You can’t imagine how wonderful I feel when I see our Nation honoring member of our Armed Forces. Regardless of how individuals feel about Iraq, no one is taking it out on our fine soldiers. It wasn’t that way during the Vietnam War.
I never understood it, but during Vietnam, people despised us because we wore the uniform of our country. The war and the uniform were indistinguishable. We didn’t make policy, we just honored the oath we took to serve our country. It may have been worse for JAG officers. The military appeals court was extremely liberal (and goofy) and we had to advise commanders, in certain cases, that prosecution was not a good idea, because we couldn’t get a conviction or the conviction would not survive on appeal.
When the commanders were called upon during the Vietnam War to explain why discipline was so poor, many of them blamed JAGs and the non supportive military legal system. There were a lot of better reasons, but that was the world I found in the summer of 1971 when I departed Vietnam and started my next assignment as an instructor at the JAG School in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The JAG generals in the Pentagon had explained to Colonel John Jay Douglass, the School’s Commandant, that the JAG Corps had a crises in credibility. Colonel Douglass was tasked to come up with materials to explain to the Army the military legal system and how they could make it work for them. Drastic times call for drastic measures. Somewhere around forty graduate students who arrived in August found their school year pushed off into late October so that they could assist in preparing the necessary materials to address the crises in credibility.
By the time the World Wide JAG Conference met in Charlottesville in October, we had prepared “The Legal Guide for Commanders” and a number of other pamphlets including a Soldiers Guide. The materials were a big success and The Legal Guide for Commanders is still a best seller. These materials (along with the end of the war) made the crises in credibility disappear.
Another carefully conceived plan was to set up a special course for senior officers to educate them on the military legal system and to teach them just like we teach our JAG students. The course, which would be three days long, was called the Senior Officers Legal Orientation (SOLO) Course. The original course was limited to colonels and we packed the course with thirty from all over the country. It was an instant success.
It was taught by four senior JAG officers. Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Overholt and Major Dick Boller taught the criminal law side and Lieutenant David Fontanella and I taught the administrative law side. We were all career officers and could relate to our “student.” One of the colonel students was a post commander and had some labor issues he wanted to discuss. Neither Dave nor I had any expertise in labor law. So, we brought in an extremely bright captain named Barney Adams to answer the questions. His answers were impeccable. As an impartial observer and a student of teaching technique, I thought Barney was brilliant. But when the critiques came in, we all did well, except Barney. Most all said that the captain had a bushy mustache and needed a haircut! Barney’s mustache and hair were within Army Regulations, but it really didn’t matter. They were definitely too long and bushy for our “students.” The lesson was it really doesn’t matter how good you are if your audience can’t stand how you look. That was Barney’s last SOLO (Barney did go on to become a successful law professor at Case Western Reserve School of Law – no hair cut requirements).
We gave a SOLO every other month and after about three, we had commanders calling in and asking us to bring the SOLO to their installation. So we took SOLO on the road. We took it to Fort Lewis, Washington, Fort Hood, Texas and Fort Sill, Oklahoma. By then, we realized that SOLO didn’t work as well in the field. First, it was too close to the flag pole. Students kept receiving messages regarding problems with their unit or office and they would get up and disappear for a while. The bigger problem, however, was that at Fort Sill, for example, every officer would agree with whatever the Fort Sill Commanding General had to say. There could be no free exchange of ideas. That may be a good career move, but it wasn’t what we were trying to accomplish.
It sure is taking me a long time to get to Dallas. As you might expect, it was a side trip off of our Fort Hood SOLO class. When we finished the classes, we could spend the night at Fort Hood and then take a puddle jumper to Dallas and fly home, or take a rental car to Big D for the night and fly out early. We took the second option.
By the time of the Fort Hood SOLO, Fran Gilligan had replaced Dick Boller on the team. Upon arrival in Dallas, the two colonels went off to find some cultural event and Fran and I started looking for some fun. We ended up going to a place called the Dog Patch. All of the bar maids were dressed like Daisy Mae from the comic strip, Lil’ Abner. They were walking around barefoot. This place would never survive an OSHA inspection. Anyway, we had a good time and shut the place down about 1:00 AM. Everything seemed shut down. We finally ended up at a place called the Playgirl Club next to Love Field.
We walked in and there was all kinds of noise. We couldn’t see anything because of a big tarp hanging by the door. Some sweet young thing collected our cover charge which entitled us to two free drinks and live entertainment. We paid and walked in. The place was empty! The bartender was showing a loud raucous movie on the other side of the tarp. We laughed at how we had been snookered. When we ordered our drinks, we asked about the live entertainment. She said, “Coming right up,” and disappeared into the back of the bar. Fran and I are now convinced that she went into the back and woke up the dancer.
The waitress came back with our drinks. The bartender shut off the movie and flipped a switch illuminating a stage right in from of us (we had the best seats in the house!). Then, some scantily dressed gal came wandering out of the back. She climbed up on the stage and posed herself on a piano bench that was covered by an artificial leopard skin rug. As the music started, she raised her arm into the air, then there was a crash and she disappeared! Both Fran and I looked to see if the bartender had seen what happened. He was nowhere. Fran and I stared at each other. We were pretty sure she had fallen off the back of the stage, but we were in a strange town, in a strange bar at two in the morning. Regardless, we felt compelled to help her. If we were being set up, so be it. As the song continued, we climbed up on the stage and peered into the abyss behind the stage. We couldn’t see her. Finally, we asked if she was OK. She said, “I thank so.” We asked if she could get up. She said, “I thank so.” Then we saw her climbing back on the stage. She smiled. We smiled. We went back to our seats and she finished her dance. The song was over. Overall, she probably danced for less than thirty seconds. Then, she wandered toward the back of the bar. We decided that we had had enough excitement for one night and got out of there.
The next day, the colonels asked if we had had a good time in Big D. We said, “We thank so.”
I checked with the JAG School and 36 years later, SOLO is still going strong. The School gives the course five times a y
ear and it is now four and a half days in length. Each class had 50 students and it is a mandatory class for all brigade and separate battalion commanders. It has sold the rest of the Army on the JAG Corps. Is that a success story? I thank so!