Requiem for GEN Bob Kingston

[SOGvet]

RIP, Sir.. they broke the mold...

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Epilogue
January 2001

By Col John M. Collins, USA Ret.

Second Lt. Robert Charles Kingston had already landed at Inchon and fought his way up the Korean peninsula before he took that incredible trek to the Yalu River without even a hand-drawn strip map to guide his group for the last 23 miles. That feat, which remains unique in the annals of the U.S. Army, was merely the first among many exploits that have made "Barbwire Bob" a Special Forces icon and a role model for young infantry officers ever since.

Capt. Kingston's 1959 efficiency report [which I wrote] described a dedicated warrior whose "total hopes, dreams and aspirations reflect a single-minded devotion to military service found in few officers of any rank." His 37-year active duty career featured 29 years with troops, nine campaigns as a lieutenant during combat in Korea, seven more as a field-grade officer in Vietnam and 15 years of command at every commissioned level, from a rifle platoon in Company K of the 7th Infantry Division's 32nd Regiment to U.S. Central Command, which embraced 19 countries within its area of responsibility. He accumulated more than 50 awards and decorations along the way, including the Distinguished Service Cross, three Distinguished Service Medals and two Silver Stars.

Other honors include induction into the Infantry Officer Candidate School, Ranger, and Special Forces Halls of Fame. Special Forces Chapter XIII bears his name in Korea, where he commanded a waterborne raider detachment that conducted covert missions in 1951 before he successively became an instructor in the Ranger Department at Fort Benning, Ga.; an unconventional warfare planner with U.S. Army Europe; senior advisor to the South Vietnamese Ranger High Command; an operations officer with the Studies and Observation Group (SOG); commanding officer of the 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, N.C.; commanding general of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center; and a founding father of Delta Force. Former Congressman Dan Daniel (D-VA), a principal architect of legislation that originated the U.S. Special Operations Command in 1986, saw "only one four-star general with the requisite special operations experience [to take charge]. That is Bob Kingston" -- who, because of bad timing, had mandatorily retired the previous year. "The ideal solution," Daniel continued, "would be to recall him to active duty," but that proved infeasible.

Assorted Secretaries of Defense, Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Service Chiefs, other commanders in chief, members of Congress, foreign dignitaries and admiring subordinates consistently praised Gen. Kingston. When former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Edward C. (Shy) Meyer pinned on Bob's third star, he said, "If I ever go to war again, I want this man on my flank." Special operations forces in Vietnam, by voice vote, declared Bob "the man I'd most like to have in a foxhole with me and the man I'd least like to have as an enemy." A sergeant who served with Bob in the 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry, at Pleiku summed up enlisted views with these words: "He was the bravest and the best, a born leader who saved a lot of our lives."