John H. Cushman; innovative U.S. Army general

John H. Cushman, a retired Army lieutenant general who received multiple battlefield commendations for heroism during the Vietnam War and who later sought to bring a more flexible intellectual approach to military planning, died Nov. 8 at a military retirement facility in Washington. He was 96. The cause was a stroke, said his son John H. Cushman Jr., a former reporter in the Washington bureau of the New York Times.

Gen. Cushman grew up in a military family — his father was an Army brigadier general — and graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

He first served in the Army Corps of Engineers before requesting a transfer to the infantry in the 1950s. He served three tours of duty in Vietnam, first as a military adviser and later in command positions with the 101st Airborne Division.

During his second tour in 1967 and 1968, Gen. Cushman, then a colonel, took part in some of the fiercest fighting of the war. After North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive in January 1968, Gen. Cushman often oversaw field maneuvers from the air, sitting in the jump seat of an unarmed command helicopter.

He sometimes surprised his troops by flying through heavy fire to assist at the front lines. He received the Air Medal after one mission, the Bronze Star Medal after another and the Distinguished Flying Cross after a third. His citations noted that at times he airlifted soldiers to front lines and helped transport the dead and wounded.

On March 16, 1968, Gen. Cushman saw that the soldiers in an advance unit under his command had been cut down by machine-gun fire from a hidden bunker. After disembarking from his helicopter, he "moved forward to join the lead riflemen of the platoon" and helped coordinate a rocket attack, according to a citation accompanying his award of the Silver Star.

"Exposing himself to hostile fire at close range," the citation continued, Gen. Cushman "remained with the artillery forward observer near the enemy positions until the rocket attack was successfully completed."

Years later, a staff sergeant wrote to Gen. Cushman, describing conditions on the ground.

"I tossed over a dozen hand grenades and fired about 200 rounds from my M-16," the sergeant wrote. "We were almost out of ammo and I gave the command to fix bayonets."

At that desperate point in the battle, Gen. Cushman's helicopter could be seen returning to the front lines, hauling fresh supplies of ammunition.

"I saw your chopper come in on the other side of the small river — you were getting a lot of fire . . . and I thought that they were going to shoot you down," the sergeant wrote. "I tried to wave you off but you kept comming [sic]. I got some of my troops and we crossed the river and retrieved the ammo. You gave us a hand salute. I saluted you back and we held our own.

"If it wasn't for your bravery probably all of us would have died that day."