A WARRIOR AND A GENTLEMAN

Two full-time RV couples, both from Greensboro, but unknown to each other, camped side by side at Hagan-Stone RV Park.  Deluges came, both RVs bogged down to their axles.  The other couple was bogged down in a custom-made Foretravel bus.  My wife and I were bogged down in a Winnebago. 

DAVID & DAWN CARTER

With their help, the Winnie finally tracked out to dry land.  With our help, their Foretravel sank deeper, eventually bog-extracted by a biggie-sized tow vehicle.

Fast forward two RV lifetimes, the Foretravelers and the Winnie couples find themselves living side by side – unknowingly -- in Greensboro villas.  As is too often the case, only after David Carter died did I realize what I had missed by not knowing him better.  Or, by asking a few questions.

Those at Greensboro’s Curry High School knew Carter well.  They had an inkling he would be successful, seeing that he was Senior Class president, school newspaper editor, Key Club, Curry Club, Quill & Scroll, lettered in football and track, and more.

However, it is doubtful his Curry classmates had any inkling Carter would join the National Guard even before finishing high school in 1956.  After all, his parents were Quakers.  His father was pastor of Glenwood Friends Meeting.

Local trivia buffs can have their say about Curry School, but here are a few hints.  Named after a financial supporter, Jabez Curry, the neighborhood school opened in 1902 and closed in 1970.  It offered practical experience for students and practice teachers at UNCG.

For those thinking Carter would opt for college, they were correct, but their timing was off.  During twenty-four years of Army service, he earned a BA degree from the University of Nebraska and a master’s degree from the University of Utah.

After advancing from private to Specialist 5, David Carter completed Officer Candidate School and was commissioned as a 2^nd Lieutenant.  Already a paratrooper and Green Beret, Carter earned his wings as a helicopter pilot.  He was a helicopter flight instructor before his first deployment to Vietnam. 

Carter’s combat tours can almost be date-lined by his litany of personal awards.  In September, 1967, he was presented a bronze star for meritorious service during ground operations. 

In March, 1968, he was awarded a purple heart for wounds received in combat.  In July, 1968, he won a distinguished flying cross for heroism in aerial flight.

In August, 1968, Carter volunteered to take his Chinook helicopter on a dangerous night-time resupply mission to a forward position.  Weather forced gunship escorts to turn back, but Carter completed the mission in the face of withering artillery, small arms and machine gun fire.

 

As a result of this mission, Major General Melvin Zais, commanding general of the 101^st Airborne Division, presented Carter a silver star, the nation’s third highest valor award.

Carter survived five helicopter crashes – three from enemy fire and two from other causes.  He wrote later regarding his retirement, “The Army decided it was cheaper to pay me a pension than to keep me flying!”

He made at least one unscheduled trip back to the States while serving in Vietnam, but it wasn’t to his liking.  He was tasked to escort the remains of a fallen friend.

DAVID CARTER SERVED WITH VALOR & DISTINCTION

Carter earned the incredible number of fifty-seven air medals, with valor device, representing meritorious service in combat involving aerial flight.   He was a master aviator and master parachutist, and expert marksman with seven different weapons.

Commanding both air and ground forces, he was awarded two army commendation medals and a meritorious service medal for Vietnam service, as well as gallantry awards from the Republic of Vietnam.

A naval officer who served with Carter acknowledged his vast array of personal decorations, “But what impressed me more -- David Carter was a gentleman, he did not smoke, drink or use vile language -- he never wavered from his Quaker values.”

In the early seventies, Carter completed the 82^nd Airborne Jumpmaster Course, Special Forces Officers School, and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. 

CARTER'S PERSONAL AWARDS WERE UNIQUELY UNIQUE

He was selected as a member of the National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP) battle staff.  Known colloquially as the doomsday aircraft of the cold war era, U.S. forces could be commanded from this aircraft in case of an extreme national emergency.

After his military retirement, Carter founded an insurance and investment firm, which he and his wife operated successfully for over twenty-five years.  In addition to his wife, he left three sons, two daughters, and three grandchildren.  To them, he left a military, moral, and entrepreneurial heritage like few others. 

Memorial Day (2013), was the family’s first after Carter’s death.  While David Carter died unexpectedly, he left his affairs in impeccable order.  It would not be surprising to learn he left specific instructions for his progeny’s first Memorial Day observance without him.

       

ONE BRAVE MAN OF THE GREEN BERETS

Born in Oklahoma as the son of a soldier, 71-year old Mike Linnane grew up in Massachusetts and Colorado.  In 1982, he moved to Greensboro.  He has a cache of interesting stories about construction, building, gardening, travel, veteran advocacies and grandchildren.

MIKE LINNANE WEARING HIS MOST HIGHLY ESTEEMED
AWARD -- THE GREEN BERET

As a former enlisted man who retired as a Special Forces Major, he has a few Army stories as well.  Some of these, he shares – others, he maintains -- are best left untold.

One of his stories, I found on his plaque at the Special Forces Hall of Fame at Fort Bragg, into which he was inducted in 2013. 

MIKE LINNANE'S PLAQUE AT SPECIAL
FORCES HALL OF FAME

Reading from the plaque, “Linnane successfully led a small force of Special Forces, indigenous soldiers, and a U.S. tank platoon in a continuous 10-day battle against a North Vietnamese Army Battalion, which was reinforced with 10 Soviet tanks.”

For future reference, that battle was at Ben Het, and the indigenous soldiers were Montagnards.

Linnane was combat wounded in Vietnam.  He was hospitalized and convalesced for five months, “while in the hospital, they mailed me a bronze star, purple heart and combat infantryman’s badge.”  At his request, he returned to duty with Special Forces in Vietnam.

Nearly 11 years of Linnane’s 20-year Special Forces/Army career were spent overseas.  That included over nine years in Europe and behind the Iron Curtain, where he was recognized for his involvement in the Cold War.  It also included service in Belgium, England, Spain, Germany, Greece, Italy, Austria, France, and “other locations,” as Linnane prefers.

A LINNANE DAUGHTER CORRALLED MANY OF
HER DAD'S PERSONAL AWARDS AND MADE
THIS SHADOW BOX FOR HIS OFFICE

Special Forces personnel are recognized by their distinctive Green Beret.  Per Linnane, “I may have been the only slick-sleeved private to earn a Green Beret in 1962 – it remains my favorite award.  I was promoted to PFC the day after graduation.”  

After my first three years on an A Team overseas, I completed Officer Candidate School and became an instructor at Jump School, and subsequently qualified as a Master Parachutist, Pathfinder, and HALO.”  He explained, “HALO is an acronym for High Altitude, Low Opening – I made a number of jumps of that sort.

The HALO tactic was used typically for night infiltration from 25-30,000 feet -- today, even higher.”

Linnane has five balloon jumps to his credit, as well as dives from submarines with SEAL Team II.  He made jumps at Fort Benning as a private and as a lieutenant, “I asked why enlisted men got $55 per month jump pay, while officers were paid $110.  I should have known the answer.  Officers get twice as scared!”

When Linnane leads the discussion, he talks mostly about his family, “A brother-in-law, niece and three nephews graduated from service academies.  Several cousins served in Viet Nam.  My father and my wife’s father, and several of our uncles served in World War II or Korea.

Two of my sisters, Barbara Ryan Guest and Jeanne Love, are Gold Star Wives, having lost their husbands from Vietnam War service.  The husband of my third sister, Joan, served with the Seabees in Vietnam.  The son of my fourth sister, Carol, is a West Point graduate and has served in Iraq.  One of my brother’s daughters served as a Marine Corps sergeant in the liberation of Kuwait.”

As for 30 years of owning and operating a construction company, “I spent 20 years blowing things up and 30 years putting things together.  I probably bought, sold, built, or fixed over 300 properties in Greensboro.”

Not that Mike Linnane needed re-energizing, but the events of September 11, 2001, did just that, “I shut down the project we were on, paid the workers and told them to go home to their families.  I wrote tons of emails to my children, preparing them for survival mode.”  

Later, they suggested Linnane compile the emails into book form, which he titled, HOW I PREPARED MY FAMILY TO SURVIVE  A TERRORIST ATTACK.

Thousands of copies were printed, enough for all the Linnanes and his Special Forces buddies.  The IOSSS (Inter Operational Security Support Staff) purchased all remaining copies.

Mentioned at the outset was Linnane’s battle at Ben Het, which was supported by Montagnard volunteers.  Here is the rest of that story, “We had 400 Montagnard warriors at our small base.  They went out when we went out – we could have hardly done without them – and they needed us too.”  

In return, Linnane helped found the Save The Montagnard People Organization.  Since 1986, he has personally sponsored 13 families and 30 single warriors from Ben Het, all of whom have resettled in North Carolina.

For years, Linnane’s desk held a, “The Army Is Behind You” desk plate.  “I never knew such a simple saying could have so many meanings,” he says.

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