Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
4:07 | Every contact with the enemy was a chance encounter that was chaotic, loud and up close and personal. That was the experience of Bob Clark in the jungles of Vietnam, who felt the burden of leadership in that first firefight when every one of his men looked to him for guidance.
Keywords : Robert Bob Clark Vietnam triple canopy hand signals
After commanding troops in combat as a lieutenant in Vietnam and as a colonel in Iraq, Bob Clark still had a lot of service left in him. He had more commands including the 101st Airborne Division before he finally retired. He reveals some of the insights that he learned during his career.
Retired LTG Bob Clark reveals what he considers to be the number one requirement of good leadership. He also recalls the music that encouraged morale in Vietnam and later in Operation Desert Storm. A visit by Jay Leno to the field in Saudi Arabia was also much appreciated.
Bob Clark was a third generation soldier. His father served for thirty one years and was highly decorated, so soldiering was in the younger Clark's blood as he went off to ROTC at Texas Tech. It was a fairly conservative campus, but the war in Vietnam was inflaming opinions everywhere. He knew he would be going there as soon as he received his commission.
He got married shortly before he went to Vietnam and once he got there, Bob Clark had very few options for communication back home. The new lieutenant wrote letters, of course, and there was a system in the rear which allowed you to make phone calls over short wave radio, but he was almost always in the bush.
When he got to Vietnam, newly minted lieutenant Bob Clark was assigned to the 8th Cavalry which was heavily involved in the new air assault concept. He was fortunate to have good NCO's in his platoon and to have a company commander who imparted some advice that stuck with him for the rest of his career.
Bob Clark's first contact with the enemy in Vietnam was memorable. His platoon found a bunker complex they'd been looking for and soon a firefight began. When it was over, a search for intel in the pockets of the dead revealed a photograph of the family of an NVA soldier. That provoked a little soul searching.
During an air assault into an area with a bunker complex, a common sense rule of landing zones was ignored. You don't keep using the same one over and over. Bob Clark was in charge of the last platoon out and this mistake cost them.
Vietnam was a dirty war in the literal sense. Bob Clark describes the misery of living and fighting in the jungle, a filthy experience. Then there were the snakes.
When Bob Clark finally got to talk to his wife from Vietnam, it was to tell her he was coming home. The tour was over. He was treated royally in an airport bar when he landed and lovingly when he got home to his wife. He had none of the negative treatment many vets were receiving, not until years later in a McDonald's.
As the old draft Army was changed to an all volunteer force, Bob Clark was part of the team at Fort Lewis raising up a new division. But, as this was happening, the dreaded RIF, the Reduction in Force program, began.
The Army reinvented itself after Vietnam. The NCO corps was professionalized with new schools and many other lessons learned were applied. Bob Clark rose through the ranks during this time in some key roles.
It was only a couple of years in a long career, but the time that Bob Clark was an aide to General John Wickham, Chief of Staff of the Army, was particularly memorable.
When Bob Clark arrived to assume command of the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, Saddam Hussein had just moved into Kuwait and the unit was preparing to deploy. Soon, he was staring across the Saudi desert into Iraq.
The attack helicopters, Humvees and other armaments were lined up in the empty desert, poised for attack. To Bob Clark, it seemed like a mini-version of the mighty Normandy armada. Then it was a mad dash into Iraq and the Euphrates River valley.
It was a busy four days in Iraq for the 3rd Brigade Combat Team commanded by Bob Clark. Once the cease fire was declared, his mission became more humanitarian with swarms of displaced persons to take care of. Then there was that Elvis sighting.
