Tag: Don Holleder

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Education Milwaukee Reading Vietnam War

Latest Read: The Beast was Out There

For the last five years I had Brig. Gen. James E. Shelton’s book The Beast Was Out There: The 28th Infantry Black Lions and the Battle of Ong Thanh Vietnam, October 1967 on my must read list. I finally picked up a copy and read this book in just two days.
The Beast was Out There: The 28th Infantry Black Lions and the Battle of Ông Thanh, Vietnam, October 1967 I first learned of this book while reading David Maraniss’ They Marched into Sunlight review here about the Battle of Ong Thanh while at the same time in Madison Wisconsin a campus protest against Dow Chemical resulted in a riot with City police violently clubbing students.

Shelton, a major at the time of the battle was the Operations Officer for the Black Lions in 1967. He was removed from this unit just two weeks before the battle. He knew so many of the soldiers who died. This was an event that changed his life. Two of Wisconsin’s sons died in this battle: Jack Schroder and Daniel Sikorski.

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Categories
Education Milwaukee Reading Vietnam War

Battle of Ong Thanh anniversary

Today marks the 47th anniversary of the Battle of Ong Thanh. This battle was a tremendous loss for American troops, ambushed forty miles northwest of Saigon during Operation Shenandoah II.

october 17
Ong Thanh Battle date 1967

On this weekend in 1967 the battle in Vietnam and a student protest turned riot in Madison resulted in a turning point for the State of Wisconsin. While affluent students were protesting Dow Chemical at Bascom Hill, blue collar boys from the south side of Milwaukee were dying in battle.

The soldiers including Danny Sikorski, Jack Schroder and football All American Don Holleder served under the command of Terry Allen Jr. on this fateful day.

In Madison Paul Soglin, (the city’s current Mayor) led student protests that turned violent. After this battle 64 Americans were dead. Even today this is a shocking number of American losses in a small battle. The Tet Offensive began less than 90 days later.

It was in David Maraniss’ award winning book They Marched Into Sunlight the Sikorski family in Milwaukee would receive ~$740 from the Army to bury their son Danny. He was one of the first Black Lyons killed in Bravo Company. Yet at the same time The Pentagon Papers reveal the Michelin Corporation secured a reimbursement agreement from the U.S. Government for ~$700 per tree destroyed in combat on their rubber plantations in Vietnam.

The Army’s report on the battle of Ong Thanh remained classified for almost four years until released in 1971.

Categories
Education Reading Vietnam War

Latest read: A Spartan Game

Merriam-Webster defines Spartan as a person of great courage and self-discipline and A Spartan Game The Life and Loss of Don Holleder is just about a perfect story of such a person.  Yet I find it somewhat difficult to share how immense Don’s life was today. Many heroes on the gridiron and battlefield have been lost to our collective memory simply because HDTV, the internet and social media did not exist in the 1940s.

a spartan gameSince the 9/11 attacks only a handful of professional athletes have chosen to serve our country. Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinal defensive back turned down a multi-million dollar NFL contact extension to enlist in the Army only to be killed under questionable circumstances in Afghanistan.

If you found Pat’s story compelling then A Spartan Game reveals how Don Holleder played and lived on a much higher stratosphere. Pat was killed two years after leaving the NFL. Don Holleder was killed 11 years after leaving West Point but within three months of arriving in Vietnam.

The early chapters of A Spartan Game reveals Don’s family history, his extended background and amazing success playing high school football and basketball in Rochester New York. His high school team actually traveled to my hometown of Toledo Ohio in the early 1950s to play Toledo Central Catholic in basketball. I was surprised to read so many Catholic schools in the 1940s and ’50s traveled extensively throughout the country. Don was an extraordinarily gifted athlete and he excelled in football.

Don was expecting to attend Notre Dame on a football scholarship but something changed his life. After his senior football season but before he graduated Don’s father died suddenly. His father never told Don he wished for his son to attend West Point. It was only after his father’s wishes were revealed by his mother that Don focused solely on attending West Point.

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Education Milwaukee Vietnam War

Battle of Ong Thanh 46th anniversary

Today marks the 46th anniversary of the Battle of Ong Thanh. I read about this tragedy in David Maraniss’ award winning book They Marched into Sunlight. The book traces a rather startling weekend in 1967 for Wisconsin and our nation.

memorial day 2013 On the campus of UW-Madison on Saturday October 17th, students clashed violently with City police protesting Dow Chemical recruiting events on campus. Dow produced napalm for the Army before and during the war.

On the other side of the world that same Saturday the ambush at Onh Thanh lasted just two hours. By the time it was over 64 American soldiers were killed including Lieutenant Colonel Terry Allen and every member of the Battalion Command Group.  Allen Jr., the son of World War II Divisional Commander Terry Allen Sr. and led the same 1st Infantry Division as his father. Terry Allen Jr. led two rifle companies (~400 men) into a heavily wooded stream where two enemy battalions (~2,400 soldiers) waited for them. Two soldiers from Milwaukee were killed in this battle.

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Education Milwaukee Reading

They Marched Into Sunlight

Is there anything better than a book you simply cannot put down?  They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967 written by Pulitzer Prize winner and best selling author David Maraniss is striking a cord with me. This story set on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and a battlefield named Ong Thanh, located 40 miles north of Saigon where American soldiers walked into an ambush.

they marched into sunlightThere are so many elements of this book that make you want to slowly digest each chapter. The early chapters introduce soldiers making their way towards Lai Khe including Lt. Terry Allen, Jr. He was the son of World War II hero Army General Terry Allen.  Soliders came from around the Midwest and were eager to serve our country.

Growing up in Ohio and today living in Milwaukee I was immediately drawn to the stories of those soldiers.

Chapter Six: “Madison Wisconsin” is just a wonderful overview to the student anti-war movement of the 1960s.  One of the students involved in Madison campus protests was Paul Solgin. He has been elected Mayor of Madison three times since 1973. After his first stint as Mayor he became a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.  Today he is the current Mayor, elected in April 2011.

The student newspaper The Daily Cardinal editor-in-chief was Jeff Greenfield, current CBS senior political analyst. And former Vice President Dick Chaney was finishing his master’s degree on the Madison campus in 1967.

PBS produced an American Experience segment titled “Two Days in October” about They Marched Into Sunlight.  The BBC re-aired the program renamed “How Vietnam was lost.”  Is it any surprise that Tom Hanks’ production company Playtone, is shooting a movie based upon this book?

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