A REAL HERO

In life, rarely do we find ourselves in the presence of someone that we can genuinely call hero. Hero is so banied about in our culture that it is downgraded somewhat. Still, I give it special meaning. I think I get what most are meaning. Most often we hear hero as related to soldiers and rightly so. Why not? But there are heroes and then there are heroes. Warren Chan is a true hero. He didn't just do his duty, he personified his duty by soldiering in a rare way.

I've read somewhere that the WWll combat soldier was in actual combat seventy days. The average for Vietnam combat soldiers was something like 200days. For Warren, it was like 365 days. If he ever came out of the field, I don't know when it was. Let me just kind of spell itout. Warren goes into the Army during Vietnam, is assigned to an infantry unit in the 101st Airborne Division. One would almost have to get into the psyche of the 101st and the country to understand what this means. Vietnam is building up. The generals want more troops. The 101st is training at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. They are a proud Division (about 16,000troops). At that time, one of two Airborne Divisions in the Army, the other being, the 82d Airborne. Warren, possibly the only Asian American in the entire Division, surely in our Battalion (1/501sr Infantry)He is sent to jump school. He's a paratrooper.

The 101st deploys to Vietnam. The 1st Brigade is already over there. It is just before Christmas and of course as we now know, just before the 1968 TET offensive which many believe was the turning point of the war. Warren, of course, is thrust into this. He becomes the RTO (radio telephone operator) for the D (Delta) Company Commander of the 1/501st Airborne Infantry battalion. From that time forward, Warren never leaves the field. He is essentially in combat every day. During that period, he sees his platoon leaders wounded or killed, to include his company commander. At one point because he is the ranking person alive, a Sergeant E5, he literally is in charge.

Here's a good story. All his life, Warren has had a speech impediment. In elementary school, through High School, he goes for therapy. Slurring his rrrs according to him, hard for people to understand him. And, of course, this brings me to something that makes me smile. Here you have Warren, hard to understand, what does the Army do? You got it! He is given a job where he talks on the radio constantly. I guess saying "over, out here," maybe doesn't require oratory but there are times... Anyway, his commander, Captain Holland, multi-toured Vietnam leader is his CO (commanding officer). It is a 24/7 thing as they are together, Warren is monitoring radio traffic. They are operating in the AO (area of operations) when they have contact. The Artillery FO (forward observer) calls in for the 105s (artillery guns) to fire. They catch a "short round." (a round that falls on their position, rather than the target). Captain Holland gets hit, a sucking chest wound. Warren realizes what happens and calls for a cease fire. Theys say at first, they can't understand him. Of course they can't. He is excited and this makes his impediment worse. He prays according to him, "please God, I have got to do this. His speech impediment disappears. "Cease fire, cease fire." They understand him." The firing stops. He calls for a medivac. In the meantime, he is on top of Captain Holland applying pressure to his chest wound as the blood is pumping out. The medivac can't come as they have been taking fire, (VC shooting at them and the Medivac is worried that they will get shot down) Suddenly, a General in a Command and Control helicopter who has been monitoring the radio traffic tells them to "pop smoke" he's coming in. He does and they load Captain Holland aboard. He lives.
NOW, WARREN CHAN IS CAN BE CALLED A HERO.