Rick Solerno was a pretty tough guy from New Jersey who took what he wanted when he saw what he wanted and never once expressed remorse. At one point in my first few days with the 101st Airborne, Rick conned me into helping him steal an $18,300 trailer mounted 30 Kilowatt power generator for our company. On another occasion, I was drinking a warm beer walking towards our assigned bunker when I noticed Rick down the hill from me by an open jeep where some unsuspecting helicopter pilot had left his flight helmet. Rick had no use for the flight helmet but wanted one for a souvenir. He walked up to the jeep and nonchalantly took the pilot’s helmet as I watched. I was at my assigned bunker when Rick came over proudly showing off his helmet.
“So what are you going to with that, Rick?” I asked.
"Oh, hell, I’m mailing it back home.It’s going to be my war souvenir,” he said.
I mentioned “But you do know that boxes mailed from here are checked to keep anyone from mailing back contraband?” Rick didn’t care.He took the risk.It worked.
US Army Field Manual 271 strickly forbids theft of civilian property in combat areas. It fails to include penalties for theft of government property but may be covered in Title 10 of US Code. I would like to think that Solerno was well aware of this field manual, so his thefts were selectively from the US Government sector.
Sadly, Rick passed away just a few years ago, but I could imagine him probably holding his flight helmet while sitting in his easy chair somewhere back in New Jersey telling his grandkids how he was a badass Cobra pilot back in the war.
As fearless as Rick was as a liberator of other people’s property, he was tremendously frightened during mortar and rocket attacks. We were hunkered down in our assigned bunker with rockets hitting all around us. Our motor pool tent some twenty meters away took a direct hit destroying it completely and started the barrels of mogas2 and oil burning. Two of our trucks (one loaded with mogas and kerosene cans) took a direct hit erupting into a massive fireball just a few meters downhill from our bunker. I could see the billowing, raging fireball from our bunker. During the attack about ten of us were in our bunker sitting along the walls, our knees touching at the closeness. Rick Solerno was sitting to my right. His knees were shaking something fierce, but I never mentioned it then nor later. While his knees were shaking at the fright, Rick was talking tough. “Yeah, those sonnavabitches don’t know what’s coming to them soon as our Cobras get airborne. Our Cobras are gonna rain hell on those poor bastards.” His voice did not betray his great fear for it was clear, distinct and totally coherent. Rick was right. Once origination of the fire was identified, artillery trained on the enemy location. There is an artillery tactic called time-on-target. At a coordinated time all available artillery pieces spread out over a support area are trained on the identified enemy coordinates. The result is an instant death blow resulting in total death and destruction to anyone and anything in that kill zone. The rockets and mortars abruptly stopped. The Cobras then followed up with their own killing machines.
Fear can be controlled but not completely suppressed, and it does not get any easier in repeated attacks. Like the rest of us, Rick was frightened that night – VERY frightened. Fear can paralyze a soldier, but it did not paralyze Rick. Instead of cold silence while following the drill practiced and learned, Rick felt a need to talk tough while shaking profusely and being frantically frightened. In the darkness of our bunker, no one else detected Rick’s elevated fright.I never told - until now.
Rick passed away in 2013 after a successful career in the civilian sector. R.I.P., brother.
1 - FM 27-10 - Conduct in Combat Under the Rule of War.
2 - Motor gasoline.
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