, “This book provides a glimpse into the day to day life of a combat wireman, Leon Toyne, in Vietnam with the 1st Air Cavalry Division. It is written by Leon’s younger brother but also draws upon the many letters he sent home from the war zone. It is 100% authentic and heartfelt, and does much to honor the sacrifices of all who served in Vietnam.” You may have a hard time find it though, because there are already many other five-star reviews on Brown Mule 7's Amazon page.

Like my dad, Leon Toyne was with the original group of 5/7th Cav men who sailed to Vietnam on the USNS Gaffey. Knowing that of my dad and many in the battalion, much of his story familiar—yet it was from the perspective of a combat wireman responsible for keeping the lines of communication up and running in the war zone.

I recommend checking it out.

Brown Mule 7: Life of a 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry Wireman in Vietnam 1966-1967

Last month I was interviewed by the Military Writers Society of America, and they have posted that interview on their website here: MWSA Interview with Joshua Bowe

It was very nice after all these years spent immersed in the writing and research process, to finally talk about what it was like. It’s very personal and from the heart. I shared this interview on Facebook last week and it got so much kind and encouraging feedback, I was really overwhelmed. Thank you to the MWSA for taking the time to help share this story!

Dad and I were very honored to be awarded the Silver Medal for “Vietnam Memoir” by the Military Writers Society of America. Thank you to all who shared their stories with us and made this a successful project that has touched many lives!

MWSA Review

I wanted to announce that the 2nd Edition of The Ground You Stand Upon has recently been published and is available on Amazon for Kindle, as well as the full-color hardcover and black & white paperback.

The original edition of this book was published in May of 2018. The hardest part was actually finishing the project, as I continued to come across new information and new people with stories to tell, such as family members and friends of the fallen, as well as other former Alpha Company soldiers. At a certain point, I had to simply finish with the information I had at the time. I actually had a deadline of sorts. Many Alpha Company soldiers had already contributed much to this book, and I had promised them that I would have print copies available at the 5/7th Cav’s upcoming bi-annual reunion that was scheduled for August of 2018. Since that time, I’ve met a handful of additional Alpha Company soldiers, some at the reunion my dad and I attended, and others through email.

The catalyst for publishing this revised edition was a phone call I received in December 2018 from a gentleman named John Benson. Apparently, he had written an article in 2017 for his local newspaper commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the death of an Alpha Company soldier who was killed in action, and who had been a close friend of my dad. A friend of his happened to be reading this book and recognized the name of the soldier from their hometown whom John had written his article about. He called John to tell him about it, and then John called me. He provided me with details about this soldier’s life before being drafted into the Army, as well as the text of his citation for the Silver Star that he was awarded for his actions during his final battle. Before this, I wasn’t even aware that he had been awarded the Silver Star. John also put me in contact with one of the soldier’s hometown friends. He spoke of their years growing up together, as well as the day he saw soldiers in dress uniform approaching the family home of his friend along with their priest. I’d always felt that this soldier, being good buddies with my dad before he was killed, deserved to have a more prominent role in this story—and now he does.

In August of 2018, Dad and I flew to Pittsburgh to attend his first reunion. I had just printed the first two hundred copies of the book, and many had already been delivered to former soldiers of Alpha Company. One was Joe Williams, who greeted us in the lobby and made us both feel very welcome. “It’s sort of strange reading something that’s written about yourself and your friends,” he said. While there, we met many more fellow troopers from the company, including Gene Cross, the guy whose helmet Dad recalls with the hole shot in it.

Another fellow I met was not a fellow soldier but rather a CBS journalist. Norman Lloyd was embedded with Bravo Company, 5/7th Cav during their incursion into Cambodia in May of 1970. His film features much of the footage taken as they fought the NVA there. The film is named for the young soldier, Chris Keffalos—nicknamed “Shakey”—who was killed atop a hill shortly after discovering what turned out to be an enormous underground stockpile of NVA weapons. While producing this film decades later, Lloyd reunited many Bravo Company soldiers who served during the Cambodian mission. He was kind enough to give me a copy of his documentary Shakey’s Hill.

We were sitting around late one night in the hotel, and Bobby Hansen was recalling their first big battle in the mangrove swamps, trying to rescue a couple of downed helicopter pilots on October 4th 1966. In very animated fashion, he was demonstrating how one of their Korean War veteran platoon sergeants would run from one spider hole to the next, killing NVA troops with wild abandon. “I got the little bastard!” he exclaimed. Another Alpha Company trooper I had just recently met, Chester Millay, remarked how all he could remember about that day was a bunch of noise, screaming, and chaos. He was perplexed at how Bobby could remember everything so vividly, “like it was yesterday,” as he put it. As I listened to their conversation, what struck me was that despite their outward appearance, they weren’t old men to me. To me, they were the same nineteen and twenty-year-old kids they were over fifty years ago.