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 An
American Hero Passes
Lieutenant General William Yarborough…
[Gordon Cucullu] 12/15/05
America lost
a good one this month. Retired US Army Lieutenant General William
Yarborough, 93, passed away. Bill Yarborough was a veteran of three wars:
WW II, Korea, and Vietnam. He was a highly decorated paratrooper and is
considered by many one of the most imaginative, innovative combat leaders
that America has ever produced. Yarborough came of age at the defining
moment of the 20th century, the onset of the Second World War.
Hitler’s
army used large-scale paratroop drops for the first time in
history. Washington agreed that America desperately needed
a similar capability. Yarborough volunteered for the Army’s
airborne test unit at Ft. Benning, GA. From the onset he began
to put his mark on the new unit. Over time he designed the
paratrooper uniform and a eponymous knife. Most importantly,
he helped formulate the tactics and strategy that came with
this remarkable new unit.
Contributor
Gordon Cucullu
Former
Green Beret lieutenant colonel, Gordon Cucullu is now
an editorialist, author and a popular speaker. Born
into a military family, he lived and served for more
than thirteen years in East Asia, including eight years
in Korea. For his Special Forces service in Vietnam
he was awarded a Bronze Star, Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry,
and the Presidential Unit Commendation. After separation
from the Army, he worked on Korea and East Asian affairs
at both the Pentagon and Department of State as well
as an executive for General Electric in Korea. His
first major non-fiction work, Separated
at Birth: How North Korea became the Evil Twin,
is based in large part on his extensive experience
in Korea and East Asia as a governmental insider and
businessman. [website]
[go to Cucullu index]
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Many of the
early members of the Airborne are justifiably famous in American
military lore. They were a tough,
capable, colorful
group, the kinds of men that one would expect to be drawn into
a profession where they expected to be scattered behind enemy
lines and completely surrounded before combat began. Among WWII
paratroopers it was commonly assumed that 80-90% casualties would
be the norm and that few would survive the war. Yet soldiers
volunteered by the thousands and trainers made it extraordinarily
difficult for even a percentage of those volunteers to pass the
tough initiation. Universally, the comments from the time were
that “if I have to go into combat, I want to have the best
fighting men beside me,” as primary motivation for joining.
The extra $55 per month of jump pay, almost doubling a private’s
meager pay, didn’t hurt either.
Making it into the paratroops was a challenge.
Training was as tough as anything any other units conducted.
Men worked from
pre-dawn till late into the evening. Exhaustion, inability to
meet physical fitness standards, lack of motivation, and a plethora
of injuries washed most of the volunteers from the program. In
those early days, safety was considered secondary to proficiency,
experimentation was the watchword of the day, and training fatalities
were much higher than they are today. Cynical, fatalistic paratroop
songs such as the famous Blood on the Risers, with its refrain
of “gory, gory, what a helluva way to die!” became
the anthem of the Airborne. Those few who graduated won the right
to tuck their uniform trousers into their paratrooper boots and
pin on the coveted jump wings. Both items, by the way, designed
by Bill Yarborough.
While most Americans are familiar with the massive
paratroop drops associated with the Normandy invasion few are
aware of
the many jumps made in the Pacific and the early use of the Airborne
in the North Africa campaign. In one of the first jumps in Europe,
Yarborough was attached to the 507th Parachute Infantry (“Geronimo”)
commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Edson Raff. Based in England,
Yarborough helped conceive a drop into Tunisia that would be
the first major American paratroop deployment of the war. John
Duvall, director of the Airborne and Special Warfare Museum in
Fayetteville, NC, credits Yarborough with operational conception. “That
jump had Yarborough’s fingerprints all over it,” Duvall
says. Unlike most headquarters-bound staff officers, Yarborough
formulated the operational plan then volunteered to accompany
the attack as an “observer.” It would have been tough
to keep Yarborough out of that operation without tying him up.
That characteristic of intellectual adventurer
set the tone for Bill Yarborough’s career. He was a gutsy combat leader,
an indefatigable planner, and a rare military visionary. One
of the more famous stories involving Yarborough came in the early
1960s, when he was a three-star general in change of the newly
forming Special Forces at Ft. Bragg. In those days the whole
concept of Special Forces was still a tough sell, particularly
to the more conservative, traditional Army leadership who viewed
elite units with suspicion. Some, like chief of staff of the
Army General Johnson, commented that it was “inefficient
to have that much talent aggregated into one unit,” and
that the Army would be better served by “distributing the
men among the regular Army.”
From almost the earliest days of Special Forces
there was a desire to enhance what some saw as a declining
sense of esprit
de corps in the post-Korean War army. Colonel Raff, now commanding
the 77th Special Forces group pushed for a new headgear – the
Green Beret – as a tribute to the unique nature of Special
Forces. Simultaneously the 82nd Airborne Division was attempting
to have a red beret authorized for the paratroop units. Department
of Army turned down both requests. For several years the Beret
was exiled to Special Forces groups in Germany and Okinawa who
wore it without authorization.
When Bill Yarborough took command of the expanding
Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg in early 1960 he had his
soldiers wear the
Beret. Following the presidential election of 1960 an advisor
to the new President John F. Kennedy, General Maxwell Taylor,
a decorated combat Airborne commander, urged the new president
to visit Ft. Bragg to learn what the paratroops were capable
of doing. Prior to the visit word came to Yarborough from the
White House – have your troops dressed in the Green Beret
for the president’s visit.
In defiance of policy directives from his immediate
superiors, Yarborough had the troops standing proudly, wearing
their Berets.
After an impressive series of demonstrations JFK asked Yarborough, “How
do your men like those Berets?”
“They like them just fine, Sir,” Yarborough
replied.
“Wear them with pride,” said the president. That
took care of objections to the Beret from anyone lower in the
chain of command than the Commander in Chief. Not long after
that famous October 1961meeting, Kennedy issued a statement that
spoke of the Green Beret as “a symbol of excellence, a
badge of courage, and a mark of distinction, in the fight for
freedom.” Since his assassination and internment at Arlington
National Cemetery, a Green Beret has rested on JFK’s gravesite.
Years later, Yarborough participated in ceremonies presenting
a Green Beret at the Kennedy Presidential Library.
General Bill Yarborough was a quintessential
American soldier: smart, courageous, innovative, and daring.
He had a significant
part in American military history that deserves to be remembered
and cherished, especially in these days when his legacy soldiers
are carrying the fight for freedom to America’s enemies
around the world. God bless him; God bless America. -one-
Curious
about North Korea? Learn more in Gordon’s
best-selling book Separated
at Birth: How North Korea became the Evil Twin became
the Evil Twin, Lyons Press available at bookstores now.
copyright
2005 Gordon Cucullu
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