R.I.P. HACK

A real-​​life hero died yesterday…

Col. David H. Hackworth, the United States Army’s leg­endary, highly dec­o­rated guer­rilla fighter and life­long cham­pion of the dough­boy and dog­face, ground-​​pounder and grunt, died Wednesday in Mexico. He was 74 years old…
Col. Hackworth spent more than half a cen­tury on the country’s hottest bat­tle­fields, first as a sol­dier, then as a writer, war cor­re­spon­dent and sharp-​​eyed critic of the Military-​​Industrial Complex and ticket-​​punching gen­er­als he dis­missed as “Perfumed Princes…“
General Moore, the co-​​author of We Were Soldiers Once and Young, called him the Patton of Vietnam, and Gen. Creighton Abrams, the last American com­man­der in that dis­as­trous war, described him as the best bat­tal­ion com­man­der I ever saw in the United States Army.
Col. Hackworths bat­tle­field exploits put him on the line of American mil­i­tary heroes squarely next to Sgt. Alvin York and Audie Murphy. The nov­el­ist Ward Just, who knew him for forty years, described him as the gen­uine arti­cle, a sol­diers sol­dier, a con­nois­seur of com­bat. At 14, as World War II was sput­ter­ing out, he lied about his age to join the Merchant Marine, and at 15 he enlisted in the U.S. Army. Over the next 26 years he spent fully seven in com­bat. He was put in for the Medal of Honor three times; the last appli­ca­tion is cur­rently under review at the Pentagon. He was twice awarded the Armys sec­ond high­est honor for valor, the Distinguished Service Cross, along with 10 Silver Stars and eight Bronze Stars. When asked about his many awards, he always said he was proud­est of his eight Purple Hearts and his Combat Infantrymans Badge.
A rep­u­ta­tion won on the bat­tle­field made it impos­si­ble to dis­miss him when he went on the attack later as a critic of careerism and incom­pe­tence in the mil­i­tary high command. 

May 6th, 2005 | Uncategorized | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.