Listen up, children of mine and remember this number: twenty-one. That’s how old your dad was in 1971 when he hightailed a truck down HaiVan Mountain. His cargo? Radio communications equipment. It’s value? A fortune. His destination? The XXIII Corps Army Headquarters in DaNang. The reason? He had no clue.
“Be quick,” his company commander said by phone. “Cannibalize all the equipment that you can from the HaiVan station. Load your truck, and leave only essential equipment behind. Come alone.”
Dad remembers that last part because it was unusual. Transport like this typically took two soldiers—one to drive and the other in the passenger seat with a ready weapon.
Make haste, strip this place
Twenty-one. That’s how old he was when he oversaw the work of five radiomen in the mountaintop retransmission unit and another six men at headquarters down below.
He made it down the mountain and pulled into headquarters at 8 p.m. His commander met him in the radio room and said, “Strip this room of all but the essentials.”
Dad was to add that equipment to the other in his truck and drive the whole lot to an airstrip tarmac where he would board a plane at 0400 the next morning. To where? The officer didn’t know . . . just be there.
Dad arrived at 3:30 a.m. and waited with the load as ordered. Save for the few winks of sleep he managed between one a.m. and three, he had been awake and working since the prior early morning.
“The plane landed at 0400,” he recalls. “It taxied over to me, and men quickly loaded the equipment into the aircraft. It took no more than five minutes. I climbed the ladder and entered the plane. I slipped into an empty seat, and we were off.”
72 hours
That’s when he realized that he was the only enlisted man onboard. Except for the full bird colonel next to him, the other eight or so passengers were all generals. The colonel told him that this command was going to Quang Tri. From here on out, the XXIII Corps Headquarters in DaNang would function as a decoy. The actual headquarters would now operate out of Quang Tri. Dad was to set up the voice-secure radio communication network that served the northern region of South Vietnam . . . and he had 72 hours in which to do it.
Twenty-one, just barely. That’s how old your dad was when he embarked on the most stressful endeavor of his working life. The plane loaded with top brass had come specifically for Sgt. Morris and his equipment. Expectations were high, and here’s why . . .
That morning, troops from the South Vietnamese Army of I-Corps had surreptitiously invaded Laos and Cambodia to interdict and destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail. For more than a decade, the North Vietnamese had used that 9,500 mile web of paths, tracks, and paved roads through neutral neighboring countries to invade South Vietnam. Moving the U.S. Army headquarters to Quang Tri supported allied troops set on destroying the trail.
To install the network, Dad would supervise a newly formed unit of about ten radio men from all over South Vietnam. Only some of them were experienced radio operators “in country.” Others—though trained back in the states—had been tasked with non-radio jobs until now.
“None of them knew each other,” he recalls. As for their resources—he points to the iPad on my lap—“That’s more complex than all of the equipment combined that we had to work with.”
Was the operation successful? Yes.
Hush-hush
Twenty-one. That’s how old your dad was when he committed to confidentiality and agreed to not talk about or write about or communicate anything about this operation for eight years from the date of his discharge. He honored his commitment.
And here’s what I want you, my kiddos, to know on this Veterans Day: There is no minimum age threshold to leading well or following well. There is no minimum age threshold to serving others and solving tough problems. There wasn’t then, and there isn’t now. Just remember your dad at twenty-one.
Morris Sampler 