Steel My Soldiers' Hearts

by Bernard Dy

Article Type: Book Review
Article Date: October 21, 2002


Steel My Soldiers' Hearts: The Hopeless to Hardcore Transformation of U.S. Army, 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, Vietnam by Colonel David Hackworth and Eilhys England

Cover artwork

Hackworth the Controversial

David Hackworth, the controversial and decorated ex-US Army officer, returns to the bookshelf with his latest publication, Steel My Soldiers' Hearts. Hackworth returns to the war that he's most associated with, the conflict in Vietnam. The book tells of Hackworth's role in commanding the 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, something he also wrote about in his biography About Face, but Hackworth and his wife/editor Eilhys England retell the story with new material gleaned from research and interviews since About Face's publishing. Colonel Hackworth's colorful storytelling is engaging and the lessons he shares about fighting guerillas are both valuable and timely. Owners of About Face, however, may wonder whether the new book brings enough new information to be a worthy purchase.

Col. (ret.) David H. Hackworth and his wife and editor, Eilhys England

On the surface, it certainly appears like there's enough to justify a whole book. About Face's chapter 19, titled "Hardcore," is roughly sixty pages describing Hackworth's placement in the battalion he called a "sorry outfit." Steel My Soldiers' Hearts expands that part of Hackworth's life to 440 pages. The difference comes largely in quotes from interviews with many of the participants in the 4/39th's battles. Foot soldiers, medics, and officers all add their thoughts on various firefights, but clearly the focus of the book is to illustrate the turnaround of the battalion from an unmotivated and poorly performing group to a combat star.

In this regard the book is almost like a management case study. Hackworth also served with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam in 1965 but spends little time discussing that experience. He gets right to the point, describing how the commanders of the 4/39th allowed the troops to fall into a stupor of malaise and complacency. He describes Fire Support Base Dizzy, the base for the group's area of operations:

…I couldn't believe my eyes, or nose. The whole base smelled of raw shit and rotting morale. Toilet paper blew across the chopper pad, machine-gun ammo was buried in the mud, and troops wandered around like zombies, their weapons gone red with rust. These were the sloppiest American soldiers I'd ever seen, bar none. Unkempt, unwashed, unshaven, their uniforms ragged and dirty, hippie beads dangling alongside their dog tags, their helmets covered with graffiti. Where did these troops think they were, a fucking commune?

A Job to Do

The 4/39th looked like the undisciplined troops of the Hollywood perception of Vietnam, and Hackworth immediately initiated changes to create a fit, fighting unit. He removed the comforts they enjoyed, such as the hot meals flown in daily and he quickly cleaned house in the administration, bringing in trusted officers and sergeants to lead the troops. Some may remember Napoleon's famous adage, "An army travels on its stomach," and find the removal of hot chow an interesting move. Hackworth explains that the helicopters used to deliver the food were operating like clockwork and thus created weakness in the form of predictability, a nice gift to the Viet Cong he felt certain were watching the base. He also felt that troops that were too comfortable would lose their edge, and removing the easy meals forced them to live off the land like their enemy, teaching both self reliance and offering a lesson about the VC way of life. His compulsion to bring in new leadership is less a curiosity; successful organizations need a capable command element. It's possible for a motivated team to operate well without a strict hierarchy (the Special Forces teams are good examples), but any organization benefits from good leadership.

Hackworth fills Steel My Soldiers' Hearts with plenty of common sense and smart slogans. The principles he preaches are the same ones from About Face, and they're good rules for soldiers of any era. "The more sweat on the training field, the less blood on the battlefield," is a favorite, along with sentiments like remembering the basics and taking care of your men. But perhaps the most useful leadership lesson Hackworth promotes is that being a friend doesn't make an officer a good leader. Like parents, teachers, and mentors of all sorts, officers must recognize that being a friend to their subordinates isn't going to help save their lives, even though it may make them feel like "part of the team." This is not to say Hackworth's crew did not have camaraderie, but it was a natural reward earned through teamwork, success, and survival on the battlefield, not through slacking off together while enemy sappers hit the wire.

This is what separates Hackworth's book from a typical management book. Combat isn't the same as computer programming, fixing a car, or running an accounting audit. Some corporate managers think making sure there are donuts for the staff is a sign of good management. The harder action is to commit to leadership by example. Corporate America's management is typically less successful in this endeavor, and current events don't provide much evidence to the contrary. But while Enron executives are being portrayed as thieves leaving employees with little retirement hope, inadequate leadership in combat can lead to a more terminal result. Daniel Evans, one of the medics from the 4/39th, and also the author of Doc: Platoon Medic (one of the several titles Hackworth references), corroborated the 4/39th's initial disdain for Hackworth's hard-charging preparation drills. Hackworth established new rules, including one that required soldiers to declare, "Hardcore Recondo, sir," when they saluted officers who would respond, "No fucking slack." According to Evans, disgruntled troops would mock this, saying, "Hardporn, sir," and "No slack fucking."

Persistence prevailed, however, and Hackworth's plan started to make a difference. When he served with soldiers at the front, even amid rumors about a price on his head, they noticed. Evans recalled the words of the foot soldiers as they watched Hackworth.

"'You know,' Slim Holleman pointed out, 'the man be right up there gettin' shot at with the rest of the grunts.'

'Maybe he ain't so bad after all,' said Faulkenberg."

Evans also remembers that Lieutenant Robert Knapp said:

"Everything Colonel Hackworth has made us do in the battalion is meant to save lives and cut down on casualties."

Getting the men to see things his way took time, but Hackworth did it not just by drilling people in the basics, but by leading from the front, and at times risking his life to save others. He was also cognizant of the 4/39th's initial lack of inspiration, and worked to address sources of morale loss.

Guerilla Specials

A major morale killer came in the proliferation of injuries and deaths due to booby traps in the 4/39th's area of operations. Hackworth recognized that patience, a virtue guerillas know well, was the best weapon against the traps. Where other commanders would scream at their soldiers to rush through compromised terrain, Hackworth usually allowed his troops to take their time to find and defuse traps. He also had engineers clear booby traps from the immediate areas around FSB Dizzy to reduce the frequency of local incidents. On the management gimmicks side, Hackworth also had custom badges and logos drawn up for the battalion to distinguish it. Hackworth believed each of these items, like the "Hardcore Recondo" salutation, were small things, but they collectively created a subconscious force that adjusted attitudes. When combined with the big things, like having a commander that did something about the booby traps, ensured that every last soldier had proper fitting foot gear, fired poor leaders, and improved weapon reliability by enforcing cleaning standards, the odds for success improved.

Col. (ret) David Hackworth (right) and Gen. Slam Marshall after the Battle of Dak To in 1966.

The 4/39th under Hackworth learned to fight well and would go on successfully in several engagements during the next five months, culminating with a showdown with the Vietnamese 261A and 261B Main Force Battalions. Steel My Soldiers' Hearts doesn't lack for action or gory details and reads fast as a result. Like most soldiers, Hackworth also shares plenty of humorous moments in the book. He also doesn't shy from colorful language, but if that doesn't bother the reader, then the whole thing is quite a ride. Hackworth's style is both easygoing and direct, though there might be a little embellishment in some of his descriptions.

Beyond Combat

Readers familiar with Hackworth know that he doesn't just discuss combat, but also the issues surrounding combat and the military. Although the bulk of Steel My Soldiers' Hearts is about his tight five months with the 4/39th, Hackworth also throws in plenty of his opinions about what's right and wrong in the military. He makes an interesting observation about the draft.

"God, I do love draftees. They keep everyone honest—they're not afraid to get in your face. In times of war, the citizen soldier is the heart and soul of the U.S. Army."

He also dedicates an epilogue to modern challenges to the military, with his thoughts on terrorism. He draws parallels between Vietnam and the fight against terrorism because terrorists live and fight in much the same way the Viet Cong did in successfully demoralizing larger and technologically superior forces even though they were losing by traditional military standards. Hackworth complains that inept commanders in Vietnam tried to fight it like it was World War II. He expresses hope for the scenario today.

"The war on terror, unlike the Gulf War, has to be fought by small teams, well led, properly trained and highly motivated. We can be sure we're beginning to get it right when a ten-man [Special Forces] "A" Team kills fifteen hundred enemy soldiers at one thunderous crack."

Yet, opponents of Hackworth may in fact use Steel My Soldiers' Hearts as an opening to fire another salvo. The Colonel has taken some criticism for his part in questionable activities he describes in About Face. He takes a short detour in the book to discuss the prostitution the Americans willingly accepted, but doesn't go into the same exposition he did in his earlier book about his involvement in permitting various unauthorized activities or rules bending. Some may perceive guilt in the lack of rebuttals to charges leveled against Hackworth, in conjunction with the removal of certain articles from Hackworth's web site at www.hackworth.com. This isn't entirely fair, as Steel My Soldiers' Hearts is less a biography than About Face is, and legitimate as a stand-alone book on Vietnam. Although this doesn't necessarily make some of Hackworth's actions legal, military historian James Dunnigan wrote in his book, Getting it Right, that the ability of leaders like Hackworth to improvise and bend rules is often an important factor behind their success.

Extras

The book's lack of an index is a disappointment, after the excellent one seen in About Face. Steel My Soldiers' Hearts is as valuable a reference to future soldiers as it is an engaging biography, and an index would have made the book more complete. There is a useful glossary of terms, and Hackworth is generally good about identifying acronyms the first time they're used, and identifying when he is using a pseudonym. In a nice bit of continuity, he uses the same pseudonyms to mark the same people he mentions in About Face. A subtle but nice feature is the use of the inside front and back covers to place maps, each showing increasing detail about the 4/39th's area of operations.

Hackworth's About Face

Is the book worth it for owners of About Face? Hackworth fans won't be disappointed owning both. Readers interested in a more focused look at Hackworth's Vietnam experience might even find Steel My Soldiers' Hearts the better volume, though it lacks some of Hackworth's deeper pontifications regarding the military politics of the war and the story of his public interviews. There may also be another way for readers to get the story if they don't read the book. Hackworth's no idiot; he sees the increasing public interest in military affairs, and Steel My Soldiers' Hearts is also a movie project. Stay tuned.

Relevance to Combat Simulations

Although Vietnam is regularly thought of as a conflict of unconventional warfare, classic set-piece infantry battles did exist. Often they are analyzed in smaller engagements at the squad or platoon level and this is a prevalent perspective in the recollections of individual soldiers. Hackworth is a useful analyst in looking at battles because he is able to see the big picture of troop movements for such tasks as containment and ambush. His descriptions may be useful in developing strategies for war games at the platoon level and higher. Sadly, there is still a dearth of good Vietnam wargames on the PC. John Tiller's Vietnam series may be the only one of recent note, though looking back a little farther, there are some Vietnam scenarios in Talonsoft's Operational Art of War series.

Steel My Soldiers' Hearts is available at most common book outlets and web vendors, including Amazon.com. Rugged Land is the publisher, 2002, ISBN 1-59071-002-9.



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