Tom Millsap, born in Arkansas His folks were sharecroppers. He finished school at the 7th grade and worked in the fields until old enough to join the Marine Corps. So, in a nutshell The Marine Corps was his main home, job, way of life; he chose to live. In order to touch the surface of his character and value to the warrior society and to us, those honored to be with him, under fire, and in the most memorable experience of our lives. He retired as a Gunnery Sergeant. Had a wonderful wife named Alice and a little daughter named Nanette. He also had a son who had done something wrong and was in prison, so don't know much about all that, but it was the one thing that troubled him. I remained a grateful friend of Tom's till he died sometime in the 80s of lung cancer. I visited Alice and Nanette a couple of times after Tom passed and they were doing very well.

I have to give the context of, or setting of the particulars of our first meeting, our military service together, and on going relationship. :

I was drafted. I was happy with my civilian job. Somehow, I ended up in the Officer's Selection process. I made it through the selection process, then went on to their six or seven month long "Wonder College". I was either 6th or 9th from the bottom of the pack of some 300 Officers. Immediately after graduating from the "Wonder School, I was picked up and dropped off, and into a crazy Asian War assigned to an Infantry unit, Hotel Company, 2/1, First Mar. Reg. First Mar. Div. So was there we first met. I was meeting the Platoon Commander of the 3rd Platoon of H Company, Staff Sgt. Tom Millsap. He was high energy, had a gruff exterior, but he walked and postured himself as a Marine LEADER who knew what he was, and more importantly what he was doing. Well now, here I was assigned to be his boss in a role I had zero experience in, and in the world, I had just graduated from, I sure did not have much confidence. In the ultimate wisdom Of the Marine Corps society, I was supposed to be this guy's boss??? I expected a total disaster, a running conflict of a rude clash. Certainly, a struggle for leadership. I thought quietly to myself, exactly who the hell the real qualified leader of the 3rd Platoon was. I thought I was seriously and embarrassingly unqualified to be the Platoon Commander, and I knew in my heart. I truly and actually believed I was not packing the gear to be the Actual.

Strangely, Sgt. Millsap was completely different from that which I expected. He was incredibly Marine like. He referred to me always as "Sir' or "Lieutenant”, He mistakenly assumed I was smart, because I was a college graduate, and that the Marine Corps picked me as an Officer, because they saw something in me that the Marine Corps needed. He went around constantly insisting everyone call me Sir, and he himself construed his job was to help me in any possible way to be molded into an effective Officer. At one time I told him Sgt. Millsap, thanks for being such a reminder for the troops to always call me sir, but that really is not that much of a deal to me. He looked at me and said Yes Sir, but this is our Marine Corps and all of us have to operate according to our traditions. Always behind my back he was always complimenting or outright bragging about our Lieutenant to the troops. He was a rough exterior barker at the troops, but always left them with a pat on the back. Subtle affection filled air of a mother hen. I envied his experience and manner. Any time we needed a decision to be made about anything like, where to set up for a night time, Platoon Patrol Base on the march or what-ever I'd always call for, "Poppa Sierra up" I'd always ask his thoughts. What actually transpired was the troops could see the Lieutenant and the Platoon Sergeant liked and respected each other. That obvious reality made everyone in the platoon comfortable, and the platoon really was a sweet place to be lived in. One early experience that sort of turned out to be a good thing was in the first days of my arrival. The Skipper, First Lt. Ceicel Taylor called me up for a meeting. He told me he wanted me to put out an ambush out here somewhere and waved a finger across the vague area he had in mind,

I went back to our little Platoon area and Sgt. Millsap asked me what the Skipper had to say? I told Sgt. Millsap, the Skipper wanted us to put out an ambush out here somewhere? Millsap nodded. Then I said, "Sgt. Millsap I forgot to ask if this is supposed to be a platoon sized ambush or a squad sized ambush. Sgt. Millsap, reeplied, "that would be a squad sized ambush, Sir". Oh! all right, but I also forgot to ask what time we should go out there? Millsap replied, that would be 22:00 hours Sir. OK Sgt. Millsap which squad should go out there with me? That would be Alpha Squad, Squad Sir, but the We Sir?, you're not going out there Sir are you? Generally, the Platoon Commander does not go out with a squad, they stay with the majority of the Platoon, the other two squads. So, for some reason I came back with, well I know that, but I thought maybe I could learn something from the combat vets, you know I've never been in combat, but I'd actually like to learn something out here, like how they operate and all. Introduce me to the Squad Leader, Sgt. Millsap, and I'll tell him he's actually in charge of the patrol and ambush. I'll just be an extra rifle trying to learn something, I’ll never forget the expression on his face, his jaw really did drop and he managed to simply say, "OH!, very good Sir"! He called up the Squad leader introduced us. I told the Squad leader I'll just be an observer with an extra rifle. His name went in one ear and out the other as we agreed where to set up the ambush on the map. We kicked off at 22:00 hours. The Skipper came to our platoon area to talk to me. He was surprised to learn I was out on a squad sized ambush. He was an old Mustang Marine, and he told Sgt. Millsap he had never heard of a Lieutenant going out on a squad sized ambush.

As it worked out the combat vets showed me two important facts of life about war. First, they did not know how to land navigate at night. Second, they simply would go out within sight of where they came from and simply go to sleep. Then in the morning come back to the main encampment and everyone assumed they were out there doing what grunts were supposed to do. The squad leader and I stayed awake all night, but the entire rest of the squad just slept, a habit they just lived by.

When I got back from the ambush Sgt. Millsap asked me how it went. He told me about the Skipper coming by, so totally exhausted, I headed over to talk to the Skipper about what I thought might be going on all over Vietnam. That Skipper listened, and from then on Platoon Commanders were going out on squad sized patrols and ambushes. Since my entire prior life was spent as a Forester, timber cruiser and Smokejumper, I spent a lot of my civilian time traveling across forested ground with a compass, map and ability to pace and come up with valid distances traveled no matter the ground, steep, flat, cluttered..... no matter. The most important of all basic military skill, is knowing exactly where you are, and how to always land navigate to any other spot. All other tactical skills and operations feed off of that. So every patrol was a training exercise in how to land navigate from then on. So with that and calling in mortars or artillery when we were ambushed, and always having the right grid coordinates to get a helicopter med evac in to our wounded out, I began to think I really was the Platoon Commander. There was certainly more to it than all that, but Staff Sgt. Millsap was one thing above all else, An encouragement based helper. Totally for the troops, a hundred percent slanted toward helping and encouraging the troops, and his Officer to actually become a good one; at least an effective one. After two months of working along side this true Marine, he got out of the Bush and left us. But by that time he had built me into a confident, "for the troops", acceptable leader of that Platoon. I was Mighty