Floyd Watson, Looking Back on Military Service

Floyd Watson

Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on November 11, 2020.

I’m writing this just before Veteran’s Day in memory of the almost 60,000 dead and missing young men and women lost during the Vietnam War.  They never had an opportunity to live and fulfill their dreams and aspirations.  

I’m also doing this with a lot of encouragement and assistance from Marilyn Tompkins Bellert, who valiantly survived a lengthy telephone interview and provided me with an as-told-to first draft!

My East High experience was one of the very important times of my life.  All of us were in our formative years; and learning teamwork with great teammates, reaching a high level of fitness, mastering the game and working with talented coaches were not only fun, but paid dividends in my future career.  I went on to the University of Arkansas on a football scholarship.  I loved the game although I was probably a mediocre player.  Later, after transferring to the University of Colorado, I injured my leg, and that was the end of my college football time.   Since academics didn’t interest me too much, I dropped out of school and went to California to work.   While there, I got my “Congratulations, you have been selected” letter directing me to come in for a physical as part of being drafted into the military.

I had been in Air Force ROTC and flying was the plan; after all, we lived in the Air Capitol of the World!  My mom worked at Boeing and my dad at Cessna.  My dad and most of my uncles had served in the military, and there was a general expectation within the family that I would serve our country.  The draft would put me in either the Army or the Marines, not the Air Force.  My stepdad, also retired military, advised, “You’re better off to volunteer.  You get a three-year tour instead of two years, but better assignments and better education.”  My dad on the other hand, advised me NOT to volunteer for anything ever, due to his experience in World War II.  I volunteered instead of being drafted.

With some college and work experience, I qualified for Army Officer Candidate School and chose Infantry.  The six months of training was rigorous and I lost 20 pounds despite starting in excellent condition.  As we approached graduation, I decided to volunteer for everything that would make me an elite soldier.  That included Army Airborne (lots of parachuting!), Ranger School and Special Forces training.  This was perfect for a guy who loved football:  mostly outdoors and always working with a team of people 24/7/365.

About 18 months later I got my orders to Vietnam.  There were good days and bad days, a lot of exciting days and boring days, but for a relatively young man, I had lots of responsibility as commander of a Special Forces Detachment with about 300 indigenous troops. We were located on the Cambodian border with the mission of intercepting infiltration from the North Vietnamese Army.  When my tour ended in late 1968, I went back to school at the University of Colorado.  Studying primarily in the evenings, I finished in about one year.  My day job as a sales rep brought in good money, but it didn’t bring any satisfaction.  I didn’t feel like I was accomplishing anything and lacked the sense of a greater purpose I found in the Army.  During this period, I met my wife, Heidi.  One of my required classes was a phys-ed course, so I signed up for skiing.  As a flatlander, I tended to start at the top and blast straight down to the bottom.  Unfortunately, on one of these uncontrollable runs, I ran into an instructor who had her group in the middle of the hill.  This was Heidi who told me to take my skis off, get off the trail and walk down.  She saw me later in the bar and said I owed her a beer.  Thus began our dating and courtship.  We married about the time I finished college.                

I had received a letter from the Army asking if I wanted to return to active duty.  I felt more of a sense of purpose in working with young men and serving in the defense of our country, and although Heidi doesn’t remember my talking to her about it, I decided to go back into Special Forces, requiring us to move to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.  She was not happy being surprised, but she has stayed with me for 50 plus years through 27 moves.  Some of these moves were local, some international.  Heidi says, if you have to box it all up and move it, whether it’s from temporary housing to permanent housing on the same base, or across the country or the world, it’s a move.  Stuff needs to be separated and prepared for the professional movers and stuff needs to be put away.  It’s definitely harder for the families, and as an example, our son, Patrick was in seven schools by ninth grade.  They both survived and Patrick is happily married and living about two blocks from us.  (Photo above- Preparing for a parachute demonstration)

To me, the Army was a great life and a great career.  I was working with young men, training them, leading them, sometimes in dangerous situations.  You always have to accomplish the mission, and you are always looking out for the welfare of the men assigned to you.  I would recommend a military career to anybody who is willing to travel and interested in seeing a lot of the world.

After a year at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville, NC, we went to Okinawa for almost three years and really liked it.  Okinawa had been a U.S. protectorate, and while we were there, they voted to rejoin Japan.  The U.S. had a huge installation there, but land travel was limited because it’s a relatively small island.  While I traveled a great deal on missions off island, Heidi found a job at American Express Bank and was involved with the Wives Group as well as learning  local customs.  We got to do some scuba diving and travel up to Sapporo to ski.  On our way home to the States, we visited the Philippines, Bangkok, Burma, Hong Kong and Hawaii.  It was a great experience and we met many good people, making lifelong friends along the way.

My next orders after the Infantry Officers Advanced Course, sent us to Gelnhausen, Germany, near Frankfurt, for three years during the mid-70’s.  Heidi had stayed at Fort Benning, GA until our son, Patrick was eight weeks old, then she packed up and brought our son to Germany.  My unit was part of the 3rd Armored Division with a warfighting capability, including a mix of armored, infantry, artillery, and support units that would task organize for battle.  Our mission was to prepare for a Soviet invasion defending the Fulda Gap, the most likely location for a Soviet main attack. This didn’t happen, but our job was to be prepared.  After working in operations at Battalion HQ, which gave me a broad view of the mission and its challenges, I served as Company Commander for 18 months, responsible for approximately 150 men, a lot of soldiers and a lot of mechanized equipment, including a tank platoon when organized for the battle plan.

Back to the U.S. and this time to Pennsylvania for work at the Reserve and National Guard Training Center at Indiantown Gap, about 15 miles north of Harrisburg, PA in the foothills of the Alleghenies.  It was a great place and I enjoyed the work and loved the outdoor recreation in the area.  After 3 years, time to go to school again to Fort Leavenworth and the Amy Staff Officers Course. (Photo at left, Heidi and Floyd Watson at Ft. Leavenworth)

After a couple of years at Fort Monroe, VA with duty as an Inspector General, we received orders back to Germany.  I loved Germany!  Good beer.  Good food.  Good people.  You can drive as fast as you want (in some places on the autobahn).  I enjoyed the military life there as well as the skiing and traveling to other European countries:  Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Ireland, England and more.  I worked on the staff at the European Command in Stuttgart and was also fortunate to command a Special Forces Battalion in Bad Toelz at the foot of the Alps, located in an old Nazi-era training center.  We spent a total of nine years in Germany, four of them in the beautiful area of Bad Toelz.

Back to the States, this time I was selected to attend the Navy War College in Rhode Island, another beautiful spot where I spent an “academically rigorous” year with senior Lt. Colonel and Colonel level officers from all the military services.  Although I really didn’t want to work that hard, I eventually came to enjoy the academics and the camaraderie.

My next assignment was three years at the Pentagon, and of all my assignments, the one I liked the least.  Too close to DC, it was primarily a planning and support headquarters, not a war-fighting, operational mission which I preferred.  I had a really good job, Chief of the Army’s Special Operations staff section, but was glad when I could finally change jobs.  However, the posting was good for our son Patrick who got to finish the last three years of high school in the same place and graduate.

My next, and last, assignment before retirement would have been as Special Operations Command’s liaison to the CIA, but I really didn’t want to stay in DC.  At a training session in Florida, I reconnected with a friend from prior assignments, now a four-star general who had worked in DC as little as possible.  He knew there was a job at Ft. Bragg that I would enjoy, and he agreed to help make arrangements.   I was happy, and our last Army tour took us back to Fort Bragg where we stayed until 1998.   However, I found that Heidi wasn’t thrilled about moving.  She liked Virginia and had a successful business there organizing pilgrimages to the Holy Land.  When I said, “You told me to do what I thought best,” she gave me the book Men Are from Mars, Women are From Venus.  I learned that women like to talk things out while men like to just fix things.   I specifically learned that I was to “find out what was possible” and then we’d talk about it and “we would decide;”  however, she reluctantly agreed, and off we went to North Carolina for our last four years of military life.   Lots of training and lots of operational action.  First assignment was chief of staff of the Army’s Special Operations Command, then I volunteered (one last time) to Bosnia-Herzegovina for a last short tour, doing peace enforcement in command of a multi-national Special Operations Command.  While there, I received a not-unexpected letter announcing that it was time to retire.  After 30 years, it was time to go. 

One good thing about the military: if you have a bad boss, the assignment won’t last long, because the military constantly rotates people.  Sometimes I worked for a boss who let people do their jobs.  Other times, I worked for a micromanager who was always looking over our shoulders.  Either the boss or I would change jobs within a year or so, and I learned to be patient, flexible and stay focused.

Also important for me were the opportunities for leadership, the subject of a many of the Amy’s training courses and many books.  The most important factor, I believe, is to ensure that subordinates are trained to the best of their abilities.  The better trained, the better their chances of surviving.  A successful leader must be completely honest, especially with younger guys, treat people fairly, giving them equal opportunities and not playing favorites.  I saw situations where commanders, including some at the highest ranks, got into trouble for playing favorites or fell into traps where they gave preferential treatment.  This was especially bad when the subordinate was of the opposite sex.  In some cases, I saw commanders relieved even when they had not done anything except allow the perception of misconduct.

Rising through the ranks from Private to Colonel, I often thought about the Peter Principal and suspected that I might have risen beyond the level of my capabilities – I certainly ended up much higher than I expected.  In any case, I considered it a great opportunity to serve this great country and contribute in a small way to the defense of the nation!  It was a great life and I got an extraordinary education along the way.

After retirement we returned to northern Virginia where I worked as a government contractor for 10 years, developing new tactics, training and warfighting equipment.  Once the contract ended in 2010, I decided to transition to real retirement.

After decades of living all over the world, my wife Heidi and I have retired to a golf course community in Virginia, about 60 miles south of Washington, DC, located in the middle of a beautiful area where one of the Civil War’s most fierce battles, Battle of the Wilderness, occurred in 1864.  Civil War battlefields are one of my interests after a long career in the U.S. Army, and I’ve volunteered as a guide at a Civil War battlefield, giving tours for people from all over the world.  Heidi has been able to continue with her pilgrimage business and is also a licensed tour guide.  Our son and his wife live close by, our dog Harley is a great companion, and life is good.

Note: At our 2022 Reunion, Heidi shared that she now serves as a tour guide for veterans on Honor Flights. She find the Honor Flight program and the veterans to be very inspiring.