By Lee Russell
The "Inspiration" for this show was a conversation I had with
Steve Smith.
When I discussed this with Steve Smith, it reminded him of a similar
ex-sergeant he had served with, who once crawled through a minefield at night
to get to a village where he might obtain, well, rental female companionship.
In discussing the episode with the writer, we considered how to introduce the
character. I suggested the stolen Chaplain's jeep and we laughed about how
this was to be ToD's first "car chase". Another question was how the arrest
would be handled. Would Decker be handcuffed, for example? I worked with a
Vietnam-era military policeman who explained the arrest proceedure back then.
The incident with the mine happened to a friend of mine. Claymore mines were
command-detonated, directional anti-personnel mines that fired most (not all)
of their energy and shrapnel in one direction. They were often used for
ambushes, or for perimeter defense. VC "sappers" loved to turn them around
and then trick you into setting them off in your own direction. My friend had
been on ambush, near a firebase, and, after an uneventful night, went out to
retrieve the Claymore only to discover a Viet Cong actually stealing the
mine. As I recall, the two stared at each other for a moment, my friend
yelled "hey" and the VC ran away, without the mine.
.
I had previously written a memo on various things going on in the Army
"culture" during this period. Drinking to excess was certainly part of Army
life back then, and the Vietnam-era Army had a lot of alcoholic old soldiers
like Decker. The character was based on a real ex-sergeant I knew of, from
another unit. He was rumored to have been a former First Sergeant, and a
Korea veteran, but now alternated between the lowest enlisted grades. The
"Lifer's Association", as we termed the Army's non-commissioned officer corps
(the career sergeants) protected him as he struggled to get enough time to
retire with a decent pension. He looked 70 years old, he was maybe in his
forties. Like Decker, he had been consigned to working in a fuel dump.
Whatever sympathy you might have for him as a person was tempered by his
being a real SOB and a mean drunk. The last I heard of him, he was awaiting
court-martial for trying to kill a sergeant friend of mine as he slept.