Tribute to
William Warner Utts
"Brother Bill"
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

---

 

 
 
 
 

           Visiting Utts brothers
           together in Vietnam,
           January 1969. Bill is on
           the right, Tom on the left.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                The second and last son, Bill
                (left) born to Thomas and
                Elinor, on December 30, 1942,
                as a terrible war ravaged the
                world. But he was lucky, far
                from the fighting, safe in
                America's heartland, Omaha,
                Nebraska. In that far away time
                our family had little connection
                with the military. Father tried to
                join the Marine Corps early in
                World War II, but a bad back
                that plagued all his life got him
                declare medically unfit.

                Finishing high school, I joined
                the Marines for two years. Bill
                had no interest in the military.
                Very young he displayed amazing
                talent with numbers. Soon his exceptional talent for math and science was obvious.

                After the Marines I enrolled in the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Bill followed
                that time. After graduation, I discovered with a degree I could be an officers. But I
                I had also learned I wasn't really a Marine kind'a guy, so I decided to try the Air
                Force. Bill (left) remained steadfast
                in his apathy for military life.

                Besides, with successful manipulation
                of numbers, especially those printed on
                pasteboard, he was putting him through
                the University of Nebraska at Omaha
                playing cards.

                As the war continued, he worked toward
                a degree in chemistry. He held on five
                years, but finally he graduated.

              And still the damn war just wouldn't go away.

                Despite being in a family that had one son who son who was a career military
                office, the draft hounded him. Finally, in 1968 he finally gave up the struggle and
                let himself be taken. At first he was assured that with his education and a degree,
                he would not be sent anywhere near the combat zone.

                But someone, probably with good intentions, suggested that
                with his education, he could easily become an officer. That
                suggestion sealed Bill's fate.

                There could have been few people, even in that terrible time,
                less temperamentally fit to be a military officer. Still, he let
                himself be talking into applying for OCS. He was accepted,
                but there was a catch 22 with a kicker, first he had to go to
                Advanced Infantry Training.  In AIT, he injured his wrist. A
                doctor said it was only a sprain and he was pushed back to
                OCS. There, he soon got a reputation for questioning those
                illogical insanities his instructors felt it was not just their right,
                but their duty to inflict the lives of those over whom they held
                God like power. And as has been pointed out, power corrupts.
 

                Physically at a disadvantage with a wrist that wouldn't heal, and temperamentally
                disadvantage by nature, Bill didn't make it. However, because he had completed
                AIT, he was then at the top of the short list for Vietnam. And, Oh, by the way...a
                different doctor checked his wrist and discovered a small bone that had been
                broken healed improperly. It had to be broken again and reset.

                Bill arrived in Vietnam at a place called Duc Pho in December of 1968. At the
                time I was just finishing a two-and-a-half-year tour at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.
               Not that far away. I decided to visit and bolster his morale. And besides, despite
                volunteering numerous times, I'd never been to Vietnam.

                So I requested leave to go see him. Take leave to a combat zone? The answer was
                "Gee, sorry about that, it's against the rules to go on leave to Vietnam."

                I tried to do it the right way, going all the way to the wing commander. But they just
                kept saying, "You know how it is, rules are rules."

                Oh, yeah! Well, how about if I take leave to go to Bangkok? Sure, they would let
                me do that. With leave orders in my pocket for Thailand, I whipped out my trusty weapon
                of choice: a typewriter, and created a very official looking set of temporary duty orders
                assigning myself to go on an inspection tour of bases in Vietnam.

              I check out using the leave orders.
             Then beat it down to Naha Air Base
             where we had C-130 cargo flights to
             Cam Ron Bay, Vietnam. How about
             a ride? "No problem, come on
            aboard." Right on! From Cam Ron
            I hopped my way to Duc Pho.
            When I  walked off the airplane
            at the Americal Division base the
            Army terminal guy was more than
            a little surprised to see an
            unexpected Air Force Captain
            drop in. He asked what I was doing
            there?

               "Came to visit my brother," I said.

            "Ahhh . . .sir,  we don't get many visitors here." After he recovered he called Bill's unit. The
              first sergeant came and got me. Bill wasn't there, he was in a four-duce mortar section on a

               mountain top: LZ Thunder. (Photo)
                But they put me up that night, and
                in the morning laid on a helicopter
                that flew me to the LZ.

                The lieutenant colonel running
                the place released Bill from duty
                and we flew back to the base camp.
                Bill got a kick out of that. Said it
                was his first time in a helicopter.
                Before he always traveled by truck.

                They left us alone for a couple days
                and we had a great visit. Bill was in
                good spirits. Seems he hadn't cashed
                a pay check since arriving in country.

                His talent with numbers on pasteboard kept him well fixed. So much so that his biggest problem was finding
                ways around rules aimed at black marketing that limited howmuch money could be sent out of country.
 

                He looked forward to getting it over,
                returning home to get married, and
                using the GI Bill to go back to school
                to get his master's degree.

                Finally someone suggested that while
                they could appreciate my gesture, the
                Army did have other things to do. So I
                said good bye and hopped a airplane
                to Saigon.

                What was strange, during my entire
                time in Vietnam the war seemed  to be
                on hold. Wherever I went, peace seemed
                to break out. After a few days exploring
                the capitol city, I decided it was time to
                move along.
 
 
 
 
 

                At Tan Son Nhut, I showed the Air Force guy at the passenger counter my leave
                orders, saying, "Look, I was on a flight to Bangkok yesterday, and I got bumped off.
                Can you get me out of here?"

                For a moment I thought that poor young airman was going to have a heart attack on
                the spot. "That's impossible," he whined. "It's illegal for you to be in Vietnam on
                leave." I stuck to my story, pointing out that since I was there, certain realities had
                to be faced. Finally, desperate to avoid problems, he decided he should get me on the
                very next flight to Bangkok. I said I thought that was a dandy idea.

                After touring the temples and museums for a few days, I returned to Okinawa. When I
                check in someone asked, "How was Bangkok?" You wouldn't believe.

                At the end of the month,  I returned to the mainland.

                At the time I had no idea how much stretching the rules was going to mean. Two months
                later, the family received the dreaded news. Bill was dead. Left behind was a father
                mystified by fate who died two years later of cancer. A mother who never fully recovered
                from her heart break until she died in 1981.  And a fiancee who grieved, yet was
                unfailingly kind to Bill's mother.

               When my novel,  KOREA BLUE  was published, I dedicated it to Bill with these
                words: "For my brother Bill. Unlike his older brother, he wanted nothing to do with the
                military or exotic adventures in foreign lands. However, because of bad timing and bad
                luck, he was inexorably sucking into the war in Vietnam. There, while serving with
                the Americal Division, he died as the Army reported: As a result of enemy action."

               Guess there's not much more to say, except to echo that old sentiment: "Life ain't fair."

            I remember the night LZ BUFF got hit by mortars and Bill was killed.  As I remember, he was
            not the only one.  Heard the activity over the radio - I was a rifle platoon leader just a few klicks
            South of BUFF that night - March 69 I would guess. Bill was assigned to the 4.2 in Mortar Platoon.
            E Company had a Recon Platoon (legs walking in the woods), a mortar platoon which helped me
            out a number of times - max range 5,925 meters.  Covered the gap between rifle company 81 mm
            mortars and the bigger artillery stuff.

            Bill was more than just a soldier.  He was like a wise big brother to a number of guys in E Company,
            the rifle companies, battalion headquarters, and some artillery gunners on the hill.  He was smart, not
            very interested in rank and military courtesy (though always polite and respectful), and worked long
            hard hours.  The last duty I remember we watched Bill unhook while standing on top of the cargo under
            a big chopper -- a sling basket full of 4.2 mortar ammo. He crawled up next to the CH-47 to catch the
            rigging as the crew unhooked and flew away.  I remember seeing him return to his "cave-like bunker"
            with arms and face as black as could be from the mix of sweat and dust.  Someone joked about it, or
            maybe he did.

            We were not pals.  Doubtful he knew my name.  As I said, I do not remember if Bill and I spoke to
            each other.  We probably sat together in the LZ BUFF mess tent a few times.  I knew very well that
            some OCS dropouts would have been better officers than most of the graduates.  Few spent more
            than a couple of days on LZ BUFF without knowing Utts. Undoubtedly 39 years later hundreds of
            other infantrymen still remember him by name and still grieve his death.

            I had heard he was an OCS SP-5.  It was the practice of the Infantry School to assign graduates and
            non-graduates an Infantry Intel MOS, 11F.  That insured those who dropped out would have little
            chance of hunting for any other kind of assignment but with an infantry unit.

           The week after Bill was killed I was assigned to E Company, Recon Platoon Leader.  I did not want the
            job, it was customarily given a favorite trusted lieutenant.  I was not one of those and was counting days
            until release from active duty and return to Montana State University where my wife was a nursing student.
            She is still my sweetheart 40 years later.  How I finished college and returned to active duty is another
            story. My last Army assignment was Fort Leavenworth.  I retired in 2003.

            Regards, Thomas N. Bedient
            Colonel, Retired
            Lenexa, Kansas
 
 

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