I Only Need To Find One

After my first tour in Vietnam I was sent to Fort Wolters, Texas, to teach flight school. My assignment was to teach the students to fly helicopters. Other officers had the responsibility to teach the students to be officers and to be disciplined. I liked my job the best.

Sometimes the students would really be upset about the discipline and all that happened to them back in the barracks. They would grumble about being punished for what someone else in the flight had done. Often the entire flight of fifty guys was affected when one candidate messed up. They often felt that was an unfair system.

Having flown scout helicopters my first tour in Vietnam I had a little different perspective that I often shared with them. I would ask them if they thought a scout pilot would find an entire battalion of enemy soldiers. That often caused them to ponder for a moment. I would then tell them that in all of the time I had scouting I never found a large unit in the open. All I had to do was find one person that screwed up. If I could find the one enemy bunker that did not have fresh camouflage on it I could probably find the rest of the unit. If I found one trace of evidence that there were troops there then I could expand it from there.

If one enemy soldier left any evidence that troops were in the area the scout pilot would have the gunships shoot the area up or call for artillery fire. Soon the fire would uncover more bunkers and pretty soon an entire battalion had been compromised. It only took one soldier making a mistake to give entire unit away.

There is the old saying that goes about like this, “For lack of the nail the horseshoe was lost, for lack of the horseshoe the horse was lost, for lack of the horse the artillery piece was lost, for lack of the artillery piece the battle was lost, and because the battle was lost the war was lost.” When one soldier fired too soon or got discovered, the entire group of soldiers could be killed. If one pilot screwed up he could be killing all the others in the flight. There is a sound reason for teaching that one person screwing up affects everyone because it does! Flying in combat is not a job that can tolerate even one person screwing up! Perhaps that’s hard hearted but if I die in combat I don’t want it to be because one of my buddies took me out because he was careless!

Few, if any of us, understand how much what we do affects those around us. Every group, whether a formally organized group or not, is affected by what the members of that group do. That effect can be for good or bad, and in some instances, if bad, it can even be fatal! Parents, grandparents, other family members, teachers, and many others often have lifelong effects on young lives. It is good for all of to remember that what we do really does affect others and try to make our example a good one!