THE BOYS DOG COMPANY OF ONCE
173rd Airborne Brigade veterans hold Oklahoma City reunion
The memories of Bob Allen’s first firefight in Vietnam center on 26 Americans killed in the span of 90 minutes.
For Tom Baird, it’s a former West Point schoolmate assigned to replace him after Baird was wounded, only to be killed just days later.
For Mike Burton, it’s the booby trap that took his sight as he walked through tall elephant grass.
All are veterans of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, one of the most iconic units in American military history. This week, more than 600 former troopers are in Oklahoma City for their annual reunion. Made up mostly of Vietnam-era veterans, the gatherings are a place where hugs, tears and old war stories are never in short supply.
“The tales get taller every time we’re together,” Burton joked.
Allen, Baird and Burton served together in Dog Company. At 78, Baird is the senior
member of the group. Burton and Allen served as his platoon leaders. He was their captain. Having survived monsoons, firefights and booby traps, they share a bond forged by a common, terrifying experience.
As they sat this week in Allen’s northwest Oklahoma City living room, the ranks didn’t seem to matter anymore, but there was clear reverence for Baird, their leader. Both men admit they wouldn’t have made it out of Vietnam alive without him.
Life in combat
Allen grew up in Oklahoma City. He entered service at age 19. He had been in Vietnam for about six weeks before he got his first taste of combat. Hill 830 near Dak To.
“Being my first firefight I was stunned by the volume of gunfire, yelling and explosions,” Allen said. “I had never heard anything like it. It was the sound one would only hear in combat.”
A monsoon kept the units from receiving air support. They were more or less on their own. When it was over, 26 of his fellow soldiers lay dead and nearly 50 more were wounded.
“We took it pretty hard that day,” Allen said.
Then there was the time he saw one of his fellow troopers shot through the temple. The bullet went in one side of his head and out the other. The injured soldier was able to walk to get help. He lived.
For Baird, one of his darkest moments was learning of the death of his West Point schoolmate who had replaced him as Dog Company commander after Baird was himself badly wounded in the arm.
“I felt a certain amount of grief that I wasn’t there,” he said. “If the bullet had just gone through my arm I would have been. I had such remorse that this great young man that I knew was killed when I should have been there.”
Burton, a Virginia Military Institute graduate, paid the highest physical price of the three. An eager first lieutenant back for a second tour, he tripped a booby trap while on patrol.
He’s been blind and partially deaf ever since.
The details of that moment are still clear.
“When I came to I was lying on the ground,” he said. “I couldn’t hear anything or feel anything but I could tell guys were cutting my equipment off. I knew I was in serious trouble. A helicopter landed close by and I could hear it so I knew I hadn’t lost all my hearing. But I was really afraid my body was torn up.”
“I was very fortunate I survived and I didn’t lose any arms or legs,” Burton said.
For Baird, combat was all business all the time. In a way, he found being in charge comforting.
“You can’t worry about yourself,” he said. “You have some fear, but you have a job to do. You know people are going to die if you don’t do the right thing.”
Allen said the sound of infantry combat is unmistakable.
“It’s not just rounds, it’s hundreds of rounds, thousands of rounds,” he said. “All at once. It’s a sound you can’t hear any place else but in war.”
A connection
For Christine Crabtree-Stegeman, these reunions are a bridge to her past.
The daughter of Capt. Michael Crabtree didn’t attend her first reunion until she reached age 50. She was 5 when her father died.
“I lived a life covered over with sadness,” she said. “I couldn’t talk about my father or read about him without being overwhelmed. When I came to the first reunion I met Bob (Allen) who was with my dad when he died. Tom (Baird) was the captain of the company my dad took over. It cleaned up the sadness. I can speak about him now.”
Burton, Baird and Allen have become a part of her life.
“They’re like fathers, they care for me like a father,” she said. “I love them immensely. They’ve given me an enormous gift. They’ve given me my father back.”
Coming home
Burton and Allen returned home together, though Burton would return to Vietnam for his ill-fated second tour. They can recall flying across the Pacific to Seattle. Burton looked out the window of the plane and mountain tops punching through the low clouds, and he wondered if he survived the war only to die in a plane crash.
Recovered from the injuries that left him blind, Burton went back to college and earned a master’s degree in education. He has spent his postwar life in Virginia where he was employed as a counselor and supervisor for an agency that works with the blind.
Baird spent 20 years in the Army and, in the end, did three tours in Vietnam. The New Jersey native retired and went into the family lumber business. He volunteers his time teaching a class in Vietnam history at his local high school.
“With a lot of those children, there’s a real reverence for Vietnam,” Baird said.
Allen returned to Oklahoma and got his business degree at the University of Oklahoma. He’s now retired. Like Burton, he’s also blind, though it’s not related to his service.
They have lives away from Vietnam, but these reunion weekends are cherished. There are receptions and dinners, and a lot of love.
“You are a band of brothers,” Baird said. “Doesn’t matter what your color, creed or religion is. You all bleed the same red.”
All three think about those who didn’t make it home. Crabtree, and the others in Dog Company. Burton is blind, but the images of those men he served with populate his mind.
“I can still see their faces,” he said.