Paratrooper My Life With The 101st Airborne Division

Paratrooper is the autobiography of a young man’s time with the famed 101st Airborne Division “Screaming Eagles.” With not the finances to finish his senior year in college and a looming draft, it leads to his enlisting in the U.S. Army. With thoughts of Officer’s Candidate School, Private Michael B. Kitz-Miller heads for a newly designed Basic Training course for soldiers planning to attend Airborne School. High performance results in Leadership School and Acting Sergeant in Advanced Infantry School. At Airborne School he is a runner-up for Honor Graduate from his original class of 1,000 soldiers. Finally, the new paratrooper boards a bus for Ft. Campbell and the 101st. His first job is as an M-60 machine gunner, scoring expert his first time on the weapons range. Numerous operations follow – Cold Eagle, Swift Strike II, Desert Strike and the surprise Operation Delawar, jumping into Iran in 1964 as part of the U.S. STRIKE Command. All produce commendations and after winning the Division Soldier-of-the-Month competition a promotion to Sergeant. He soon becomes part of the Battalion Mountaineering cadre. The rigors of Recondo School and its incredible 35 percent graduation rate follow, offering a shot at Honor Graduate. Having won Battalion and Brigade competitions, the young paratrooper enters and finds himself a finalist in the Division’s Soldier-of-the-Year competition. Tough career decisions follow. The story ends with Sergeant Kitz-Miller’s opportunity, 50 years later to compare key issues that confronted him as a soldier with those of today. The evaluation of Officers and NCOs, leadership and mentoring are but a few. His final chapters on Just War Theory and current Rules of Engagement provide provocative ideas about how to address our current policies on terrorist states. Above all, it is the story of a very successful Paratrooper that loved the Airborne Infantry.

The trilogy ends with “Everyone Comes Home.” Jack has a serious clash with Pentagon superiors threatening to resign his commission over a debacle in Grenada. He loses men due to incompetent units, and what he considers the immoral Rules of Engagement. Jack graduates with a master’s degree from the prestigious War College, returning to the Rangers with combat operations in Panama and Somalia. When Jack has two platoons ready to take back the embassy in Iran when it is stormed by student dissidents, he is told to stand down from his brilliant plan. An operation by the Delta Force totally fails. As a new Brigadier, Jack returns to the 101st. The incompetent Orin Jensen is surprisingly promoted as commander of the division. Just as the sounds of war are heard from the Middle East, Orin collapses with acute appendicitis. Jack takes command of the division making an historic flight with 100 Apache and Black Hawk helicopters from Ft. Campbell up the Potomac River, past the Pentagon, leap frogging across the North Atlantic through Europe to Saudi Arabia, when Iraq attacks Kuwait. This action is key to thwart Iraq’s planned attack on Saudi Arabia. Jack is promoted to head the XVIII Airborne Corps. Meanwhile their different moves have allowed multiple teaching positions for Mary Clarke. Jack receives his fourth star and sent to the Pentagon where he is given a large research project to evaluate the basic military skills of all major Amy units. In the Middle East he and his driver are ambushed. While wounded he is still able to take out four enemy soldiers, saving his driver before he passes out. Jack and Mary Clarke decide to semi-retire, but Jack is offered the opportunity to teach at West Point. Four years later Mary Clarke retires as a full professor at Columbia University. The cadet corps make a special request to have a Pass-in-Review parade to honor the general, followed by lunch and a speech by Jack on a topic of his choice. In attendance are an unexpected contingency of over thirty Generals and Command Sergeant Majors, having played a part in Jack’s astonishing career. Jack delivers a surprising speech covering topics unexpected by all. Later, there is another surprise with a telephone message, asking Jack to return a call by someone that has likely read his new book Unjust War Theory and perhaps listened to his speech.

A Vietnam veteran recounts his experience through two tours of duty—early in the conflict and then in its final stages. Fresh out of West Point, John Howard arrived for his first tour in Vietnam in 1965, the first full year of escalation when U.S. troop levels increased dramatically, from 23,000 to 184,000. When Howard returned for a second tour in 1972, troop strength stood at 24,000 and would dwindle to a mere fifty the following year. He thus participated in the very early and very late stages of American military involvement in the Vietnam War. Howard’s two tours—the first as a platoon commander and member of an elite counterguerrilla force, and the second as a senior advisor to the South Vietnamese—provide a fascinating lens through which to view not only one soldier’s experience in Vietnam, but also the country’s.

"Linda's story is uniquely American - overcoming all odds to form a partnership between community and military that was unheard of in 1968 ... a partnership that today serves as the example for our entire Armed Forces." - Colonel Derek K. Thomson, U.S. Army A Story Unlike Any Other, But Relatable to Millions With the backdrop of the Vietnam conflict, A Dove Among Eagles is a powerful memoir about trauma, courage, devotion and love at a time when American society was tearing itself apart and blaming a military that was more victim than perpetrator of the violent forces wracking the nation. Indeed, Vietnam changed us all -- especially Linda Patterson. A story 52 years in the making, A Dove Among Eagles is set in San Mateo, California, in 1968. The author, then 26 years old, receives a letter from her 18-year-old brother Joe -- a cry for help from a paratrooper caught in the middle of an unpopular war. News of the antiwar protests has been plummeting the morale of Joe's combat company of 130 paratroopers. In desperation, he turns to Linda to find a way to let these young, courageous soldiers know that they've not been rejected by the country they love. Specifically, Joe asked Linda to enlist the city of San Mateo to "adopt" the 130 paratroopers of his combat company. On March 4, 1968, after Linda's dogged persistence, the city of San Mateo formally adopted A Co. of the 327th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. San Mateo was the only city in the nation to do such a thing during the Vietnam War. Three weeks later, SGT Artavia was killed in a firefight. Grief-stricken and distraught by the loss of her brother, Linda garnered her strength and passion to carry on with Joe's last wishes. What she did next was beyond imagination and straight from the heart. Into a War Zone and into Their Hearts In December -- without government authorization and with only her grit to guide her -- Linda traveled to Vietnam to spend Christmas with her brother's unit. Met by her military escort at Tan Son Nhut airport outside of Saigon, she would fly to the northern part of South Vietnam, further north than civilians were allowed to travel. The potential dangers she would inevitably face did not phase her. She knew her "Screaming Eagles" would protect her. And they did. Her journey was life-changing. For eight days, she anxiously waited in the company's base camp while the men of the Company hacked their way through a mountainous jungle to get to her. And once they arrived, she spent three days with her brother's buddies, developing a true love for them all. She would also fall in love with her military escort, Steve Patterson, her brother's platoon leader who was also seriously wounded while leading the battle in which Joe was killed. Since then, Steve would be Linda's escort for life. The journey had just begun. American Supporting Americans For the past 50 years, Linda's passion in life has been a tribute to her brother, as she has enlisted more than 300 cities across the country in supporting and adopting tens of thousands of service men and women in all branches of our military. To be sure, Linda's remarkable and meaningful life journey is unique in American history. For her life's work, she has been recognized and honored by the highest levels of our country. Those original men of the 1968 unit simply call her "Sis." With a foreword by Colonel Rob Campbell, U.S. Army, Retired, 1st Brigade Commander, 101st Airborne Division.

The true story of the 101st Airborne Division’s most notorious squad of combat paratroopers—the inspiration for the classic WWII film, The Dirty Dozen. Since World War II, the American public has learned of the exploits of the 101st Airborne Division, the paratroopers who led the Allied invasions into Nazi-held Europe. But within the ranks of the 101st, one unit attained truly legendary status. Known as the Filthy Thirteen, they were the real-life inspiration for The Dirty Dozen. Primarily products of the Dustbowl and the Depression, the Filthy Thirteen became notorious within the elite Screaming Eagles for their hard drinking and savage fighting skills. From D-Day until the end of the war, the squad’s heart and soul—and its toughest member—was a half Native American soldier named Jake McNiece. McNiece made four combat jumps, was in the forefront of every fight in northern Europe, yet somehow never made the rank of PFC. The Filthy Thirteen offers a vivid group portrait of hardscrabble guys whom any respectable person would be loath to meet in a dark alley: a brawling bunch whose saving grace was that they inflicted more damage on the Germans than on MPs, the English countryside, and their own officers.

This book recounts the author's experiences as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne in World War II through letters written home to his mother. As the title suggests, Guy's censored letters often forced his family to read "between the lines" to figure out the many subtle messages he was sending. Through these letters and Guy's narrative, we relive many of his experiences: Army training and the voyage to England on the S.S. Strathnaver; his historic jumps into Normandy on D-Day and into Holland during Operation Market Garden; and being seriously wounded by a German mortar shell that killed two of his friends nearly causing his own leg to be amputated. These letters show the progression of a young man as he grew in maturity and the resilience of the true and honorable soldier that emerged.

Explains what it takes to become a paratrooper, discusses the combat history of the 82nd Airborne Division, and describes the training necessary for these special soldiers.