President's Report - Gordon State College

23
President’s Report
Parachute training in Korea.
On patrol in the mountains of Vietnam, waiting for a spoter
plane to come over and give us a location.
ity and heat very similar to that of Vietnam, trainers and trainees
would go on 15-mile runs, with the Green Berets pushing the
SEALs, and the SEALs pushing the Green Berets. One time, a
SEAL lieutenant showed up ill for a run but ran anyway. At the
10-mile point, he had to stop to be sick, while everyone else kept
going. But, Eddy said with a touch of admiration, he caught up
with the group and finished the run.
It was part of the job of the Special Forces to go to different
South American countries to train their soldiers, and so, Eddy
found himself in Bogota, Colombia, altitude 8,500 feet. He liked
the city, which he found cosmopolitan and filled with good eateries,
his favorite being a Russian restaurant.
In a case of mistaken identity, Eddy was marked for assassination
in this city he still highly regards. It seems another American
officer was operating in Bogota, and this officer was thought to
be the reason a FARC agent was arrested. FARC (Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias de Colombia) is the rebel army that has been
fighting against the Colombian government for decades, and its
leaders wanted to even the score by killing the American.
Of course Eddy didn’t know any of this, but one night he
realized he was being followed, so he went to the intelligence advisers
he was working with. Thinking they were working a “hare
and hound” on him, he told them he didn’t think their boy was
doing such a good job, since he had identified him.
Their response was, “What are you talking about”
Eddy’s response was, “I’ve got a problem.”
His advisers told him to go about his business, that they
would take care of things, but even so, one day his “hound” got
too close, so Eddy took to going into front doors and out the
back, until he made it to the safety of the advisers’ office. Perhaps
a little embarrassed they had let the FARC agent get too close, the
advisers picked him up and Eddy was safe.
Eddy’s second tour of Vietnam, after his stint in Panama, was
not as a Green Beret but as a member of the inspector general’s
January 1967, Special Forces scuba training in Panama.
office. His job, among other things, was to check the readiness of
Army groups. Despite being away from Nam Dong, the war was
still a dangerous place. On a trip to check on some American advisers
to a South Vietnamese headquarters unit, his helicopter was
shot up. Eddy said he and the others on the helicopter were able
to walk out, but the helicopter stayed.
It was 1968 and he was living in Saigon when the North Vietnamese
launched their Tet Offensive. His billet was a nine-story
hotel three blocks from the presidential palace. Saigon was a place
an American could travel without a weapon, and this Eddy did to
go out and eat. On one such walk to a nearby restaurant he noticed
activity in a 10-story building still under construction. Men,
a lot of men, were carrying boxes up to the different floors.
“I didn’t think much about it,” Eddy said. “Squatters were everywhere
in Saigon.” But they were not squatters; they were Vietcong,
and, as Eddy put it, “Next morning, all hell broke loose.”
The Vietcong were targeting the Republic of Korea’s embassy,
which was between Eddy’s hotel and the 10-story building, and
the Koreans were taking a beating. To help take some of the pressure
off them, a .50 caliber machine gun and “lots of ammunition”
were brought to Eddy’s building, and from the rooftop, he
and others set upon the enemy. One of those “others” wasn’t even
a soldier, but San Francisco 49-er and Heisman Trophy winner
John David Crow. He and other NFL players were in Vietnam to
help boost American soldiers’ morale, and they had been caught
by surprise like everyone else.