Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
6:33 | He had orders for the Americal Division but when Jim, Balkcom landed in Vietnam, he was diverted to an interview with the commander of the 1st Signal Battalion. Would he accept an assignment commanding a signal company at a troubled installation atop Vung Chua Mountain?
Keywords : Jim Balkcom signal officer Vietnam Vung Chua Mountain Matthew Michael Rienzi 1st Signal Brigade Qui Nhon Communications (Comms Commo) top secret listening device air support sapper antenna tropospheric scatter White House Ho Chi Minh Trail Armed Forces Network (AFN) monsoon
A West Point assistant football coach was at Jim Balkcom's high school asking the coach there about any outstanding players. This set him on a path to get an appointment and he did manage to get an alternate appointment. He would have to go to Georgia Tech for a year before he could start.
Jim Balkcom was class of 1967, West Point. He was aware of Vietnam but didn't think much about it. To the graduates that year, it was pretty much a given that they would be going. Many did but he was sent to an assignment in Germany. It was a great post and he learned the value of servant leadership.
Servant leadership. You talk to every member of the company. You learn their wife's name, their children's names and what they perceive as problems. You sleep two hours a night between going bunker to bunker and checking that it's all squared away. This was Jim Balkcom's practice and the way he was mentored. Still, there could be problems.
It was a top secret communications installation and the monsoon rains could be a real problem for the electronics. Jim Balkcom was the CO at the site atop Vung Chua Mountain at Qui Nhon. Besides the climate he had sappers trying to get through the wire and blow up the antennas.
The guy was a pothead. Jim Balkcom was the company commander and he was talking to the man and suddenly a rifle was pointed at him. Another time, two GIs, obviously high or drunk wree arguing and then began shooting at each other. The VC were enough of a problem, why this?
Jim Balkcom only had one fatality in his company, a man who was possibly high on something and took off down the mountain in a truck. He had been trying very hard to turn the misfit outfit around and things had improved a lot since he arrived. But it was late in the war and the brass began to lay down some ridiculous restrictions on ammunition and weapons.
A month after his tour was over and he left Vung Chua Mountain, Jim Balkcom's successor as company commander was fragged by one of his own men. He had never feared this when he was there because he practiced servant leadership. This later served him well in his business career.
Just before he rotated home, the Army offered Jim Balkcom the chance to go to graduate school but to Georgia Tech instead of Harvard business school, which is where he wanted to go. We don't think you can get into Harvard. So he put in his separation papers and went down off the mountain into Qui Nhon to take the entrance exam. Before he was done, mortar rounds started coming in.
