VietNow
National Magazine
Veterans Incarcerated
The Brothers of
Holman Unit –
Atmore, Alabama
These veterans were not always
incarcerated.
By Matt Davison – VietNow
National Veterans Incarcerated Chair
Matt
Davison |
|
In Atmore, Alabama, there is a wing
of a correctional institution named Holman
Unit. Holman Unit contains the Honor
Unit for Veterans Incarcerated, and
the vet who oversees this unit is Craig
M. Craig is in charge of remedial education
and matters of the spirit. Over the years,
Craig has received numerous kudos for
his work on behalf of Holman Unit vets,
but before making a bad choice that would
alter his life forever, he was a member
of the 173rd Brigade LRRPs, November
Company, of the 75th Rangers.
While in
Vietnam, Craig’s area
of operation was in Binh Dinh Province
on the South China Sea coast, to Kontum,
Darlac, and Pleiku province in the west.
This area had seen much heavy fighting
and several very large battles. The biggest
battles that Craig’s sky soldiers
ever fought involved whole North Vietnam
Regular Army regiments against Craig’s
company-level units in the Dak To mountains.
There was a song by “Big & Rich” called “The
8th of November,” about one of
the battles there. Other famous battles
in that area included Cemetery Hill,
Death Valley, and Hill 875.
Craig recalls
a hot, sweltering day under the jungle
canopy. Birds and monkeys screeched as
his recon squad came down the thickly
bushed and viney slope. They were all
close to exhaustion, yet each was in
fighting trim after six months of humping
the boonies and carrying heavy rucksacks
with ammo, chow, and gear.
At the time,
Craig was over 6 feet tall and weighed
140 pounds. He was the grenadier, carrying
an M-79 grenade launcher. It was a 40mm,
breech-loaded, single shot, spring front
leaf sighted weapon that weighed 7.9
pounds. It could throw a bursting/shrapnel
projectile with a 5-meter killing radius
out to 250 meters, but was really only
accurate at ranges under 200 meters.
It also fired colored flares and smoke
for signaling and white phosphorous grenades
to burn and destroy bunkers, and tear
gas cannisters to harass/subdue.
For Craig
and his band of brothers, it had been
another frustrating week of chasing the
elusive “Mr. Charles.” “We
were trying to close on with a group
said to be company size, which had been
terrorizing one of our friendly villages,” Craig
said. “The VC would rape the women
and decapitate the village chief – and
at gun point, would remove the children.
The children were made to carry away
hundreds of pounds of rice and manioc,
and to walk first through areas suspected
of being mined. If they lived long enough,
they were brainwashed into becoming Viet
Cong, and sent back to their home villages
to tell other children about the glories
of the ‘revolution.’”
Craig’s
recon squad consisted of only five young
men. The oldest one was called “Pop.” He
was a 26-year-old paratrooper-rifleman.
Though he often got out of work details
by pretending to be old and broken down,
he really was one of those kind of guys
who could do the work of two men without
any wasted motion. Then there was the
whiner. He was the only man that should
have been left in the rear. They got
rid of him by leaving him at the flight
line (chopper pad) in Da Nang.
The most
respected man in the platoon was the
squad’s point man, who
they called Frenchie. Frenchie was from
an old Huguenot family in Maryland. Like
many others, his father had been in World
War II. He was on his second tour, and
really knew “bush craft.” Then,
there was the squad leader, the third
squad leader Craig had served under.
They rotated fast, getting wounded or
killed frequently, often while looking
out for their troops. Craig was the radioman
when he first came to the Raiders platoon.
In a light and fast recon squad, an M-60
machine gun was seldom used.
One day they
were jumped by a large NVA unit. What
ensued was a running gun battle in an
attempt to fight their way clear. Going
down a ravine, Craig got separated from
his team, and several of the enemy stayed
on his heels. While the pursuers may
not have had him in visual sight, they
could hear him running through the jungle,
and fired in his general direction. Craig
got farther and farther from his team,
and too far from a pick-up site. The
normal plan for winding up in bad guy
territory was to slow down and start
using the stealth and silence learned
in training. Using those skills, he made
it back, climbed over a ridge, swam a
cold stream, climbed up to a ridge line,
and looked over a long jungle valley.
Here, Craig made a cold camp. When dawn
rose, Craig could see a U.S. Army compound.
He dodged and snaked his way up to their
wire. He then fired a red pen flare,
and this marked the beginning of when
the war became serious for him.
I’m
glad Craig made it back. We’ve
been friends for a long time. Throughout
my years of advocating for veterans with
barriers, I have been honored by prestigious
awards for my work. But the award that
still has the most meaning for me is
the 2007 Eagle Award from the veterans
of the Holman Unit in Atmore, Alabama.
Craig now wants to devote the remainder
of his days to assisting Veterans in
need and at risk.
It is my hope that
he’ll be given
that opportunity, as he’s already
done so much for his brothers at Holman.
Matt Davison,
Veterans Advocate with Joint Efforts,
Inc., began working with veterans incarcerated
two years ago through the creation of
the Veterans Support Group at the Federal
Corrections Institution at Terminal Island,
San Pedro, CA. He has also counseled
pre-release veterans at the Los Angeles
County facility in Lynwood, CA., and
worked to get a veterans incarcerated
support group set up at San Quentin.
He received the “Beacon of Light” award
from FCI Terminal Island for developing
the fastest-growing program at the institution.
Back to main Veterans Incarcerated page.
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