24 Jun 2001
I do not fear an army of lions,
if they are led by a lamb.
I do fear an army of sheep,
if they are led by a lion.
-- Alexander the Great --
Staff Sergeant Harvey C. Reynolds was a lion.
John Yeager
jyeager@weir.net
and
Frank J. McCloskey
fjmccloskey@yahoo.com
I was a machine-gunner with the 1st platoon of Company "C," 2d Battalion (Airborne), 502d Infantry in the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Divsion, when Sergeant Reynolds joined our platoon. He was the first Squad Leader and later became our Platoon Sergeant.
I recall that he didn't like anything about the rear area or the state-side Army which is probably why they never promoted him. He was good in the field, hardcore and the most fearless man I've ever met. It's a shame that no one, other than his men, recognized his leadership abilities. He was a "soldier's soldier" and spoke his mind when it came to welfare of his troops.
On 18 May 67 our platoon went to the aid of an element of B Company who were ambushed on a water run. We were on hill 424 in Duc Pho province and they were in heavy contact taking casualties. Our platoon walked into a bunker complex and we immediately came under heavy fire. I was shot in the back of the head during the initial contact and someone took my machinegun, thinking I was dead.
Sergeant Reynolds showed up at my side cursing the enemy and calling for an M-79 man and his grenade launcher. The individual who shot me was still firing on us and Sergeant Reynolds was determined to get him.
What amazed and inspired me was that Sergeant Reynolds showed no fear. He wasn't hugging the ground like everyone else. He just knelt there beside me like he was bullet proof. When the M-79 man didn't show up, Sergeant Reynolds walked back through the all that firing, grabbed the M-79 and came back to me still cursing the enemy.
During his stay with me on hill 424, Sergeant Reynolds continued to engage that bunker even though he took one round through the bicep. He continually exposed himself to fire so much that his canteen and load bearing equipment were riddled with bullet holes.
During the medevac, I heard Sergeant Reynolds arguing with the Lieutenant that he just had a flesh wound and did not want to leave the field. They took him out of there kicking and screaming.
Later at the aid station, I heard him looking for a ride back out to hill 424. He was complaining about being stuck in the rear with a bunch of REMF'S when he should be out there fighting.
I'm pretty sure he got his ride because he never appeared at the evac hospital like he was supposed to.
Sergeant Reynolds paid me a visit just before I left the aid station. He came to show me his arm and all the holes the enemy had shot through his fatigue shirt.
I'll never forget Sergeant Harvey C. Reynolds, he's one of the rare ones you would follow to hell and back.
A memorial by Frank J. McCloskey
fjmccloskey@yahoo.com
Harvey C. Reynolds was a good old boy from Florida who was our Platoon Sergeant in 1967. He was a Regular. He had made one or both of the combat jumps with the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team in Korea. He had also been to demolitions school.
Once, a man stepped on a "boucing betty" mine, which fires when you step off of it. He felt the plunger go down and froze. He told the rest of us that he was on a mine, and our Engineer came to the spot and dug around his boot, placed a big rock down on it as the troop took his foot out, and they moved away. The Engineer blew it in place with C-4. While the replacement of the foot with a rock was going on Sergeant Reynolds stood three feet away. He didn't have to endanger himself, but it made the two men who were involved that much more steady.
He didn't have a whole lot of education. He called the enemy bad names that were already out of date; it was like he was calling Germans "Huns." He would not have liked the idea of political correctness. He was just a good old Regular like Kipling was talking about when he wrote "The backbone of the Army is the non-commissioned man."
He was always doing things like replacing the firing caps in fragmentation grenades with the ones from smoke grenades, so they would blow instantly, and setting them out with tripwires to make booby traps. I kept away from him when he was putting them out or getting them in. When I got wounded he was up on a little rise in the ground and he yelled at me "Come up here, I can see them." I said something rude to him because that meant they could see him, too. The other writer of this memorial says they shot off his bootlaces there, but he didn't get hurt. He went back to Vietnam to do another tour and was killed. A big salute for you, Sarge.
I think he'd love it that we remembered him this long and wrote this up for him.
John Yeager, Jr
jyeager@weir.net
