In the Arena

This book is a first-person account of military service during the Cold War in Europe from the building to the destruction of the Berlin Wall. It is also about combat in Vietnam as an artilleryman in the Central Highlands and as an infantry advisor in the Mekong Delta. The author participated in the investigation of a fragging incident that killed an NCO, he put down an attempted mutiny and directed the first artillery counter-battery attack on Soviet artillery manned by North Vietnamese regulars in the tri-border era of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. He worked with the CIA in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam managing the Phoenix Program while assigned to Tam Binh District where he met the legendary John Paul Vann and hosted visits by Sir Robert Thompson, the British guerrilla warfare expert and John Erlichman, advisor to President Richard Nixon. Between tours of duty in Vietnam, he returned to Germany with a Pershing Missile unit that experienced severe discipline problems including drugs, assaults, and attempted murder. This book is about a thirty-three-year military career from private to colonel during a particularly difficult time for the U.S. Army. He served in Germany, Vietnam, Belgium, and Luxembourg and conducted missions in the former Eastern Europe and Africa. While in Belgium he served at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), the American Embassy as a member of the diplomatic corps, and finally NATO headquarters. The author participated in a NATO Summit attended by President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher and completed his career on the faculty of the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania where he participated in the first uniformed visit to Warsaw, Prague, and Budapest following the demise of the Warsaw Pact.