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Chapter 4
- University of Nebraska Press
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Four He’d have been in the stockade, probably still sitting there, or in Fort Leavenworth. Captain Charles Wayne McMenamy, on Joe’s probable fate if he’d been assigned to any company other than the Delta Raiders in 1967 “He just had that charisma,” said Artillery Forward Observer Mike Watson. “Everybody just trusted him. You felt good around him. I believe if he told those guys to lay down their weapons and attack with their bare hands, they would have done it. Captain Mac was the best military leader I’ve ever seen, bar none, before or since.”1 Captain Mac. Officially, Captain Charles Wayne McMenamy. He stamped his zestful personality—his energy, passion, endurance, and bravery—on the original Delta Raiders, and the unit never lost this aspect of its heritage during four years in Vietnam. Born on the last day of 1940, McMenamy enlisted at age nineteen, became an army mechanic, rose through the noncommissioned ranks until 1964 when he accepted a Regular Army commission, and ended up in the Special Forces (sometimes called the Green Berets) in Vietnam, serving as the Executive Officer of Detachment a-502 from January through midSeptember 1966. Then he transferred to Detachment a-503 where he organized a company of Rhade Montagnards, one of the twenty-five or so indigenous , seminomadic tribal groups in Vietnam’s Central Highlands.2 In the Green Berets McMenamy demonstrated extraordinary leadership abilities, accepting problems as challenges and invariably producing logical, workable solutions. During numerous combat operations he remained con- fident no matter how intense the fatigue and stress, was always cool under fire, mission-oriented, and led by example, which created “an unhesitating willingness to follow his lead and direction.” With such inspirational leader- ship the Rhade unit became the battalion’s best company and it lived on after his departure “as one of the finest, indigenous fighting units in the Republic of Vietnam.” McMenamy’s departure came after a harrowing experience in support of Project Omega, a Special Forces intelligence-gathering operation that supplemented Project Delta, which conducted long-range reconnaissance missions. Six-man Omega teams (two Special Forces and four indigenous personnel) operated behind enemy lines, not just in South Vietnam but also, despite numerous official denials, in Laos and Cambodia. In early 1967, near the rugged, mountainous intersection of the three nations, an Omega team discovered an enemy tunnel complex running from Cambodia into South Vietnam. The plan was for McMenamy to lead a reinforced Rhade platoon to the tunnel exits to act as “bait,” hoping to lure the nva out of their tunnels and into the open where American firepower could slaughter them. As happened with many “secret” missions, this one was compromised, probably by lax security procedures, or possibly by arvn who secretly worked for the vc. When the six helicopters, each carrying seven men, arrived at the landing zone (lz) at last light, the enemy was waiting. McMenamy was in the first chopper, which was hovering over a small grassy area when gunfire erupted. The bird shuddered as bullets tore through its thin skin. Only two men got out before the landing was aborted: “Jimmy,” McMenamy’s Montagnard bodyguard, was shot through the shoulder and fell to the ground while McMenamy, fearing the helicopter was about to explode, leaped out. Unfortunately he misjudged the distance, hitting the ground so hard it knocked his breath out. Gasping for air, he saw the helicopter struggling away in the gloom—and heard the enemy approaching. He resolved to count to three, then jump up shooting and kill as many of them as he could before they killed him. Counting: one . . . two . . . two-and-a-half. . . . Recounting: one, two, two-and-a-half. Again. And again. He stalled any heroically suicidal action just long enough for several helicopter gunships to arrive. As they sprayed the area with machine gun bullets McMenamy and Jimmy took advantage of the diversion to escape. “With the adrenaline going and heart beating, you run and run and run and break contact.” The bottom line was that McMenamy “was so scared that I just wasn’t going to get caught. It was clearly in my mind that if I got caught I would get tortured and killed, no doubt whatsoever.” 86 CHAPTER 4 Four days later, with the enemy in dogged pursuit, they were still on the run—literally running all night and much of day, only occasionally holing up for a few hours. On...