Brian Tierney, a 19-year-old soldier from Roxbury, Connecticut, was my Radio Telephone Operator (RTO) during the time from December, 1967 to May, 1968, that I was Platoon Leader of the 3rd Platoon of D Company, 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). There are a few “natural relationships” in an infantry unit in combat, including: Machine Gunner and Assistant Gunner; Pointman and his point support; Platoon Leader and RTO, along with the Platoon Medic. Brian and I shared a pancho “hooch” many of our 144 nights in Binh Dinh and Quang Tri Provinces of Vietnam. Together, we soldiered through Tam Quan, Tet, Khe Sanh, and the A Shau Valley, along with lesser-known places in between. Brian dug our hole while I (and the Platoon Sergeant) laid in the platoon defenses, coordinated our flanks with adjoining platoons, and I attended the Company Commander’s daily meeting/brief. Brian walked with me every step of the way, not often further away than the length of the cord from radio to handset. Brian, occasionally seen with flowers on his helmet, was willing to share his opinion about how well—or not—the war, the 1st Cavalry Division, the United States Army, D Company, and of course, the 3rd Platoon were led and managed.
Nineteen days after I relinquished command of 3rd Platoon, Brian was dead, cut down by a grenade while in pursuit of an enemy soldier. To some extent, in combat, one becomes inured to death, we try to keep our relationships at arms length if we can. But that’s the thing, we can’t, really, because there are those “natural relationships, and others to whom we become close in a foxhole or under fire, like it or not. Brian was one of those I with which I was through “thick and thin.” Who I would never be able to forget.
Everything about the
story that came back from the field to LZ Sharon, where as Executive
Officer, I was based, bothered me. The Battalion Commander,
Lieutenant Colonel Robert Kerner, flying in his command helicopter,
saw a single enemy soldier escaping toward a village. Calling D
Company, located nearby, he ordered that he would pick up 3 men,
including one RTO, and put them on the ground to pursue the enemy
soldier. One didn’t have to be a soldier to recognized that as a
dumb and dangerous idea. Brian had recently transferred from 3rd
Platoon to the company command group, so was junior among the RTO’s
there, so the Company’s Commo Chief, to his regret to this very
day, selected SP4 Tierney to go on the Battalion Commander’s
“excursion.”
Reports of Brian’s death included neither
the story of a questionable tactical decision by a senior commander,
nor that Brian may have acted in self-sacrifice to protect those with
him. Of the latter we shall really never know for certain, but
circumstances seemed to support it. Those only got into the record
after unofficial and unauthorized correspondence with Brian’s
parents, and their subsequent inquire s. Ultimately, Brian’s
actions were recognized by award of the Distinguished Service Cross,
the army’s second highest award for valor, after only the Medal of
Honor. The decision to put three soldiers in harms way—in a manner
for which there was no rational, doctrinal, or tactical basis—was
quietly buried.
