Chapter 19: The Tragedy at Ong Thanh
Terry Allen, the
commander of the Black Lions, was a major when he first arrived in
Vietnam. He was married to a beautiful woman, and they had three lovely
daughters. Shortly after arriving in Vietnam, he was given the coveted
S3 (operations officer) job for the Black Lions Battalion. It was the
next step toward obtaining a battalion command as a Lieutenant Colonel,
and also the next step for anyone reaching for the stars. Terry, whether
he reached for them or not, was well on his way to having those far-off
stars come down out of the sky and land squarely on his shoulders. Our
First Division commander, General Hay, knew all about Terry's famous
father and his exploits as the commander of the Big Red One in North
Africa during World War II. As a young officer, Hay had very much looked
up to the man. Hay, himself, had won three silver stars while commanding
combat units in the famous 10th Mountain Division in Italy during World
War II. That feat speaks for itself about the bravery of General Hay. It
was only natural for the fatherly Hay to feel connected to the son of
another brave and "storied" commander of the "First". Yes, it looked
like nothing but smooth sailing ahead for Terry in his professional
career. All he had to do was keep his head down and do an average job.
His life seemed to be a "storybook" life until a personal tragedy
exposed the truth. Shortly after moving to his new assignment at Third
Corps, his much younger wife not only began an affair with a rodeo clown
in their hometown of El Paso but also allowed the clown to move into
their home with her and their three young daughters. It was a stabbing
wound straight through Terry's heart.
Shortly before Terry discovered his wife's infidelity, Big Jim
Shelton took Terry's place as operations officer (S3) of the 2/28th
Black Lions. Terry then went to Division for a short time while waiting
for his promotion to a combat command in a Big Red One Battalion. Soon
after, the current Black Lion battalion commander was fired, and Terry
Allen was given that man's job. I don't believe that this commander had
a famous World War II general for a father. Once again, Terry found
himself back with the Black Lions. Big Jim served as his operations
officer for a while but left two weeks before the Battle of Ong Thanh.
Jim was happily married and had six kids. He was book smart and
wore his emotions on his sleeve. He was loyal to his military superiors
just as he had been to his football coaches in school. He unquestionably
carried out their commands, no matter how foolish those commands seemed.
Years later, in his book, “The Beast was Out There”, Jim would try to
justify why he was right, and his superiors were right too. Big Jim was
a socializer and a talker. He was an all-around good guy. Like so many
others, he walked in the light of his own self-assured kind of thinking
and not in the light of the Holy Spirit. He would never have dreamed of
changing a general's order to pop smoke, as my Holy Spirit-anointed
commander, Captain Caudill, had done, especially if that order had been
given by the Division commander, General Hay. He may have realized the
need to do so, but his fear would have kept him from speaking up. Like
so many, he feared generals more than he feared the VC. He certainly
would not have allowed someone named the "Holy Spirit" to interject
divine thoughts into his own stream of consciousness. That would have
been too weird for Big Jim. "What if he did allow something like that to
happen? Furthermore, "what if" he allowed it to slip, that he was
hearing from spirits in the first place? Big Jim was never going to let
that happen. Jim was a herd animal, and he liked the safety of a herd.
He also wanted to act in accordance with what he could see with his own
two eyes. He definitely wanted nothing to do with the companionship of a
Ghost, even if that Ghost was God.
Since Big Jim Shelton was the Battalion's S3, after Terry became
her commander, he was always in closer proximity to Terry than any other
person in the unit. With that being the case, it was only natural for
Terry to start confiding personal secrets to the very loyal,
trustworthy, and family-minded Jim Shelton, who was the same rank as him
until just very recently. Maybe he shared the dirty details of his home
life with Jim on one of those very damp, drizzly nights, in a smelly
bunker somewhere in the middle of War Zone C. Maybe he shared them
because he couldn't keep the mental anguish to himself any longer. No
matter how or where Terry told Jim, however, it was shared, and that was
all that mattered. One black night, Terry vomited the entire smelly,
rotten mess about his wife and her lover straight into Big Jim's Lap.
Many years later, the then-retired Brigadier General Jim Shelton would
tell the world about these shared family secrets, little knowing he
would be giving a significant clue to one of the big whys behind what
happened at Ong Thanh Creek on October 17, 1967.....
THE MEETING on Oct. 16 1967: From right to left, 1st Lt. Clark Welch (wounded 5 times),
Brigadier Gen. Coleman, Major Don Holleder (killed), Lt. Col. Terry Allen (killed),
Col. George (Buck) Newman (The photographer, Verland Gilbertson, was also killed.)
Here is a link to very informative video about the battle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYhKbBrRHHo