Rebel With a Cause

How an Army officer’s unconventional fighting tactics in Vietnam brought him troop loyalty and Washington scorn

By Arnold Abrams
STAFF WRITER

November 11, 2002

In the sodden heat and sudden showers that marked life on the Mekong Delta, Sgt. Jim Robertson was having a long,
lousy day.

It was early 1969, and Robertson, a supply specialist in the Army during the Vietnam War, had to guide U.S. helicopters
into a landing zone that was, in fact, a rice paddy. Although the soil was firm, recent rains had glazed it with a thin topsheet
of water that made it look, from above, like mush.

The chopper pilots, reluctant to set down in what seemed to be a swamp, disregarded Robertson's radioed orders and landed, instead, on a dry stretch of road adjacent to division headquarters. The rotorblade blast sent documents flying
and covered everyone with dust.

When his angry commander complained, Robertson minced no words. "I'm an enlisted man," he said, noting that all pilots were officers. "I tell 'em where to go, and they ignore me because they outrank me."

The commander produced a solution not found in any military manual: He gave the sergeant an immediate battlefield promotion - to lieutenant colonel - for the day. Subsequently, no pilot dared disobey "Lt. Col." Robertson.

"Whatever worked, he did," Robertson, now 54 and a longtime Bethpage resident, said recently about his quick-thinking commander, David Hackworth, who actually was a lieutenant colonel. "He was something else."

Robertson never forgot the lessons he learned from his leader, and he relied on Hackworth's battlefield philosophy long
after leaving Vietnam.

"He taught us the importance of being organized, knowing what you're up against and planning your moves carefully," said Robertson, operations manager for Peak Energy, a small Long Island power company. "He also showed us the importance
of leading by example and not asking anyone to do something you wouldn't do yourself. I owe him a lot."

Hackworth was a courageous soldier and maverick officer with an extraordinary combat record. But he was forced to
leave the Army in 1971, when he was a full colonel, because he gave a nationally televised interview in which he criticized U.S. military policy in Vietnam, called U.S. training inadequate and accused fellow officers of lying about their battlefield achievements and not understanding guerrilla warfare.

Such views were not appreciated by Saigon brass or Pentagon officials. They initially planned to court-martial him, but ultimately allowed him to retire early.

Although much time has passed, Hackworth, a former Newsweek columnist who now is a prominent analyst and author
of books about military affairs, is as outspoken as ever. He questions the wisdom of invading Iraq and wonders whether
this nation has the know-how to wage global war against terrorism.

"I think a policy of containment, not invasion, should be employed against Iraq," the gray-haired and salty-spoken
Hackworth said recently at his home in Greenwich, Conn. "And, contrary to what we've been told by Washington, we
could suffer catastrophic casualties there from chemical and biological weapons - which Saddam might be forced into
using against us."

Many critics - political commentators, columnists, academic experts and politicians - have expressed similar views. But
none of them can match Hackworth's military credentials, which include a total of nearly eight years of combat in Korea
and Vietnam.

Hackworth, whose 72nd birthday coincides with Veterans Day today, also has 91 medals (including eight Purple Hearts,
10 Silver Stars, eight Bronze Stars and eight Vietnamese awards for bravery), which made him the Army's most decorated officer when he was forced to retire.

Pentagon authorities declined last week to discuss his retirement or his views about current military issues.

In his latest book, the recently published "Steel My Soldiers' Hearts," the nationally syndicated columnist for King
Features recounts how he transformed an 800-member unit in Vietnam from hopeless to hardcore.

"He was a ---, but it was for a real purpose. He knew if you're not doing things right, men will be killed," said Lawrence Tahler, who grew up in Mastic Beach and belonged to Hackworth's outfit - the 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry of the Ninth Division.

"What I did with that outfit was teach our guys how to out-guerrilla the guerillas," Hackworth said. "I proved that typical American tactics in Vietnam - slamming down on villages and killing a lot of innocents while trying to get enemy forces -
was the wrong way to fight that war."

The right way, he emphasized, was to use Viet Cong tactics: initiating night probes by small groups; digging in at different strategic positions instead of staying at large stationary bases; doing without luxuries like tents, hot meals and cold beer;
and, perhaps most important, instilling combat discipline.

Initially, the troops "hated my guts," Hackworth wrote, adding that his men put a $3,500 bounty on his head.

"We thought he was just another lifer [professional soldier] looking to get a general's stars," recalled Robertson, whose
one-day promotion is described in "Steel."

But they were proved wrong as the unit reluctantly followed its commander's orders and became a more efficient,
better-organized fighting force.

"The commander was not running a popularity contest," Tahler said. "He had to make changes in the way we operated,
or more men would die. Simple as that."

Tahler recalled that Hackworth demanded as much of himself as of them - slogging alongside in the heat and mud, enduring the same crummy food and grungy conditions, and, perhaps most important, behaving heroically in combat.

He sometimes stood on the skids of a helicopter zooming into the heart of a firefight, stepped off and, with enemy bullets buzzing around him, grabbed wounded troops and flung them aboard. Hollywood stuff, but wholly real.

"At first, we couldn't believe that a commander would do such things," Robertson recalled. "But it soon became clear that
he was willing to risk his neck for us. How could we not respond?"

Tahler, 57, who now is a business executive in Montana, put it this way: "We wound up loving the guy."

That love surfaced dramatically in May 1969 - five months after Hackworth had taken over - at the change-of-command ceremony marking his move to a new post in Saigon. His men, the same guys who had put a price on his head, hoisted him
on their shoulders and carried him like a king to the waiting helicopter.

"I still remember it as if it were yesterday," said Tahler, who became part of a special sniper unit Hackworth created in adapting guerilla tactics. "A lot of guys had tears in their eyes as they carried him. In fact, I'm tearing up now just talking
about it. It was one of those moments you never forget. It sure wasn't military decorum, but it said everything about how
we felt about him."

Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.