The Real Rambo (Most Heavily Decorated Soldier)

When I was in the mountain phase of Ranger School, we were about to depart on patrol, when the Ranger instructor told us that we had an officer evaluator for our ambush patrol, which was unusual. This major walks up, and the guy next to me goes "Holy f**k, it's Howard". There was sort of a murmur through the platoon. Just out of the college and the basic course, I had no idea who he was, but the guys from the Ranger Batts did. They started whispering about his MOH and how many people he had killed in VN in ambushes.

I remember his face camoflague looked different than I had ever seen. It was the issue light green and loam stick, but it somehow seemed like his skin was naturally shades of green instead of having facepaint on. No streaks or seams or missed spots. Then he immediately tells us how FU we are for our cammy not looking like his.

He had some different techniques for getting our attention. When he thought we were making too much noise while moving, he pulled the platoon in. We had our 70lbs rucks on our backs. He told us to squat down. He started chewing our ass, squatting there with the rucks on and our knees aching. When one guy stood up to stretch his legs, MAJ Howard jumped all over him, and proceeded to tell us how the Viet Cong could squat like that for hours and what a bunch of weak pussies we were.

Needless to say the rest of the patrol was interesting, but in the end we learned more from him in that one patrol than probably all the rest together, as he shared his knowledge with us. It wasn't until later when I got to Ft Bragg that I learned more about him and fully appreciated how lucky we were to get him as an instructor.

wow, what a story. Hard core to the bone !