John Crosby – Battalion Commander – Part Two

John Crosby

Battalion Commander

Part Two

Escape From The Flood

A little bit of humor now. When I took over the battalion a guy by the name of Farrell was the first sergeant. Captain Ridgeway was the battery commander, a darn good one. The executive officer was a sharp kid from Boston and had a New England accent big time. (1st. Lieutenant Chuck Monahan)

A typhoon with heavy rain came through one night and hit right there at Phan Thiet. LZ Sherry had a little bit of elevation to it, not much, but some. The lower surrounding territory got flooded, and a whole bunch of cobras came from the wet area into the battery.

The XO was in his hooch in his bunk and he felt something hitting him on the rear end, a bump-bump-bump kind of thing. He got out his flashlight and looked at the wall, which was made out of ammo boxes, and he saw this snake’s tail between the ammo boxes. So this kid reaches in there, grabs the snake, pulls it out and it was a cobra. Shocked into action he pulls out his 45 pistol and starts shooting. His hooch mate Sgt. Farrell came in and calmed things down, but Farrell was really afraid of snakes. He just had to look at them and he’d get sick on his stomach.

Six or seven cobras were killed in the firing battery area. None of the snakes were real big. It looked like a whole family that was just born to a mother cobra; her nest got flooded and they all came up into the battery area. That was the excitement for the night.

The next day after the typhoon I went out with a supply of anti venom serum.

Problem Solved

It might be a myth, but this is what 1st Sergeant Farrell told me. There were two guys smoking marijuana on guard duty.

Guard duty was always serious business, more so during this period of heavy enemy activity.

The rest of the guys in the battery picked up on it. They got the pot smokers and took them outside the wire and told them they were leaving them there overnight – in VC infected territory. What they did not tell them was the guard tower guys watched them on the starlight scope, so they had protection. Supposedly they never had any more problems with people smoking marijuana on guard.

I do not remember having any big problems with drugs throughout any of the units in the 5/27 or the units that were attached to us. Of course the battalion commander was the last to know.

Never Enough

John Crosby continued an important protocol begun by John Munnelly in the early days of the battalion.

I was very proud that I had a standing order for every one of the batteries that when they went on an operation, air mobile or whatever, they did not go to bed at night unless they had three strands of concertina wire around their perimeter and they had adequate overhead cover for every soldier in the battery, a place to sleep at night with overhead cover. And we had lots of people on the move. During the time I was battalion commander, about seven months, our batteries executed 256 airmobile operations. It took a lot of supervision and a lot of work on the part of battery commanders and officers and NCOs to make sure it was done. We had good discipline in protecting ourselves at night, and I am very proud of that.

I could never get around and spend enough time with the batteries that I wanted to. Where possible I tried to spend the night, but I don’t believe I ever spent the night at B battery. I still think I never did enough for those soldiers. Regardless of how many hours I had in the air, and how many times I visited them, I never thought I did enough. And we had great soldiers. All the great things that our soldiers did over there all went down the drain because of politics.

The Best Officers

My firs job out of Vietnam was in Washington, where I was put in charge of assignments of field artillery colonels. It was called the Colonels Division of the Office of Personnel Operations. I was still a lieutenant colonel, and it was a very educational assignment. I got to see how many really great guys were in the Army. I met and talked to a lot of the upcoming people in the field artillery, one of which was Jack Vessey, who later became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (the top job in the military). He had also been my gunnery instructor at Ft. Sill. He was the best instructor I ever had in the Army or in civilian life, including college. He was a wonderful person with people. He began as an enlisted man in the Minnesota National Guard, and went to war in WWII. He fought at Anzio and coming out of that operation earned a battlefield commission. He went on to fight in Korea and Vietnam.

The officers who started out as enlisted men and then earned a commission were better officers in my view. They knew what being an enlisted soldier was all about, and they just hit the ground running as an officer and knew what was going on.

Ft. Sill Commanding General

The majority of those who served with B Battery – officers, NCOs and enlisted – were trained at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, an enormous field artillery and air defense post. In 1982 Major General John Crosby, one of our own, became its commanding general. I asked him how his experience commanding the 5th Battalion influenced his approach to the job.

First of all I had a greater appreciation for the importance of training in the Army, and especially what Ft. Sill did for both enlisted soldiers and officers. My experience in Vietnam was key to thinking about how to train people. I tried to emphasize the basics of field artillery, which were safety, accuracy and efficiency, and overall being sure that you gave support to the infantry. That was our whole reason for being, to support the infantry and the armor. The important thing was to make sure all the lieutenants and advanced course captains and NCOs knew that our job was to support the infantry and the armor. I commanded the post for almost three years and left in 1985.

That year Ft. Sill was named the best post in the Army, recipient of the first Commander-in-Chief’s Award for Installation Excellence. From there John Crosby received a third star and command over all Army training (TRADOC). Today Training and Doctrine Command oversees 32 Army schools.

Field Artillery School Insignia

Skill Over Luck

The arm clad in red rising from the turret and grasping thunderbolts belongs to Saint Barbara, patron saint of the Field Artillery. Next week is Saint Barbara’s story.