Mick-Boy
02-11-2014, 11:11
I pulled this off the RE Factor Tactical blog (http://blog.refactortactical.com/major-dick-meadows/). I thought some here might be interested in the story of a quiet professional from days gone by.
Major Dick Meadows: The Quiet Professional
Throughout our nation’s history there have been several men and women of all ranks and branches of the U.S. military that have served our country with honor distinction. Few warriors have contributed more to his nation or to the development of Special Forces than Dick Meadows.
His unique historical contribution from Korea to Vietnam and finally to the tier 1 unit known as “Delta Force” is a legacy that serves as enduring example to both soldiers and citizens as alike.
Korea
He lived the life on which books are written -in the plural. Meadows was born June 16, 1931 in a dirt-floor Virginia moonshiner’s cabin. He enlisted in the Army at the age of 16 just after World War II. His first service was with the 456th Field Artillery Battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division (Ashburner 1999).
In early 1951 Meadows volunteered for assignment to the 674th Field Artillery Battalion, 187th Regimental Combat Team, Korea. There he served with distinction and became the youngest Master Sergeant in the war, at age 20. After serving in Korea, Meadows volunteered for Special Forces, and in March 1953 he was assigned to the 10th Special Forces Group. For the next 24 years, Meadows served in the SOF community, with assignments in both Ranger and Special Forces (SF) units (Ashburner 1999).
Special Air Service
Meadows was the first enlisted U.S. Army soldier to complete a two year exchange program with the famed British 22nd Special Air Service, Britain’s top counterterrorism unit (J. Plaster 1999). He was the first Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) to be selected for the program, and his performance with the SAS was distinguished by several milestones: he completed the SAS selection course; he was the first of two foreign soldiers to be awarded SAS wings, and he served for 12 months as a troop commander in a Sabre Squadron, a position normally held by a British Captain (Ashburner 1999).
While serving with the SAS, Meadows was selected to participate in a real-world mission in Oman against terrorists and gun smugglers. He met his wife Pamela in England. She was the daughter of an SAS Sergeant Major. His time in the SAS would become a primary factor in him helping Colonel Charlie Beckwith form the U.S. version of the SAS called “Delta Force” almost 20 years later.
Southeast Asia
Meadows deployed to Southwest Asia in an assignment to Operation White Star in Laos. White Star was a classic foreign internal defense (FID) mission, conducted to advise, equip, and train Laotian security forces in counterinsurgency operations against the Communist North Vietnamese backed Pathet Lao forces trying to overthrow the government. It was while in Laos that Meadows met the legendary Special Forces Colonel Arthur “Bull” Simons and worked with him on a program to organize and arm the Kha tribal groups. Knowing Simons would be pivotal in a later assignment for Meadows.
SOG Team Leader Extraordinaire
After Laos and after spending a few years in Panama, in 1965, Meadows volunteered for a second tour in Southeast Asia. This one took him to Vietnam and to SOG. Military Assistance Vietnam- Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG), was a highly classified, multi-service United States special operations unit which conducted the most dangerous covert unconventional warfare operations during the Vietnam War.
SOG personnel operated beyond the constraints of territorial borders of the country of South Vietnam. The performing a myriad of the covert mission throughout
Southeast Asia. MACV-SOG recon teams were initially called “SPIKE TEAMS,” each team consisting of three U.S. Special Forces (SF) Soldiers and nine indigenous personnel (Stanton 1985). The Recon Teams specialized in intelligence gathering and direct action in the heart of areas either controlled or dominated by the enemy. Once again, Meadows excelled.
Meadows operated in SOG- Command and Control Central which fielded approximately 25 Reconnaissance Teams named after U.S.States (Stanton 1985). They did their best to recon, raid, attack and disrupt the enemy’s Ho Chi Minh Trail network in Laos and Cambodia (Plaster 2009).
Meadows would spend two years in SOG, all of it running missions deep behind enemy lines in Laos and North Vietnam while leading Chinese Nung mercenaries on Recon Team Iowa. Before each operation, Meadows built a terrain map in the dirt, then had his whole team memorize the prominent features.
During one of Meadows’ first cross-border reconnaissance missions into Laos, his team captured a battery of Russian made 75mm howitzers, still packed in Cosmoline, just about to be shipped south from North Vietnam (J. L. Plaster 1998). As proof to their find, Meadows’ team returned from the mission with the Russian made fire control equipment.
This was the first concrete evidence to support President Lyndon Johnson’s claim that the Vietnam conflict was more than an internal revolutionary war as the both the Communist North Vietnamese and Soviets claimed (Ashburner 1999). This proof of external sponsorship was of such importance that General William C. Westmoreland, the senior U.S. commander in Vietnam, personally debriefed Meadows and his team (Ashburner 1999).
Much of Meadows’ reputation evolved from capturing prisoners, at which according to then- Colonel Jack Singlaub, Meadows proved SOG’s most prolific prisoner snatcher, bringing back 13 North Vietnamese Army Soldiers from Laos (J. Plaster 1999).
Meadows completed more than two-dozen missions into North Vietnam and Laos. Westmoreland recommended him for a battlefield commission, the first of the Vietnam War and the one of only two that Westmoreland would make during his four years as commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam (Ashburner 1999).
Upon completion of this tour, Meadows was assigned to Fort Benning, GA., where on April 14, 1967, he received a direct appointment to Captain (Ashburner 1999). Meadows subsequently returned to Vietnam for a second MACV/SOG tour, and once again returned to Fort Benning, where he served with the Ranger Department (Hoe 2011).
POW Rescue at Son Tay
Meadows’ best known mission was the Son Tay Raid, in November, 1970. The mission was an attempted rescue of American POWs from a prison just 23 miles west of Hanoi. Meadows was chosen by the Mission Task Force Commander, Colonel Arthur “Bull” Simons, not only to lead the assault element, but to serve as the primary trainer of the entire raiding force. He was responsible for teaching these brave volunteers everything he’d learned about close quarters combat and small unit tactics (Hoe 2011).
When the raiders landed at Son Tay, it was Meadows’ voice on the megaphone that called, “We’re Americans. Keep your heads down. This is a rescue…. We’ll be in your cells in a minute,” (J. Plaster 1999). But Son Tay was empty. The POWs had been moved while the camp was being refurbished. Though an intelligence failure, the raid boosted POW morale and compelled Hanoi to cease mistreating American prisoners (J. L. Plaster 1998).
Son Tay Legacy
The Son Tay assault plan has been widely considered as the first ‘Delta’ mission due to the impact the detailed planning and execution had on the Unit that followed – the template from that historic raid is still being used to this day (Vickers 2013).
The Son Tay Raid inspired the Israeli rescue mission six years later at Entebbe, right down to the megaphone instructions to captives (J. Plaster 1999).
Delta Force
Following the raid at Son Tay, Meadows was promoted to major and served a tour in the 10th Special Forces Group. He concluded his military career in 1977 as the Training Officer and Deputy Commander for the jungle phase of Ranger School at Camp Rudder, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida (Ashburner 1999).
Meadows retired with 30 years of service in 1977, with 24 years in Special Operations units, but he couldn’t stay away long, especially when Colonel ‘Chargin Charlie’ Beckwith asked him to be the civilian trainer of his newly formed counter-terrorist unit, Delta Force (J. Plaster 1999).
Dick Meadows had a lot more to do with forming Delta than he was publicly given credit for. In Charlie Beckwith’s book ‘The Delta Force,’ it is well known that Beckwith was not only the first commander but also ramrodded the concept of Delta to the powers that be and turned it into a reality.
Commanders of a unit are overseers, captains of the ship if you will, they are not individuals who get into the weeds and get dirty ‘forming’ a new capability; those situations require subject matter experts and experienced NCO’s who are true masters of their trade and can sort thru the task at hand and bring a new capability to life (Vickers 2013). These individuals are mission focused, motivated, confident, and are true leaders that inspire confidence up and down the chain of command; in other words they are like Dick Meadows (Vickers 2013).
Working as a special civilian ‘advisor’ to Beckwith, Meadows helped organize, select, refine, develop, and train future Delta Force operators – his ‘fingerprints’ can be seen in every aspect of that organization today from the extremely demanding selection and assessment course, operator training course, detailed mission planning, and professional standards and attention to detail that Delta is famous for (Vickers 2013).
Tehran
Again, Dick Meadows was the right man, in the right place, at exactly the right time. He was instrumental in the planning, the preparation and the execution of Operation Eagle Claw.
The Carter Administration had gutted the CIA of operatives capable of reconning the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, leaving Delta Force planners without the tactical details they needed (Ashburner 1999).
A CIA bureaucrat initially rejected Meadows as a covert advance man, calling him, “An amateur with poor cover, poor backup and poor training,” (J. Plaster 1999). Meadows told the CIA he’d go into Tehran with or without their assistance. Given those options, the CIA approved Meadows and had him issued a false Irish passport.
Apparently, Iranian immigration couldn’t tell the difference between an Irish brogue and West Virginia twang, because they waved Meadows – posing as ‘Richard Keith,’ a European auto executive – right through customs.
Meadows surveyed the U.S. Embassy and reconned Delta Force’s planned route into the city and watched for any hint of hostile counter-surveillance. Within a week he established clandestine mission support activities in and around Tehran.
He found a warehouse in which the CIA and a Green Beret advance team had hidden Delta’s trucks and gear for the raid. The plan was for Meadows to guide the Delta raiders then join them in the assault – but they never got to him.
On April 24, 1980, nearly 200 members of a U.S. joint special operations task force infiltrated Iran by air in an attempt to rescue 53 Americans held hostage in the American Embassy in Tehran.
Regrettably, a disastrous aircraft collision at Desert One claimed the lives of eight personnel, forcing the mission to be aborted. Although the mission failed, the courage and commitment of Meadows and his fellow rescuers did not. Due to satellite communications problems, Meadows did not learn what had happened for 24 hours and barely escaped into Turkey (J. Plaster 1999).
Later Years
Meadows also played a yet undisclosed role in the 1979 rescue of two H. Ross Perot employees from an Iranian prison, a mission led by his old boss, Colonel Arthur ‘Bull’ Simons. The mission was the basis of Ken Follett’s 1983 bestseller, “On Wings of Eagles.” “Virtually no one outside the black ops and Special Forces community knew of Dick Meadows until he made the cover of Newsweek in the early 1980s.” (J. Plaster 1999).
In later years Meadows had worked in Central and South American countries, training security personnel in everything from basic security procedures to antiterrorist precautions (Ashburner 1999).
During his career he’d been awarded every U.S. valor award except the Medal of Honor. “If he hadn’t done so many things that are classified, he’d been the most decorated soldier in the Army,” Colonel Elliot ‘Bud’ Sydnor, the ground force commander at Son Tay, told Newsweek magazine for a 1982 cover story (J. Plaster 1999).
When H. Ross Perot learned of Meadows’ imminent death, he reportedly phoned President Clinton to see that he was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal. It was presented posthumously to his family by the U.S. Special Operations Command commander, General Wayne Downing, who relayed the President’s condolences and called Meadows, “one of America’s finest unsung heroes,” (J. Plaster 1999).
Meadow’s Legacy
Beyond his military accomplishments and acts of selfless service Meadows helped pioneer small, but key pieces of equipment for SOF use such as the ‘Singlepoint’ sight used by Son Tay raiders for night time target engagements (Vickers 2013). This concept eventually led to red dot sights such as Aimpoints and Eotechs which are standard issue for US Special Operations and could be considered the greatest combat target engagement enhancement in small arms history (Vickers 2013).
The resume of Dick Meadows remarkable career captures the highlights of recent special operations history. But what it cannot capture are his depth and strength of character: Despite his consummate achievements, Meadows remained a modest individual who was more interested in his next mission than his past accomplishments.
While others in special operations sought fame, Dick Meadows, who contributed greatly to the legacy of U.S. Special Operations, religiously maintained a low profile and avoided the press. Because of his humbleness, his dedication and his accomplishments, Dick Meadows will endure as a personification of the “Quiet Professional,” (Ashburner 1999)
- See more at: http://blog.refactortactical.com/major-dick-meadows/#sthash.cWx89QcB.dpuf
Major Dick Meadows: The Quiet Professional
Throughout our nation’s history there have been several men and women of all ranks and branches of the U.S. military that have served our country with honor distinction. Few warriors have contributed more to his nation or to the development of Special Forces than Dick Meadows.
His unique historical contribution from Korea to Vietnam and finally to the tier 1 unit known as “Delta Force” is a legacy that serves as enduring example to both soldiers and citizens as alike.
Korea
He lived the life on which books are written -in the plural. Meadows was born June 16, 1931 in a dirt-floor Virginia moonshiner’s cabin. He enlisted in the Army at the age of 16 just after World War II. His first service was with the 456th Field Artillery Battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division (Ashburner 1999).
In early 1951 Meadows volunteered for assignment to the 674th Field Artillery Battalion, 187th Regimental Combat Team, Korea. There he served with distinction and became the youngest Master Sergeant in the war, at age 20. After serving in Korea, Meadows volunteered for Special Forces, and in March 1953 he was assigned to the 10th Special Forces Group. For the next 24 years, Meadows served in the SOF community, with assignments in both Ranger and Special Forces (SF) units (Ashburner 1999).
Special Air Service
Meadows was the first enlisted U.S. Army soldier to complete a two year exchange program with the famed British 22nd Special Air Service, Britain’s top counterterrorism unit (J. Plaster 1999). He was the first Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) to be selected for the program, and his performance with the SAS was distinguished by several milestones: he completed the SAS selection course; he was the first of two foreign soldiers to be awarded SAS wings, and he served for 12 months as a troop commander in a Sabre Squadron, a position normally held by a British Captain (Ashburner 1999).
While serving with the SAS, Meadows was selected to participate in a real-world mission in Oman against terrorists and gun smugglers. He met his wife Pamela in England. She was the daughter of an SAS Sergeant Major. His time in the SAS would become a primary factor in him helping Colonel Charlie Beckwith form the U.S. version of the SAS called “Delta Force” almost 20 years later.
Southeast Asia
Meadows deployed to Southwest Asia in an assignment to Operation White Star in Laos. White Star was a classic foreign internal defense (FID) mission, conducted to advise, equip, and train Laotian security forces in counterinsurgency operations against the Communist North Vietnamese backed Pathet Lao forces trying to overthrow the government. It was while in Laos that Meadows met the legendary Special Forces Colonel Arthur “Bull” Simons and worked with him on a program to organize and arm the Kha tribal groups. Knowing Simons would be pivotal in a later assignment for Meadows.
SOG Team Leader Extraordinaire
After Laos and after spending a few years in Panama, in 1965, Meadows volunteered for a second tour in Southeast Asia. This one took him to Vietnam and to SOG. Military Assistance Vietnam- Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG), was a highly classified, multi-service United States special operations unit which conducted the most dangerous covert unconventional warfare operations during the Vietnam War.
SOG personnel operated beyond the constraints of territorial borders of the country of South Vietnam. The performing a myriad of the covert mission throughout
Southeast Asia. MACV-SOG recon teams were initially called “SPIKE TEAMS,” each team consisting of three U.S. Special Forces (SF) Soldiers and nine indigenous personnel (Stanton 1985). The Recon Teams specialized in intelligence gathering and direct action in the heart of areas either controlled or dominated by the enemy. Once again, Meadows excelled.
Meadows operated in SOG- Command and Control Central which fielded approximately 25 Reconnaissance Teams named after U.S.States (Stanton 1985). They did their best to recon, raid, attack and disrupt the enemy’s Ho Chi Minh Trail network in Laos and Cambodia (Plaster 2009).
Meadows would spend two years in SOG, all of it running missions deep behind enemy lines in Laos and North Vietnam while leading Chinese Nung mercenaries on Recon Team Iowa. Before each operation, Meadows built a terrain map in the dirt, then had his whole team memorize the prominent features.
During one of Meadows’ first cross-border reconnaissance missions into Laos, his team captured a battery of Russian made 75mm howitzers, still packed in Cosmoline, just about to be shipped south from North Vietnam (J. L. Plaster 1998). As proof to their find, Meadows’ team returned from the mission with the Russian made fire control equipment.
This was the first concrete evidence to support President Lyndon Johnson’s claim that the Vietnam conflict was more than an internal revolutionary war as the both the Communist North Vietnamese and Soviets claimed (Ashburner 1999). This proof of external sponsorship was of such importance that General William C. Westmoreland, the senior U.S. commander in Vietnam, personally debriefed Meadows and his team (Ashburner 1999).
Much of Meadows’ reputation evolved from capturing prisoners, at which according to then- Colonel Jack Singlaub, Meadows proved SOG’s most prolific prisoner snatcher, bringing back 13 North Vietnamese Army Soldiers from Laos (J. Plaster 1999).
Meadows completed more than two-dozen missions into North Vietnam and Laos. Westmoreland recommended him for a battlefield commission, the first of the Vietnam War and the one of only two that Westmoreland would make during his four years as commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam (Ashburner 1999).
Upon completion of this tour, Meadows was assigned to Fort Benning, GA., where on April 14, 1967, he received a direct appointment to Captain (Ashburner 1999). Meadows subsequently returned to Vietnam for a second MACV/SOG tour, and once again returned to Fort Benning, where he served with the Ranger Department (Hoe 2011).
POW Rescue at Son Tay
Meadows’ best known mission was the Son Tay Raid, in November, 1970. The mission was an attempted rescue of American POWs from a prison just 23 miles west of Hanoi. Meadows was chosen by the Mission Task Force Commander, Colonel Arthur “Bull” Simons, not only to lead the assault element, but to serve as the primary trainer of the entire raiding force. He was responsible for teaching these brave volunteers everything he’d learned about close quarters combat and small unit tactics (Hoe 2011).
When the raiders landed at Son Tay, it was Meadows’ voice on the megaphone that called, “We’re Americans. Keep your heads down. This is a rescue…. We’ll be in your cells in a minute,” (J. Plaster 1999). But Son Tay was empty. The POWs had been moved while the camp was being refurbished. Though an intelligence failure, the raid boosted POW morale and compelled Hanoi to cease mistreating American prisoners (J. L. Plaster 1998).
Son Tay Legacy
The Son Tay assault plan has been widely considered as the first ‘Delta’ mission due to the impact the detailed planning and execution had on the Unit that followed – the template from that historic raid is still being used to this day (Vickers 2013).
The Son Tay Raid inspired the Israeli rescue mission six years later at Entebbe, right down to the megaphone instructions to captives (J. Plaster 1999).
Delta Force
Following the raid at Son Tay, Meadows was promoted to major and served a tour in the 10th Special Forces Group. He concluded his military career in 1977 as the Training Officer and Deputy Commander for the jungle phase of Ranger School at Camp Rudder, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida (Ashburner 1999).
Meadows retired with 30 years of service in 1977, with 24 years in Special Operations units, but he couldn’t stay away long, especially when Colonel ‘Chargin Charlie’ Beckwith asked him to be the civilian trainer of his newly formed counter-terrorist unit, Delta Force (J. Plaster 1999).
Dick Meadows had a lot more to do with forming Delta than he was publicly given credit for. In Charlie Beckwith’s book ‘The Delta Force,’ it is well known that Beckwith was not only the first commander but also ramrodded the concept of Delta to the powers that be and turned it into a reality.
Commanders of a unit are overseers, captains of the ship if you will, they are not individuals who get into the weeds and get dirty ‘forming’ a new capability; those situations require subject matter experts and experienced NCO’s who are true masters of their trade and can sort thru the task at hand and bring a new capability to life (Vickers 2013). These individuals are mission focused, motivated, confident, and are true leaders that inspire confidence up and down the chain of command; in other words they are like Dick Meadows (Vickers 2013).
Working as a special civilian ‘advisor’ to Beckwith, Meadows helped organize, select, refine, develop, and train future Delta Force operators – his ‘fingerprints’ can be seen in every aspect of that organization today from the extremely demanding selection and assessment course, operator training course, detailed mission planning, and professional standards and attention to detail that Delta is famous for (Vickers 2013).
Tehran
Again, Dick Meadows was the right man, in the right place, at exactly the right time. He was instrumental in the planning, the preparation and the execution of Operation Eagle Claw.
The Carter Administration had gutted the CIA of operatives capable of reconning the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, leaving Delta Force planners without the tactical details they needed (Ashburner 1999).
A CIA bureaucrat initially rejected Meadows as a covert advance man, calling him, “An amateur with poor cover, poor backup and poor training,” (J. Plaster 1999). Meadows told the CIA he’d go into Tehran with or without their assistance. Given those options, the CIA approved Meadows and had him issued a false Irish passport.
Apparently, Iranian immigration couldn’t tell the difference between an Irish brogue and West Virginia twang, because they waved Meadows – posing as ‘Richard Keith,’ a European auto executive – right through customs.
Meadows surveyed the U.S. Embassy and reconned Delta Force’s planned route into the city and watched for any hint of hostile counter-surveillance. Within a week he established clandestine mission support activities in and around Tehran.
He found a warehouse in which the CIA and a Green Beret advance team had hidden Delta’s trucks and gear for the raid. The plan was for Meadows to guide the Delta raiders then join them in the assault – but they never got to him.
On April 24, 1980, nearly 200 members of a U.S. joint special operations task force infiltrated Iran by air in an attempt to rescue 53 Americans held hostage in the American Embassy in Tehran.
Regrettably, a disastrous aircraft collision at Desert One claimed the lives of eight personnel, forcing the mission to be aborted. Although the mission failed, the courage and commitment of Meadows and his fellow rescuers did not. Due to satellite communications problems, Meadows did not learn what had happened for 24 hours and barely escaped into Turkey (J. Plaster 1999).
Later Years
Meadows also played a yet undisclosed role in the 1979 rescue of two H. Ross Perot employees from an Iranian prison, a mission led by his old boss, Colonel Arthur ‘Bull’ Simons. The mission was the basis of Ken Follett’s 1983 bestseller, “On Wings of Eagles.” “Virtually no one outside the black ops and Special Forces community knew of Dick Meadows until he made the cover of Newsweek in the early 1980s.” (J. Plaster 1999).
In later years Meadows had worked in Central and South American countries, training security personnel in everything from basic security procedures to antiterrorist precautions (Ashburner 1999).
During his career he’d been awarded every U.S. valor award except the Medal of Honor. “If he hadn’t done so many things that are classified, he’d been the most decorated soldier in the Army,” Colonel Elliot ‘Bud’ Sydnor, the ground force commander at Son Tay, told Newsweek magazine for a 1982 cover story (J. Plaster 1999).
When H. Ross Perot learned of Meadows’ imminent death, he reportedly phoned President Clinton to see that he was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal. It was presented posthumously to his family by the U.S. Special Operations Command commander, General Wayne Downing, who relayed the President’s condolences and called Meadows, “one of America’s finest unsung heroes,” (J. Plaster 1999).
Meadow’s Legacy
Beyond his military accomplishments and acts of selfless service Meadows helped pioneer small, but key pieces of equipment for SOF use such as the ‘Singlepoint’ sight used by Son Tay raiders for night time target engagements (Vickers 2013). This concept eventually led to red dot sights such as Aimpoints and Eotechs which are standard issue for US Special Operations and could be considered the greatest combat target engagement enhancement in small arms history (Vickers 2013).
The resume of Dick Meadows remarkable career captures the highlights of recent special operations history. But what it cannot capture are his depth and strength of character: Despite his consummate achievements, Meadows remained a modest individual who was more interested in his next mission than his past accomplishments.
While others in special operations sought fame, Dick Meadows, who contributed greatly to the legacy of U.S. Special Operations, religiously maintained a low profile and avoided the press. Because of his humbleness, his dedication and his accomplishments, Dick Meadows will endure as a personification of the “Quiet Professional,” (Ashburner 1999)
- See more at: http://blog.refactortactical.com/major-dick-meadows/#sthash.cWx89QcB.dpuf