An American captain on his second tour of duty in Vietnam had just arrived at our team. Someone called me from the main office asking me to come pick the captain up so he could have his incoming audience with the Senior Advisor. I walked across the Vietnamese compound, walked into our team compound and met Captain Ryan. He seemed like a very decent and relaxed officer, which was in contrast with many of the officers I would come in contact with.
As we were walking back through the Vietnamese compound to the Senior Advisor’s office, we chatted some. He asked me where I was from. “I’m Mexican but made, born and raised in Texas, the largest unfrozen state,” I replied. He chuckled. The captain had to wait around for some time for the Senior Advisor to return from his daily trips to outlying teams. Sergeant Major Hayes entertained the new captain with stories about his World War II and Korean War experiences. The captain seemed bored with the stories but appeared to be showing polite interest in the many stories I had heard on more than one or two occasions.
After meeting the Senior Advisor, I took him to G-2 Intelligence Directorate for a briefing. From there, I escorted the captain around introducing him to other staff members and showed him around our compound. Captain Ryan was impressed with our mess hall saying we had much better mess facilities than the main advisory command in Saigon. "And unlike Tan Son Nhut and Saigon, we get real milk here," I boasted. "Unfortunately, the field team you'll be going to does not have mess facility, but I'm hoping you can come back here and enjoy our mess hall whenever you have free time." He promised to do that.
When we were done with the tour, I drove him around the compound pointing out the airfield where a helicopter would be transporting him to his new unit of assignment as one of the Battalion Advisors of the 25th Vietnamese Infantry Division.
Shortly after that, I left Team 99 for assignment to Advisory Team 51 at Bac Lieu. From time to time whenever I visited Saigon, I would call Team 99 to chat with some of the folks who were still there. It was during one of these calls that I learned the captain had been killed only a month or so after I left Advisory Team 99. He was seeing off an American helicopter that had just delivered supplies for him and his teammates. The turbulence created by the helicopter’s lift set off a landmine that was near the captain. He died on the scene. He had been back in Vietnam only five or six weeks. His name and memory are forever enshrined on Panel 54W at the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.
Tragedies in combat occur in so many unfortunate ways.
May you forever rest in peace, Captain Ryan.
Captain Lawrence Brendan Ryan
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