CHUYẾN CÔNG TÁC CUỐI CÙNG
Dick Meadows
by Maj. John L. Plaster, USAR (Ret.)
Lời giới thiệu: Dick Meadows là một huyền thoại trong đơn vị SOG. Ông ta đã tham dự nhiều chuyến “Hành Quân Đặc Biệt”, từ Chương Trình Sao Trắng (Project White Star) bên Lào, đơn vị SOG, trận đột kích cứu tù binh Sơn Tây, đơn vị Delta, v.v... Không cần nhắc đến cấp bậc của ông ta, thượng sĩ, đại úy, thiếu tá... tất cả mọi người trong binh chủng Lực Lượng Đặc Biệt đều biết ông ta. Meadows là Meadows.
- Tôi có “vấn đề”. Dick Meadows nói với tôi qua điện thoại. “Tôi sắp chết, John” Như tiếng sét đánh, tôi sợ mình nghe không rõ. Trước đó mười ngày, Dick Meadows đang “công tác” ở trung Mỹ (chống lại bọn đầu não ma túy), rồi tự dưng cảm thấy mệt mỏi, phải trở về Hoa Kỳ. Bác sĩ cho biết ông ta bị chứng bệnh ung thư xương, ở thời kỳ chót. Mới 64 tuổi, Dick Meadows có bề ngoài khỏe mạnh, chắc chắn và rất tự tin.
- Được (sống) bao lâu nữa?
- Một tuần lễ!
Dick Meadows nói đúng, lúc nào cũng đúng... sáu ngày sau, ông ta từ giã bạn bè, cõi đời.
MỘT CHIẾN SĨ CAN ĐẢM.
Không một ai như Dick Meadows, ông ta sinh năm 1947 trong một gia đình nghèo khó ở tiểu bang West Virginia. Dick khai gian tuổi để được vào lính nhẩy dù năm 15 tuổi, nổi tiếng trong trận chiến Hàn Quốc, đeo lon thượng sĩ năm 20 tuổi (Thượng sĩ trẻ nhất trong quân đội Hoa Kỳ). Sau đó ông ta xin chuyển qua Lực Lượng Đặc Biệt và học hỏi rất nhanh, làm nhiều cấp chỉ huy ngạc nhiên vì trình độ học vấn của Dick chỉ tới lớp chín.
Sau đó Dick được chọn, gửi qua Anh học hỏi trong đơn vị biệt kích lừng danh của người Anh SAS hai năm. Kết qủa người vợ của Dick, Pamela là con gái của một ông trung sĩ trong đơn vị SAS.
Trong những năm đầu thập niên 1960, Dick được tuyển mộ bí mật, đưa sang Lào, phục vụ trong chương trình White Star. Cấp chỉ huy tuyển mộ ông ta chính là đại tá Arthur “Bull” Simon (có một thời làm chỉ huy trưởng đơn vị SOG. Ông này làm chuyện gì cũng kéo theo Dick Meadows), và toán LLĐB/HK huấn luyện sắc dân thiểu số người Kha ở bên Lào chống lại quân cộng sản Pathet Lào. Chương trình White Star trở về Hoa Kỳ khi hiệp định Genève tuyên bố “trung lập hóa” nước Lào.
Trong cuộc chiến Việt Nam, đơn vị SOG với những hoạt động bí mật, có những trưởng toán biệt kích ngại hạng. Chính trong đơn vị này, ngôi sao Dick Meadows sáng chói. Ông ta phục vụ hai năm, làm trưởng toán biệt kích Iowa, chỉ huy những biệt kích quân người Nùng xâm nhập sâu vào hậu phương địch trên đất Lào và miền bắc Việt Nam. Trước mỗi chuyến xâm nhập, Dick Meadows lập sa bàn mục tiêu xâm nhập, để toán biệt kích nhớ điạ hình, điạ vật khu vực thám sát. Theo lời thiếu tá Scotty Crerar, Dick Meadows làm tất cả, mình có thể quay phim sự chuẩn bị cho toán biệt kích Iowa để huấn luyện các toán biệt kích khác.
Toán biệt kích Iowa của Meadows nổi tiếng trong đơn vị SOG về số tù binh Bắc Việt bắt được. Đại tá Jack Singlaub (sau này lên tướng) cựu chỉ huy trưởng đơn vị SOG cho biết, toán biệt kích Iowa phá kỷ lục, đem về 13 tù binh Bắc Việt. Một lần, Meadows bố trí toán biệt kích dọc theo một đường mòn để bắt sống một lính Bắc Việt, không ngờ năm tên xuất hiện. Meadows nhẩy ra giữa đường hô to “Chào qúy vị! Các bạn bây giờ là tù binh.”. Ba trong số năm người lính Bắc Việt đưa súng AK-47 lên, Meadows nổ súng bắn chết cả ba rồi bắt sống hai người còn lại. Một người cũng nổi tiếng trong đơn vị SOG, đại úy Ed Lesesne nói về Meadows “Anh ta là một tay súng thượng hạng, rất trầm tĩnh!”
Cựu chỉ huy trưởng đơn vị SOG, Donald “Head Hunter” Blackburn, rất nổi tiếng trong trận đệ nhị thế chiến về đánh du kích, rất quý mến Dick Meadows, coi như con. Chính quyền miền bắc vẫn chối cãi không hề đưa quân vào miền nam. Năm 1966, Dick Meadows cùng toán biệt kích Iowa đem về một số hình ảnh, quân đội Bắc Việt đang di chuyển trên đường mòn HCM vào miền nam Việt Nam.
Một chuyến xâm nhập khác, toán biệt kích Iowa quan sát lính Bắc Việt cùng với dân công đang di chuyển trên đường 110 ở bên Lào, Dick Meadows bò lên chụp nguyên cuộn phim 35mm từ máy chụp ảnh Pentax. Nhờ cuộn phim này, tướng Westmoreland có thể chứng minh cho Quốc Hội Hoa Kỳ, những hoạt động của quân đội Bắc Việt trên đất Lào.
Vài tháng sau, Toán biệt kích Iowa khám phá được một kho chứa dụng cụ, cơ phận cho súng đại bác của quân đội Bắc Việt trên đất Lào. Các cơ phận đại bác quá nặng, không thể đem về được, nên Dick Meadows, lại chụp ảnh đem về. Đích thân chỉ huy trưởng đơn vị SOG đưa Meadows vào thuyết trình cho tướng Westmoreland, ông ta hết lời khen ngợi Dick Meadows cùng toán biệt kích Iowa. Nhờ những tấm ảnh này, bộ Quốc Phòng, Ngoại Giao Hoa Kỳ cho phép quân đội Hoa Kỳ bắn pháo binh vào vùng phi quân sự.
Tướng Westmoreland, tư lệnh quân lực Hoa Kỳ tại Việt Nam rất qúy mến viên “Thượng Sĩ Trẻ”, ăn nói nhỏ nhẹ nhưng rất thành thực, thăng cấp cho Meadows một lúc ba bậc, từ thượng sĩ lên đại úy.
Trong tháng Mười năm 1966, chỉ huy trưởng đơn vị SOG, Jack Singlaub chọn Meadows chỉ huy một toán biệt kích SOG xâm nhập miền bắc Việt Nam. Trước đó chỉ có những toán biệt kích người Việt Nam mới nhẩy dù xuống miền bắc (Oplan 34). Nhiệm vụ dành cho toán biệt kích SOG, ra miền bắc cứu phi công Hoa Kỳ bị bắn rơi ngoài bắc. Hải Quân trung úy (Hải Quân Hoa Kỳ có phi cơ riêng) Deane Woods nhẩy dù xuống một vùng rừng núi khoảng giữa thành phố Vinh và Hà Nội. Sâu trong đất liền khoảng 30 dặm, và đã lẩn trốn được vài ngày.
Toán biệt kích SOG gồm 13 người được trực thăng Hải Quân đưa từ hàng không mẫu hạm Intrepid vào khu vực tìm kiếm trung úy Woods. Toán biệt kích di chuyển đến vị trí Woods chỉ còn cách 500 thước, quân Bắc Việt đã tới trước bắt sống viên phi công Hải Quân.
CHUYẾN GIẢI CỨU TÙ BINH SƠN TÂY
Meadows tham dự chuyến hành quân cứu tù binh Hoa Kỳ bị giam (tình nghi) ở Sơn Tây nơi miền bắc Việt Nam. Trong tháng Mười năm 1970, cả thế giới biết chuyện Hoa Kỳ tổ chức hành quân giải cứu tù binh ở Sơn Tây, cách Hà Nội 23 cây số về hướng tây, nhưng không thành công.
Meadows không phải là cấp chỉ huy lực lượng tấn công trong trận đột kích Sơn Tây, nhưng ông ta là người huấn luyện cho đơn vị biệt kích làm nhiệm vụ này. Và khi toán quân biệt kích Hoa Kỳ được trực thăng đưa vào đến trại tù binh Sơn Tây, Dick Meadows là người nói qua loa phóng thanh “Chúng tôi là người Hoa Kỳ. Tất cả nằm xuống, không được ngóc đầu lên (để tránh đạn lạc). Chúng tôi đến cứu... Sẽ đến buồng giam các bạn trong vòng một phút”
Nhưng trại tù binh Sơn Tây trống rỗng, các tù binh Hoa Kỳ đã được đưa đến nơi khác. Mặc dầu tin tình báo không chính xác, nhưng chuyện giải cứu làm các tù binh Hoa Kỳ lên tinh thần, biết mình không bị bỏ rơi trong quên lãng. Chuyến giải cứu tù binh Sơn Tây được người Do Thái áp dụng, sáu năm sau trong chuyến giải cứu con tin ở Entebbe, Uganda.
NGƯỜI CỦA TA Ở TEHRAN
Dick Meadows giải ngũ năm 1977, sau 30 năm phục vụ trong quân đội. Nhưng cũng không được lâu, khi đại tá Charlie “Chargin” Beckwith mời Meadows tham gia như một thường dân, huấn luyện cho đơn vị Delta, mới thành lập của ông ta. Trong tình bạn, tình chiến hữu, Meadows chỉ dẫn cho các quân nhân Delta, trở thành một đơn vị chống khủng bố hữu hiệu.
Hết nhiệm vụ huấn luyện, Meadows lại về hưu năm 1980, chỉ được vài tháng rồi quay trở lại tiếp tay với đơn vị Delta trong chuyến giải cứu con tin bị giam ở Tehran, nước Iran. Không được tin tức từ văn phòng cơ quan Trung Ương Tình Báo CIA ở Tehran, đơn vị Delta không có đủ tin tức tình báo để soạn thảo chi tiết kế hoạch cứu con tin.
Lúc ban đầu, cơ quan CIA không đồng ý để cho Meadows vào “nằm vùng” trước trong Tehran. Họ cho rằng ông ta “tài tử, không che dấu được, không có hậu thuẫn và không được huấn luyện về ngành tình báo”. Meadows trả lời CIA, sẽ vào Tehran một mình, không cần sự trợ giúp của cơ quan CIA. Trước sự cương quyết, giám đốc cơ quan CIA Stansfield Turner đồng ý, làm cho Meadows một giấy thông hành (passport) giả mang quốc tịch Ireland. Người Iran không phân biệt được giọng Ireland và West Virginia, để cho ông “Richard Keith” một giám đốc sản xuất xe Âu châu qua cửa khẩu dễ dàng.
Meadows dò thám tòa đại sứ Hoa Kỳ, đường xâm nhập vào thành phố cho đơn vị Delta, để ý những chỗ “thù nghịch”. Đề phòng tai mắt của Iran nơi nhà kho, cơ quan CIA và nhóm “tiền phương” LLĐB đã thuê sẵn để chứa xe cộ di chuyển, “đồ nghề” cần thiết cho đơn vị Delta, khi đã lọt vào thành phố.
Trong kế hoạch giải cứu con tin ở Iran, Meadows sẽ hướng dẫn và đi theo toán biệt kích Delta tấn công vào nơi giam giữ con tin... Nhưng đơn vị Delta sẽ không bao giờ đến được Tehran. Nằm sâu trong sa mạc Iran, kế hoạch giải cứu con tin phải hủy bỏ, khi hai trực thăng chở đơn vị Delta đụng vào nhau (chết thêm một mớ), phải bỏ lại xác một trực thăng, cùng xác chết phi hành đoàn, biệt kích Delta trong sa mạc. Trong lúc vội vã rút lui trở ra hàng không mẫu hạm, đơn vị Delta bỏ lại hồ sơ, tài liệu, lòi ra tung tích Dick Meadows và nhà kho nơi tập trung toán biệt kích Delta, nhưng may mắn, ông ta bay thoát qua Turkey rồi trở về Hoa Kỳ.
Dick Meadows còn dính líu đến vụ giải cứu hai nhân viên làm việc cho tỷ phú H. Ross Perot (hãng EDS) bị giam trong nhà tù Iran năm 1979. Chuyến này do cựu “xếp” của Meadows Arthur “Bull” Simon chỉ huy, và đã được Ken Follett viết sách năm 1983 và đã được quay phim “On Wings of Eagles”. Nhiều người được biết đến Dick Meadows khi hình ảnh ông ta xuất hiện trên trang bìa tuần báo Newsweek đầu thập niên 1980.
CHUYẾN CÔNG TÁC CUỐI CÙNG
Mặc dầu thích câu loại cá bass, Dick Meadows vẫn không thể “về hưu”. Khoảng giữa năm 1980, ông ta tình nguyện trông coi một phi trường tiếp tế xăng trong vùng biển Caribbean nhằm mục đích tóm cổ những tay chuyển vận ma túy.
Sau đó, Dick Meadows làm việc một thời gian ở Peru, giúp đỡ hững chủ đồn điền, nhà buôn chống lại sự khủng bố chống lại nhóm Sendero Luminosa. Nhóm này nhiều lần muốn thanh toán ông ta, nhưng không bao giờ thành công.
Dick Meadows đã nói với tôi hai lần, rất tức tối vì không đủ khả năng, phương tiện trong trận “Chiến Chống Ma Túy” và nghi ngờ sự quyết tâm của chính quyền Hoa Kỳ. Mặc dầu không nằm trong danh sách trả lương của chính quyền Hoa Kỳ, ông vẫn làm việc hết khả năng, nhiều lần đứng làm trung gian, thương lượng để trả tự do cho công dân Hoa Kỳ bị bắt cóc ở nam Mỹ.
HUY CHƯƠNG DANH DỰ CHO CÔNG DÂN HOA KỲ
“Với lòng can đảm, nêu cao tinh thần trách nhiệm, Thiếu Tá (giải ngũ) Richard Meadows đã đóng góp rất nhiều cho nền an ninh quốc gia. Sau khi tình nguyện vào quân đội ở tuổi 15, ông ta trở thành một Thượng Sĩ trẻ tuổi nhất trong quân đội Hoa Kỳ trong trận chiến Hàn Quốc. Sự phục vụ xuất sắc của ông ta trên cương vị một quân nhân Lực Lượng Đặc Biệt, một công dân bao gồm những hoạt động đằng sau phòng tuyến địch trong trận chiến Việt Nam và đã được ân thưởng xứng đáng. Tham dự chuyến giải cứu tù binh Hoa Kỳ ở Sơn Tây, gần thủ đô Hà Nội. Xâm nhập vào Tehran trong hành quân Desert One giải cứu con tin bị bắt giữ ở Iran. Là một người quan trọng trong việc thành lập, xây dựng đơn vị Delta. Ông ta vẫn tiếp tục nghe theo tiếng gọi của quê hương, tham gia những hoạt động nguy hiểm, và rất ít người hy sinh như thế cho quốc gia, cho người dân trong nước.”
Tổng Thống William J. Clinton (26/7/1995)
Trong cuộc đời binh nghiệp, Dick Meadows chỉ thiếu huy chương Danh Dự (Medal of Honor) cao qúy nhất dành cho người Hoa Kỳ. Đại tá Elliot “Bud” Sydnor, chỉ huy trận đột kích Sơn Tây phát biểu “Nếu những cuộc hành quân Dick Meadows tham dự không phải bảo mật, anh ta sẽ là người nhiều huy chương nhất trong quân đội Hoa Kỳ”.
Khi tỷ phú H. Ross Perot được biết tin Dick Meadows sắp chết, ông ta gọi điện thoại cho Tổng Thống Clinton, nói rằng Dick Meadows xứng đáng được ân thưởng huy chương Công dân Danh Dự. Và chiếc huy chương đã được trao cho gia đình Dick Meadows, do tướng Wayne Downing, tư lệnh Hành Quân Đặc Biệt, đại diện Tổng Thống Hoa Kỳ trao tặng “Ông ta là một vị anh hùng thầm lặng của người Hoa Kỳ”.
Dallas, TX.
Vđh
by Maj. John L. Plaster, USAR (Ret.)
It was perfect timing. Dick Meadows phoned not a dozen days after I'd finished two year's work on a history of SOG. At last we could start his twice-postponed biography.
And what a tale to tell: Project White Star, SOG, the Son Tay Raid, Delta Force, the drug wars - - Meadows had lived one adventure after another, dodging bullets on three continents for 45 years. In our caricature world of hoo-yah Rambos, Dick was genuine and unassuming, the boy next door with a CAR-15, America's Otto Skorzeny or David Sterling. No matter his rank -- master sergeant, captain, major -- all of us in Special Forces knew him as Dick Meadows, a man who didn't need a rank to be who he was; Meadows was Meadows.
It would be a fabulous book.
"But I have a problem," Meadows announced, his soft voice hinting nothing special. "I'm dying, John."
A brick couldn't have hit so hard. Ten days earlier he'd been in Central America when fatigue so overwhelmed him that he came home. His doctor diagnosed leukemia, in its final, most virulent stage. That simply couldn't be. Though 64, Meadows looked two decades younger, fit, trim and vigorous.
"How long do you have?" I asked."
"A week."
True to his word, six days later Dick Meadows died.
A Self-Made Soldier There was no one like Dick Meadows. He lived the life on which books are written -- in the plural. Born in a dirt-floor West Virginia moonshiner's cabin, in 1947 Meadows lied his age to become a 15-year-old paratrooper, then so distinguished himself in Korea that he was that war's youngest master sergeant, at age 20. The quick-learning but largely self-taught Green Beret acquired such a descriptive vocabulary and sophisticated style that it surprised people to learn he had only a ninth-grade education.
The British SAS, with whom Meadows served two years on exchange in the late fifties, thought so much of him that they entrusted him with serious responsibilities. In fact, an SAS sergeant major entrusted him with his daughter, Pamela, for a bride.
In the early sixties he deployed covertly with other Green Berets to Laos where, led by Colonel Arthur 'Bull' Simons, they trained KhaTribesmento fight the Pathet Lao and NVA. These Project White Star men were withdrawn when Laos was declared 'neutral' at a Geneva Conference.
SOG Team Leader Extraordinaire It was in SOG -- the top secret Studies and Observations Group, theVietnam War's covert special operations unit -- that Meadows really shined. He spent two years in SOG, all of it running missions deep behind enemy lines in Laos and North Vietnam while leading Chinese Nung mercenaries on Recon Team Iowa. Before each operation, Meadows built a terrain map in the dirt, then had his whole team memorize the prominent features. "Meadows did everything meticulously, everything was rehearsed," then-Major Scotty Crerar recalls. "You could have taken a film of [his] mission preparation and used it as a training film."
Like a martial arts master certain of his abilities, Meadows possessed an unegotistical confidence -- fearless but not oblivious to danger. He was a practitioner of the tactically sublime, able to assess a situation in a glance, weigh his alternatives and act in a flash.
"Just back from another successful covert mission along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, Meadows (back row, third from left), poses with Recon Team Iowa. Much of Meadows' reputation evolved from capturing prisoners, at which according to then- Colonel Jack Singlaub, Meadows proved SOG's most prolific prisoner snatcher, bringing back 13 NVA from Laos. He once arrayed Recon Team Iowa beside a trail when instead of the desired one man, five NVA strolled up and stopped right there for lunch. Meadows stepped out and announced, "Good morning, gentlemen. You are now POWs." Despite his warning, "No, no, no," three went for their AKs, so, 'yes, yes, yes,' Meadows shot them faster than you read this. The other two proved surprisingly compliant. "Meadows is cunning," thought one of SOG's most accomplished combat leaders, then-Captain Ed Lesesne, who adds with a touch of awe, "he's a killing machine, and I mean to tell you -- Meadows is a calculating, cool guy."
Chief SOG Donald 'Headhunter' Blackburn, a highly decorated WWII guerrilla leader, so admired Meadows that he thought of him as a son. Battlefield Commission Meadows had a knack for making history, as in 1966 when he proved North Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong a liar. Pham had been insisting not a single North Vietnamese soldier had been sent to South Vietnam, telling U.S. anti-war activist Tom Hayden such allegations were, "a myth fabricated by the U.S. imperialists to justify their war of aggression." Pham's deceit seemed by its magnitude unbreachable. Was this a war of conquest from the North, or a popular revolt by South Vietnam's peasantry?
General William Westmoreland couldn't offer Congressional doubters a 'smoking gun.' Then Meadows helped out. Laying beside Laotian Highway 110, his RT Iowa was watching North Vietnamese soldiers and porters pass by. Meadows pulled from his pocket a Pen-EE camera, crawled forward and snapped a whole roll of photos.
Then he and his assistant team leader, Chuck Kearns, crawled back beyond enemy earshot and Meadows decided on an even more dangerous gambit; in Kearns' rucksack was an 8mm motion picture camera, which he'd brought along on a lark. Meadows took it, crept perilously close to the trail and began rolling, shooting a few frames of each NVA that came into his viewfinder, footage of such perfect exposure that it came out like mugshots. For an hour Meadows laid there and recorded nearly a whole battalion -- hundreds of heavily armed North Vietnamese -- marching alongside porters toting loads of military supplies.
Chief SOG had Meadows personally brief his findings to Gen. Westmoreland, who couldn't help but praise Meadows and SOG. Meadows' film was rushed to Washington and presented in a closed-door briefing of select Congressmen who nodded convinced that Hanoi was lying.
A few months later Meadows penetrated an NVA Laotian cache which contained Russian-made artillery pieces. The Howitzers were too big to carry back, even for Meadows, so he photographed them and brought out their sights.
Again Chief SOG had Meadows brief Westmoreland, who almost hugged the intense Green Beret master sergeant when he presented a souvenir: A Soviet-made artillery sight. Westmoreland noted, it was exactly such evidence "which finally prompted the State Department to relax its restrictions on firing into the DMZ."
"Shortly after receiving his battlefield direct commission from Gen. (Photo courtesy of Jim Storter) Deeply impressed by the sincere, quiet-spoken Green Beret, Westmoreland gave Meadows a direct commission to captain -- the Vietnam War's first battlefield commission -- and cited him by name in his memoires.
In October, 1966, Chief SOG Jack Singlaub chose Meadows to lead SOG's first American-led operation into the heartland of North Vietnam, to rescue a downed U.S. Navy fighter pilot. Lieutenant Deane Woods had parachuted onto a heavily jungled ridgeline halfway between Vinh and Hanoi, 30 miles inland, where for several days he'd been evading NVA searchers.
Launching by Navy helicopter off the carrier Intrepid, Meadows took in a 13-man team that made it within 500 yards of Lt. Woods when the NVA captured him.
"A cautious soldier would have taken his men to the nearest extraction point and departed enemy territory," Chief SOG Singlaub says. "But Meadows was not overly cautious." Coming upon a major trail, Meadows set up an ambush to capture a prisoner. Momentarily, an NVA officer and three soldiers walked up, alert, still searching for Woods, apparently unaware he'd been captured.
To the NVA soldiers' astonishment Meadows stepped from the dense foliage, leveled his AK-47, and called a friendly, "Good morning." As one,all four NVA went for their guns, but Meadows shot first, killing them all in blur. While his men searched the bodies, Meadows radioed for an exfil and soon they were on their way out.
After the war, Meadows met Lt. Woods, who'd spent six years as a POW, and presented him with the Tokarev pistol he'd taken off the dead NVA officer.
POW Rescue at Son Tay
Meadows' best known mission had to be the Son Tay Raid, the November, 1970 attempted rescue of American POWs from a prison 23 miles west of Hanoi.
Meadows didn't merely lead the assault element, but served as the primary trainer of the entire raiding force, teaching them everything he'd learned about close quarters combat and small unit tactics. When the raiders landed at Son Tay, it was Meadows' voice on the megaphone that called, "We're Americans. Keep your heads down. This is a rescue.... We'll be in your cells in a minute."
But Son Tay was empty, its POWs moved while the camp was being refurbished. Though an intelligence failure, the raid boosted POW morale and compelled Hanoi, at last, to cease mistreating American prisoners. Son Tay inspired the Israeli rescue mission six years later at Entebbe, right down to the megaphone instructions to captives.
Our Man in Tehran
Dick Meadows retired with 30 years service in 1977, but he couldn't stay away long, especially when Colonel 'Chargin' Charlie' Beckwith asked him to be the civilian trainer of his newly formed counter-terrorist unit, Delta Force. The adaptable Meadows applied all he knew of long range raiding, recon and close combat, and modified it to fit the terrorism environment, resulting in the world's most respected counter- terrorist organization.
Meadows, (left, with megaphone), trains at Eglin AFB, Fla., with the famous Son Tay Raiders for the 1970 attempt to rescue American POWs just 23 miles west of Hanoi.
He retired again in 1980, then a few months later came back to assist Delta's hostage rescue in Iran. The Carter Administration had gutted theCIA of operatives capable of reconning the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, leaving Delta Force planners without the tactical details they needed.
A CIA bureaucrat initially rejected Meadows as a covert advance man, calling him, "An amateur with poor cover, poor backup and poor training." Meadows told the CIA he'd go into Tehran with or without their assistance. Given those options, CIA Director Stansfield Turner approved Meadows and had him issued a false Irish passport. Apparently, Iranian immigration couldn't tell the difference between an Irish brogue and West Virginia twang, because they waved Meadows -- posing as 'Richard Keith,' a European auto executive -- right through customs.
Meadows surveilled the U.S. Embassy, reconned Delta Force's planned route into the city and watched for any hint of hostile counter-surveillance at the warehouse in which the CIA and a Green Beret advance team had hidden Delta's trucks and gear.
Meadows would guide the Delta raiders then join them in the assault -- but they never got to him. Deep in the Iranian desert, Delta's mission was aborted, two aircraft collided and its helicopters had to be abandoned. But in their rush to escape, the chopper pilots haphazardly left behind documents that disclosed Meadows' warehouse location. Due to satellite communications problems, Meadows did not learn what had happened for 24 hours and barely escaped into Turkey.
Meadows also played a yet undisclosed role in the 1979 rescue of two H. Ross Perot employees from an Iranian prison, a mission led by his old boss, Colonel Arthur 'Bull' Simons, which was the basis of Ken Follett's 1983 bestseller, "On Wings of Eagles."
"Virtually no one outside the black ops and Special Forces community knew of Dick Meadows until he made the cover of Newsweek in the early 1980s."
Meadows Last Patrol Despite an affinity for bass fishing, Meadows still could not retire.
In the mid-1980s he volunteered to operate an aircraft refueling front in the Caribbean to ensnare Columbian drug cartel smugglers.
Then he operated for a decade in Peru, helping plantation owners and businesses defend themselves from Sendero Luminosa terrorists who'd have nothing more than put a bullet through him -- they never got close.
Twice he told me he'd become frustrated by inadequacies in the War on Drugs, and doubted U.S. sincerity. Though he was not on the U.S.government payroll, many times over the past decade he helped 'the community' in ways which must remain unsaid. Several times he negotiated the release of kidnap victims in South America.
Presidential Citizens Medal Citation "With courage, initiative and devotion to duty, Major Richard Meadows, USA (ret), has made extraordinary contributions to the security of this nation. After enlisting in the Army at the age of 15, he became the youngest Master Sergeant of the Korean War. His exceptional Special Forces and civilian career included operations behind enemy lines in Vietnam for which he received a rare battlefield commission, leadership in a daring rescue attempt of POWs at Son Tay Prison near Hanoi, infiltration into Tehran for the Desert One hostage rescue mission, and a key role in establishing the elite Delta Force. Repeatedly answering our country's call and taking on the most dangerous and sensitive missions, few have been as willing to put themselves in harm's way for their fellow countrymen."
(s) William J. Clinton
[26 July 95]
Within weeks of his death, Meadows was still active in Central America.
During his career he'd been awarded every U.S. valor award except the Medal of Honor. "If he hadn't done so many things that are classified, he'd been the most decorated soldier in the Army," Colonel Elliot 'Bud' Sydnor, the ground force commander at Son Tay, told Newsweek magazine for a 1982 cover story.
When H. Ross Perot learned of Meadows' imminent death, he reportedly phoned President Clinton to see that he was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal. It was presented posthumously to his family by the U.S. Special Operations Command commander, General Wayne Downing, who relayed the President's condolences and called Meadows, "one of America's finest unsung heroes."
Statement by President Clinton
'I mourn the passing today of Major Richard J. Meadows, USA (ret.), whose dedicated and exceptional service is cherished by everyone who knew of his extraordinary courage and selfless service.'
'I recently asked General Wayne Downing, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command, to present the Presidential Citizens Medal to Major Meadows. I am gratified to know that Major Meadows' wife, Pamela, and son, Mark, a U.S. Army captain, and his daughter Michelle, will receive this award tonight at a gathering of those involved in the Son Tay raid at Hurlbert Field. Although this now will be a posthumous award, I am pleased that Major Meadows knew of this honor before he died.
To Major Meadows's family and friends and to the Special Operations community, I extend my heartfelt condolences. We will all remember him as a soldier's soldier and one of America's finest unsung heroes. Facing the certainty of death in his last week, he told me, "It's like I'm preparing for one last patrol." In those final days, Gen. Downing assured Meadows there would be a SOCOM award for young special operators to commemorate his name.
Having come so close at Son Tay and in Tehran, Dick once told me his only unfulfilled wish in life was, "To lead one that succeeded." That's the job now for younger men he and his record will inspire, perhaps a recipient of the award that bears his name.
A SPECIAL WARRIOR'S LAST PATROL:
Dick Meadowsby Maj. John L. Plaster, USAR (Ret.)
It was perfect timing. Dick Meadows phoned not a dozen days after I'd finished two year's work on a history of SOG. At last we could start his twice-postponed biography.
And what a tale to tell: Project White Star, SOG, the Son Tay Raid, Delta Force, the drug wars - - Meadows had lived one adventure after another, dodging bullets on three continents for 45 years. In our caricature world of hoo-yah Rambos, Dick was genuine and unassuming, the boy next door with a CAR-15, America's Otto Skorzeny or David Sterling. No matter his rank -- master sergeant, captain, major -- all of us in Special Forces knew him as Dick Meadows, a man who didn't need a rank to be who he was; Meadows was Meadows.
It would be a fabulous book.
"But I have a problem," Meadows announced, his soft voice hinting nothing special. "I'm dying, John."
A brick couldn't have hit so hard. Ten days earlier he'd been in Central America when fatigue so overwhelmed him that he came home. His doctor diagnosed leukemia, in its final, most virulent stage. That simply couldn't be. Though 64, Meadows looked two decades younger, fit, trim and vigorous.
"How long do you have?" I asked."
"A week."
True to his word, six days later Dick Meadows died.
A Self-Made Soldier There was no one like Dick Meadows. He lived the life on which books are written -- in the plural. Born in a dirt-floor West Virginia moonshiner's cabin, in 1947 Meadows lied his age to become a 15-year-old paratrooper, then so distinguished himself in Korea that he was that war's youngest master sergeant, at age 20. The quick-learning but largely self-taught Green Beret acquired such a descriptive vocabulary and sophisticated style that it surprised people to learn he had only a ninth-grade education.
The British SAS, with whom Meadows served two years on exchange in the late fifties, thought so much of him that they entrusted him with serious responsibilities. In fact, an SAS sergeant major entrusted him with his daughter, Pamela, for a bride.
In the early sixties he deployed covertly with other Green Berets to Laos where, led by Colonel Arthur 'Bull' Simons, they trained KhaTribesmento fight the Pathet Lao and NVA. These Project White Star men were withdrawn when Laos was declared 'neutral' at a Geneva Conference.
SOG Team Leader Extraordinaire It was in SOG -- the top secret Studies and Observations Group, theVietnam War's covert special operations unit -- that Meadows really shined. He spent two years in SOG, all of it running missions deep behind enemy lines in Laos and North Vietnam while leading Chinese Nung mercenaries on Recon Team Iowa. Before each operation, Meadows built a terrain map in the dirt, then had his whole team memorize the prominent features. "Meadows did everything meticulously, everything was rehearsed," then-Major Scotty Crerar recalls. "You could have taken a film of [his] mission preparation and used it as a training film."
Like a martial arts master certain of his abilities, Meadows possessed an unegotistical confidence -- fearless but not oblivious to danger. He was a practitioner of the tactically sublime, able to assess a situation in a glance, weigh his alternatives and act in a flash.
"Just back from another successful covert mission along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, Meadows (back row, third from left), poses with Recon Team Iowa. Much of Meadows' reputation evolved from capturing prisoners, at which according to then- Colonel Jack Singlaub, Meadows proved SOG's most prolific prisoner snatcher, bringing back 13 NVA from Laos. He once arrayed Recon Team Iowa beside a trail when instead of the desired one man, five NVA strolled up and stopped right there for lunch. Meadows stepped out and announced, "Good morning, gentlemen. You are now POWs." Despite his warning, "No, no, no," three went for their AKs, so, 'yes, yes, yes,' Meadows shot them faster than you read this. The other two proved surprisingly compliant. "Meadows is cunning," thought one of SOG's most accomplished combat leaders, then-Captain Ed Lesesne, who adds with a touch of awe, "he's a killing machine, and I mean to tell you -- Meadows is a calculating, cool guy."
Chief SOG Donald 'Headhunter' Blackburn, a highly decorated WWII guerrilla leader, so admired Meadows that he thought of him as a son. Battlefield Commission Meadows had a knack for making history, as in 1966 when he proved North Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong a liar. Pham had been insisting not a single North Vietnamese soldier had been sent to South Vietnam, telling U.S. anti-war activist Tom Hayden such allegations were, "a myth fabricated by the U.S. imperialists to justify their war of aggression." Pham's deceit seemed by its magnitude unbreachable. Was this a war of conquest from the North, or a popular revolt by South Vietnam's peasantry?
General William Westmoreland couldn't offer Congressional doubters a 'smoking gun.' Then Meadows helped out. Laying beside Laotian Highway 110, his RT Iowa was watching North Vietnamese soldiers and porters pass by. Meadows pulled from his pocket a Pen-EE camera, crawled forward and snapped a whole roll of photos.
Then he and his assistant team leader, Chuck Kearns, crawled back beyond enemy earshot and Meadows decided on an even more dangerous gambit; in Kearns' rucksack was an 8mm motion picture camera, which he'd brought along on a lark. Meadows took it, crept perilously close to the trail and began rolling, shooting a few frames of each NVA that came into his viewfinder, footage of such perfect exposure that it came out like mugshots. For an hour Meadows laid there and recorded nearly a whole battalion -- hundreds of heavily armed North Vietnamese -- marching alongside porters toting loads of military supplies.
Chief SOG had Meadows personally brief his findings to Gen. Westmoreland, who couldn't help but praise Meadows and SOG. Meadows' film was rushed to Washington and presented in a closed-door briefing of select Congressmen who nodded convinced that Hanoi was lying.
A few months later Meadows penetrated an NVA Laotian cache which contained Russian-made artillery pieces. The Howitzers were too big to carry back, even for Meadows, so he photographed them and brought out their sights.
Again Chief SOG had Meadows brief Westmoreland, who almost hugged the intense Green Beret master sergeant when he presented a souvenir: A Soviet-made artillery sight. Westmoreland noted, it was exactly such evidence "which finally prompted the State Department to relax its restrictions on firing into the DMZ."
"Shortly after receiving his battlefield direct commission from Gen. (Photo courtesy of Jim Storter) Deeply impressed by the sincere, quiet-spoken Green Beret, Westmoreland gave Meadows a direct commission to captain -- the Vietnam War's first battlefield commission -- and cited him by name in his memoires.
In October, 1966, Chief SOG Jack Singlaub chose Meadows to lead SOG's first American-led operation into the heartland of North Vietnam, to rescue a downed U.S. Navy fighter pilot. Lieutenant Deane Woods had parachuted onto a heavily jungled ridgeline halfway between Vinh and Hanoi, 30 miles inland, where for several days he'd been evading NVA searchers.
Launching by Navy helicopter off the carrier Intrepid, Meadows took in a 13-man team that made it within 500 yards of Lt. Woods when the NVA captured him.
"A cautious soldier would have taken his men to the nearest extraction point and departed enemy territory," Chief SOG Singlaub says. "But Meadows was not overly cautious." Coming upon a major trail, Meadows set up an ambush to capture a prisoner. Momentarily, an NVA officer and three soldiers walked up, alert, still searching for Woods, apparently unaware he'd been captured.
To the NVA soldiers' astonishment Meadows stepped from the dense foliage, leveled his AK-47, and called a friendly, "Good morning." As one,all four NVA went for their guns, but Meadows shot first, killing them all in blur. While his men searched the bodies, Meadows radioed for an exfil and soon they were on their way out.
After the war, Meadows met Lt. Woods, who'd spent six years as a POW, and presented him with the Tokarev pistol he'd taken off the dead NVA officer.
POW Rescue at Son Tay
Meadows' best known mission had to be the Son Tay Raid, the November, 1970 attempted rescue of American POWs from a prison 23 miles west of Hanoi.
Meadows didn't merely lead the assault element, but served as the primary trainer of the entire raiding force, teaching them everything he'd learned about close quarters combat and small unit tactics. When the raiders landed at Son Tay, it was Meadows' voice on the megaphone that called, "We're Americans. Keep your heads down. This is a rescue.... We'll be in your cells in a minute."
But Son Tay was empty, its POWs moved while the camp was being refurbished. Though an intelligence failure, the raid boosted POW morale and compelled Hanoi, at last, to cease mistreating American prisoners. Son Tay inspired the Israeli rescue mission six years later at Entebbe, right down to the megaphone instructions to captives.
Our Man in Tehran
Dick Meadows retired with 30 years service in 1977, but he couldn't stay away long, especially when Colonel 'Chargin' Charlie' Beckwith asked him to be the civilian trainer of his newly formed counter-terrorist unit, Delta Force. The adaptable Meadows applied all he knew of long range raiding, recon and close combat, and modified it to fit the terrorism environment, resulting in the world's most respected counter- terrorist organization.
Meadows, (left, with megaphone), trains at Eglin AFB, Fla., with the famous Son Tay Raiders for the 1970 attempt to rescue American POWs just 23 miles west of Hanoi.
He retired again in 1980, then a few months later came back to assist Delta's hostage rescue in Iran. The Carter Administration had gutted theCIA of operatives capable of reconning the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, leaving Delta Force planners without the tactical details they needed.
A CIA bureaucrat initially rejected Meadows as a covert advance man, calling him, "An amateur with poor cover, poor backup and poor training." Meadows told the CIA he'd go into Tehran with or without their assistance. Given those options, CIA Director Stansfield Turner approved Meadows and had him issued a false Irish passport. Apparently, Iranian immigration couldn't tell the difference between an Irish brogue and West Virginia twang, because they waved Meadows -- posing as 'Richard Keith,' a European auto executive -- right through customs.
Meadows surveilled the U.S. Embassy, reconned Delta Force's planned route into the city and watched for any hint of hostile counter-surveillance at the warehouse in which the CIA and a Green Beret advance team had hidden Delta's trucks and gear.
Meadows would guide the Delta raiders then join them in the assault -- but they never got to him. Deep in the Iranian desert, Delta's mission was aborted, two aircraft collided and its helicopters had to be abandoned. But in their rush to escape, the chopper pilots haphazardly left behind documents that disclosed Meadows' warehouse location. Due to satellite communications problems, Meadows did not learn what had happened for 24 hours and barely escaped into Turkey.
Meadows also played a yet undisclosed role in the 1979 rescue of two H. Ross Perot employees from an Iranian prison, a mission led by his old boss, Colonel Arthur 'Bull' Simons, which was the basis of Ken Follett's 1983 bestseller, "On Wings of Eagles."
"Virtually no one outside the black ops and Special Forces community knew of Dick Meadows until he made the cover of Newsweek in the early 1980s."
Meadows Last Patrol Despite an affinity for bass fishing, Meadows still could not retire.
In the mid-1980s he volunteered to operate an aircraft refueling front in the Caribbean to ensnare Columbian drug cartel smugglers.
Then he operated for a decade in Peru, helping plantation owners and businesses defend themselves from Sendero Luminosa terrorists who'd have nothing more than put a bullet through him -- they never got close.
Twice he told me he'd become frustrated by inadequacies in the War on Drugs, and doubted U.S. sincerity. Though he was not on the U.S.government payroll, many times over the past decade he helped 'the community' in ways which must remain unsaid. Several times he negotiated the release of kidnap victims in South America.
Presidential Citizens Medal Citation "With courage, initiative and devotion to duty, Major Richard Meadows, USA (ret), has made extraordinary contributions to the security of this nation. After enlisting in the Army at the age of 15, he became the youngest Master Sergeant of the Korean War. His exceptional Special Forces and civilian career included operations behind enemy lines in Vietnam for which he received a rare battlefield commission, leadership in a daring rescue attempt of POWs at Son Tay Prison near Hanoi, infiltration into Tehran for the Desert One hostage rescue mission, and a key role in establishing the elite Delta Force. Repeatedly answering our country's call and taking on the most dangerous and sensitive missions, few have been as willing to put themselves in harm's way for their fellow countrymen."
(s) William J. Clinton
[26 July 95]
Within weeks of his death, Meadows was still active in Central America.
During his career he'd been awarded every U.S. valor award except the Medal of Honor. "If he hadn't done so many things that are classified, he'd been the most decorated soldier in the Army," Colonel Elliot 'Bud' Sydnor, the ground force commander at Son Tay, told Newsweek magazine for a 1982 cover story.
When H. Ross Perot learned of Meadows' imminent death, he reportedly phoned President Clinton to see that he was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal. It was presented posthumously to his family by the U.S. Special Operations Command commander, General Wayne Downing, who relayed the President's condolences and called Meadows, "one of America's finest unsung heroes."
Statement by President Clinton
'I mourn the passing today of Major Richard J. Meadows, USA (ret.), whose dedicated and exceptional service is cherished by everyone who knew of his extraordinary courage and selfless service.'
'I recently asked General Wayne Downing, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command, to present the Presidential Citizens Medal to Major Meadows. I am gratified to know that Major Meadows' wife, Pamela, and son, Mark, a U.S. Army captain, and his daughter Michelle, will receive this award tonight at a gathering of those involved in the Son Tay raid at Hurlbert Field. Although this now will be a posthumous award, I am pleased that Major Meadows knew of this honor before he died.
To Major Meadows's family and friends and to the Special Operations community, I extend my heartfelt condolences. We will all remember him as a soldier's soldier and one of America's finest unsung heroes. Facing the certainty of death in his last week, he told me, "It's like I'm preparing for one last patrol." In those final days, Gen. Downing assured Meadows there would be a SOCOM award for young special operators to commemorate his name.
Having come so close at Son Tay and in Tehran, Dick once told me his only unfulfilled wish in life was, "To lead one that succeeded." That's the job now for younger men he and his record will inspire, perhaps a recipient of the award that bears his name.
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