Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [182]
Major Diduryk died from his wounds. The man had been a real character, giving briefings with a thick-tongued accent that combined the worst of Eastern Europe and New Jersey, but he'd actually been smart as a whip and had served with distinction during his first tour as a company commander with the 1st Cav in the Battle of la Drang Valley. Most of the battalion blamed Ianni's impulsive zeal for Diduryk's death. Rector, for one, fully expected Ianni to be relieved of command, but such a judgment would have been too harsh. In retrospect, even Rector figured that Diduryk, otherwise known as Roving Gambler Three, had probably concurred with Ianni's decision to land. However, what is impulsive to some is decisive to others, and foolhardy behavior might really be bravery: Ianni won the Silver and Bronze Stars for ground combat.
Nevertheless, Lieutenant Hudnell of Echo Recon reflected the prevailing attitude when he commented that Ianni was so hungry for eagles and stars that he did not have the troops' welfare at heart and that he was using them as career stepping-stones. The recon troopers, with a quixotic view toward violence, talked constantly of wiring a claymore mine under the colonel's cot.
And, thought Captain Johnson of Delta Company, the acknowledged best company commander in the battalion, they were all wrong because, as he said, this colonel would do anything for his troops. Ianni was a hard-ass, yeah, and he would fly off the handle with little or no justification, but he knew his infantry, he was assertive and aggressive, and, equally important, he knew that it was bullshit to compete in popularity contests with the troops. Too many of their young lieutenants and ser-geants, Johnson thought, were trying to be buddies with their men, which ultimately allowed the grunts the luxury of listening to their superiors when the orders were popular and ignoring them when they were not. 'Tucking war's been going on twenty years,“ the battalion's grunts explained the logic of search-and-avoid. ”We're not going to end it today, so fuck it.” Because Ianni had put his foot down and demanded excellence, everyone thought him a prick.
So be it, Johnson thought, because if Ianni was a prick, so was he. They were cut from the same cloth. Both had started as enlisted men. Johnson had served a 1967 tour with the 9th Division. As a new captain at age thirty, Johnson had joined the 1st Cavalry Division seven months before Cambodia. Two months later he stood before his new company like the Marlboro man–which is how Ianni admiringly described him– his hair close-cropped, his face seamed and brown from the sun. He was a serious, taciturn, occasionally melodramatic man. The first thing he did was collect and inventory all the equipment in the company. As his Gis filed past to sign a hand receipt for their gear, he spoke to them in his low monotone that left no other impression than that this man was dead serious: “This equipment is mine. And you take care of it. If I pick up my gun that you're carrying and it's dirty, or my ammunition that you have and it's not functional, or my anything and it's not functioning properly,