Delta Force (5 page)

The sun went down. One moment it was light; the next it was dark.

Tea began to be brewed, and tins of food were heated over small cookers. Although the sun had set, deep amongst the trees it remained hot, and the jungle was still and quiet.

The chief trouble at night was from insects. Mosquitoes were bad, but the midges were worse.

The second day of marching though the jungle was more of the first. No one spoke—we had learned to move silently. Visibility in places was down to several yards. The ground was spongy, wet with ancient leafmold. Heavy brakes of bamboo would suddenly bar the way, and we would be forced to slog around them. Cut off from the sun by the foliage overhead, the column moved between half-light and deep shadow.

Toward the end of the day, one of my troopers had a bad accident. Crossing a granite boulder covered with a layer of moss, his pack went one way and he went the other. He landed badly, breaking his leg. This was tough. We set it the best we could while a “recky” party went ahead, trying to find where we'd spend the night.

The third day was a matter of finding a place where we could get a small chopper in to take this trooper out. We spent the morning beginning to chop out an area. There wasn't any standing around talking about the problem. People knew what had to be done. We cleared out the brush, but there were still
the trees to contend with. There was nowhere that didn't have these huge trees. The troops signals NCO got on the radio, and using Morse, dit-dit-dah-dah-dit, requested from headquarters an aerial drop of explosives. Around three o'clock a Royal Air Force 2-engine Valetta came in and looked us over. We popped smoke so he could find us. The wind wasn't bad so he made two drops, one of explosives, the other of blasting caps. We were in business.

The next day we continued with no slackening of effort to chop through the heavy undergrowth and notch the trees we were going to blow. It's not much of a problem blowing trees down. The trick was blowing them
away
from the platform we were building. I would have made some mistakes and blown some in. I was learning a lot. By last light on this day, the second full one since the accident, we'd blown down most of the trees. Any way you want to look at it, it was two solid days of the hardest work I'd ever done.

In miles and miles of dense green roof, our hole in the jungle must have seemed—to the pilot—no larger than the head of a pin. Nonetheless, on the third day a small helicopter with a litter tied to its struts flew into us. While we strapped the trooper in, he was making sure his rifle and equipment were going back with him. That's where I learned you keep up with your kit. The Brits didn't go off and lose anything. They didn't have a lot, so they accounted for everything.

Once the chopper lifted off, we got our packs on and, seeing we had the rest of the afternoon, resumed our march. That evening Gypsy Smith, Kilpatrick, and some of the others began to discuss the time we'd lost—we were then three days behind the rest of the squadron. I sent a signal to Peter Walter, and he replied we should press on. It was now a matter of time, of trying to make it up if we possibly could. I couldn't see how, since the going wasn't about to get any easier.

The following day, or the day after that, we came upon a very large river, and from the map we saw it was flowing in the same direction we were going. Some of the ORs recommended we raft down it, that being the only way to make up the time we'd lost. Others were concerned about our security.
The CTs could see us a lot easier on a raft than in the jungle. Based on the recommendations made by men I thought a lot of, I took the responsibility—we began to build three rafts. I'd never seen anything like this. These SAS troopers knew exactly how to do it. One group went out to cut and gather rattan while the rest of us began to cut good-size bamboo stalks. By last light we had three large, heavy rafts floating in the river.

The next day we on-loaded and poled our way down the river. We made up the time we'd lost.

It was about the ninth day in the jungle; we'd gotten off the rafts and were toiling cross-country to our RV with another troop when I began not feeling well. I felt down, didn't have my zip. I'd run out of cigarettes so I blamed it on that. The tenth day we rendezvoused with First Troop. As we arrived, First Troop left to make another RV. The best I can remember, we didn't bring in a resupply that day. I continued to feel bad. The next day I felt worse. Four-man patrols were going out, and Gypsy Smith suggested I stay in camp. Obviously, I must not have looked too good. I had severe diarrhea. Lance Corporal Scott gave me a cigarette. I thought, Boy, I must be in bad shape if he's offering me cigarettes.

A resupply drop occurred, but the cigarettes didn't taste good to me. About then Darky Davidson and Gypsy Smith came over to see me. It was early in the morning of the day following the drop. I hadn't slept much that night. I was weak, and I'd shit all over myself. They said, “Sir, you're quite sick and we're worried about you. We need to send you out.” I was embarrassed and didn't want to go, but I couldn't deny I was really sick. “We're going to call Major Walter and request you be medevac'd out.” They got me up and helped me over to a tree where I waited for the chopper. I wasn't able to pack my stuff, so that, too, was done for me.

I was flown directly to the British hospital at Ipoh. I smelled very, very bad. An orderly took me to a tub and told me to clean up. I needed help, that's how weak I was. By late afternoon I was in bed and had been checked out pretty thoroughly.
Toward dusk a doctor came in and asked me if I knew what was wrong with me.

“Yeah,” I said. “I've got dengue fever,” I'd had that in Laos, “and possibly a touch of malaria.”

“Well, I'll tell you what you've got.” He sat next to me. “You've got a very bad case of leptospirosis. In fact, you have one of the three worst cases I've ever seen, and the other two chaps never got over it.”

I said, “Well, let me tell you something. I walked in here and intend to walk out. I'm going to make it.”

“With that kind of attitude,” he said, “you might make it.” Then he told me he was going to start me on penicillin and that there'd be a reaction. “Just make up your mind that it's going to be a tough night. You're going to be uncomfortable for a while.”

He was right. That first night was pure hell. I came pretty close to packing it in a time or two. The next morning I wasn't any better. For the next few days I kept getting penicillin, right in the ass. I got it every three hours. First one cheek, then the other. Day and night, every three hours for five days. I remember the last shot I got and I thought, Jesus Christ, what a mess. But I was so thankful it was over.

My strength began to slowly return. After ten days I took my first steps. Then I started to move around the grounds. The lieutenant colonel who was in command of the hospital came in one day and told me, “We've received information that there will be an aircraft in here tomorrow, and the Americans will fly you to a hospital in the Philippines.” “Well,” I said, “I don't want to leave here.” “That'll be your decision,” he said, “but I'll bring the colonel around when he arrives. Of course, if you want to stay here, we're glad to have you.” He couldn't come right out and say it, but he wanted me to stay. They'd been good to me, and I couldn't see slapping them in the face by telling them I thought I'd get better treatment in an American hospital.

In the morning I looked through the shutters and saw my doctor walking with this short fat guy. I figured he was the official sent from the Philippines to fetch me. He was dressed
all in white: had on white shoes, white socks that you pull up just below your knees, white shorts, and a white shirt. I rolled over on my side so my back was to him. I didn't want to look at him. “Captain Beckwith, I'm Colonel____” I forget his name. “I'm here to take you to the American hospital—” “Screw you,” I screamed, “I ain't doing that!” I went on like that for several minutes. I want to presume that he thought I was crazy. I never turned to look at him. I just yelled and cussed. Finally he said some things to the British Army doctor, then he turned and left. Some time later the hospital commander came in and told me it had been decided I could stay.

It was the talk of the hospital, this crazy Yank who wanted to stay in a British hospital instead of going to one of his own. The nurses became so nice to me. They started serving me hot chocolate. I didn't even know it had existed before then. Word got back to my troop. The officers in the regiment heard. “For once,” I thought, “I've done something right.”

FIVE

WHILE I WAS
recuperating, the adjutant of the regiment came down to talk with me and cheer me up. Along with the fruit he left, he loaned me a copy of Field Marshal Sir William J. Slim's
Defeat into Victory
. I browsed through it and then, while eating a banana, I came upon Sir William's Afterthoughts. The more I read the deeper I became involved. He laid it all out, how he felt about Special Operations. Although he concluded that most special units are wasteful and have more disadvantages than advantages, he believed that there was one type of special unit that should become an essential component of any modern army. This special unit is one that operates deep behind enemy lines, whose purpose is to disrupt the enemy, to collect information, to work with indigenous peoples, to sabotage enemy installations, to assassinate enemy commanders. The troops who made up this unit would require many qualities and skills not expected in the ordinary soldier and would use many methods beyond his capacity. Field Marshal Slim felt they could achieve strategic results if handled with imaginative ruthlessness.

All this stimulated me. What did I think about the SAS, their techniques, their training, their selection process? I did a lot of looking inside myself and a lot of comparing with the American Special Forces.

As soon as I could move around at will, I was sent to a recuperation hospital in the cool Cameron Highlands. There I began to put my thoughts together. I felt the U.S. Army needed
a unit that could do what the SAS could do. It needed to be able to go out in small patrols and blow up bridges and dams and railroad lines, to take out an enemy commander, say, like Rommel, to collect information for air strikes or for attacks made by conventional forces. The American Army not only needed a Special Forces capability, but an SAS one; not only a force of teachers, but a force of doers. I'd been sent over to have a dialogue with the Brits, to learn and to teach. But I'd learned this was no exchange. Instead of showing them things the Special Forces did, I kept busy just trying to keep up with what I was learning.

I did recognize some things the SAS didn't do as well as our people. In certain areas we could plan better than they could; we could be more methodical. I felt the Brits went too fast. There wasn't always a need for their great haste to do things. I understood that if we could take the Brits' technique and combine it with our planning methodology we'd really have something.

Equally important with stating what a unit could do was articulating what that unit couldn't, or shouldn't, do. In the SAS, because of their fear of being misused, I learned that they were very sensitive to what they couldn't do. Needless to say, a rifle company can also be misused. It's no different in the field of Special Operations. It may be worse. Misuse a force that's taken years to put together and all that time, energy, and skill will be wasted. The SAS didn't want one of its squadrons to be plugged into an infantry battalion as if it were any ordinary replacement unit. It would be a total misuse. Another misapplication of the Special Ops principle is to give one of these units terrain to hold and defend. The outfit is mean and lean, and a large investment has been made in the training of its people. It needs to be used in a strategic offensive role. You want to use it where it can hurt the enemy the most when he isn't looking.

The SAS had a very broad definition of what it does and remained flexible. The American Army was quite the opposite. We would go to a great
deal of trouble to frame a Field Manual. The FM for Special Forces is 31–21. We'd gone to a great deal of trouble and expense to spell out very, very clearly what the mission of the Special Forces is. If it doesn't happen to be in the FM, no matter how good an idea it is, it won't get done. All our demolition recipes are recorded; all our communication procedures are spelled out. The Brits would never do that. They kept everything in their heads. If you aren't smart enough to keep it up there, they felt, you get your hat and go somewhere else to work.

My tour in England was up. I departed 22 SAS. I was a totally different person from the brash, regimented Green Beret captain who'd arrived a year earlier. I felt I had more confidence in myself than ever before in my life. I felt I had captured a new world. I knew in England I had stumbled upon a concept that, when welded with the American system, would improve many of the things we did in the Special Forces. I was enthusiastic and elated with all I'd learned and was eager to share it.

I expected to be welcomed with open arms when I arrived home. People would sit down with me and pick my brain. I'd be asked to write reports, draft papers. My debriefing period would be two weeks, maybe three. It had cost money to send me to England, and I knew our people would want to know what I'd learned.

I requested to go back to the States by ship. Those five days at sea could be devoted to writing a paper that would be the basic document for everything I wanted to accomplish. I had so much in my mind and needed the time to sort everything out. I worked long and hard putting together my report, confident in the knowledge that people were going to be anxious to read it. My idealism was boundless. Midway across the Atlantic I suggested to Katherine, “Why don't you take the girls and pay a visit to your mom and dad. I'm sure I'm going to be very busy for the first few weeks.” I knew I was going to be really jumping, getting things moving, making myself available to everyone who was waiting to talk to me.