Beyond the Call of Duty: The Life of Colonel Robert Howard, America's Most Decorated Green Beret (American War Heroes) - Softcover

Moore, Stephen L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593475844 ISBN 13: 9780593475843

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

As a child, Robert Howard was taught by his Granny Callie to always face his threats head-on. Some thirty years later, he emerged from the Vietnam War as America’s most decorated Green Beret.

For the first time, Robert Howard’s story is being told in full. Respected military historian Stephen L. Moore takes readers into the heart of the Vietnam War's covert Special Ops jungle warfare in this immersive, suspenseful read. Through family sources, National Archives documents, and dozens of testimonials from the Green Berets who fought alongside him, this “one-man army” will finally be given the recognition he deserves.

Robert Howard grew up in poverty in a small town in Alabama, with a strong sense of faith and determination. When he enlisted in the army at age seventeen, his Granny Callie’s words echoed in his head, and he pledged to follow them to the bitter end. In the most dire of combat experiences, Howard ran directly toward his opponents, sacrificing his body to protect others and to complete the mission above all else. Time and time again, he survived battles that should have claimed his life, suffering countless bullets, a spinal injury, and shrapnel and blast wounds. Recon commanders who ran missions with him declared him to be the bravest man they had ever met.

In return, Howard received a staggering number of awards and ribbons for valor and distinctive service in combat—over fifty in all, including the Medal of Honor, eight Purple Hearts, the Distinguished Service Cross, a Silver Star, and four Bronze Stars. He holds the distinction of being the only soldier nominated for the Medal of Honor three times in only a thirteen-month period. In total, Howard spent a grueling, treacherous forty months in combat duty in Vietnam, including over two years with MACV-SOG’s elite covert group.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Stephen L. Moore, a sixth-generation Texan, graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, where he studied advertising, marketing, and journalism. He is the author of two dozen books on World War II, Vietnam, and Texas history, including Patton’s Payback and Blood and Fury. Parents of three children, Steve and his wife, Cindy, live north of Dallas in Lantana, Texas.

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? ONE ?

"Run Towards
Your Problems"

The preteen boy was panting heavily as he reached the porch of his family's modest, whitewashed wood-frame house. Sitting atop a hill inside the little town of Opelika, Alabama, the Howard home was accessed by a single road that led back into town to the school campus.

Bob Howard was relieved. For five straight days, he had successfully evaded several older boys-the school bullies-who lived downhill from his family. Bob's family was dirt-poor, and good things rarely came to him. But he was proudly sporting a new pair of tennis shoes. The shoes were not brand-new, but they were new to him. The bullies had taunted him at school, promising that he wouldn't be keeping them for long.

As grade school let out each day, Bob decided his only chance to avoid a fight was to utilize his speed. He was physically fit, and running was something that had always come naturally to him. As he neared the neighboring homes of the boys, Bob broke into a full sprint. He was only lightly sweating as he outraced them up the hill and reached his home. Once again, he had dodged the older boys.

The boys shouted jeers and went on their way as Bob reached the porch. He was surprised when his Granny Callie appeared from around the corner of the house. Only later did he learn that she had been secretly spying on him each day as he ran up the hill away from the bigger boys.

Callie Elizabeth Bowen Nichols, a petite woman in her early fifties, was a tough-as-nails, no-nonsense person. With Bob's parents struggling to make ends meet and with several small children in the Howard home, she had long been a big help for the family. Callie's husband, Virgil, had passed away in 1938, leaving her with two children to raise. In 1939, when Callie's daughter, Martha, gave birth to her first child, Callie was still raising her own seven-year-old son, Virgil Wesley Nichols. Once Virgil was old enough to strike out on his own, Callie devoted her time to helping her daughter raise her own large family in Opelika. Her grandson Robert, known as "Bob," was the oldest, followed by his sister Betty Jean ("Jeannie") and younger brother Charlie, who was known as "Bo." Three other Howard children-Frances, Judith, and Steve-were still too young for grade school, and Martha was pregnant again. Martha's husband, Charlie, was rarely home to assist with the kids.

Callie helped tend to the little ones and instilled values and morals in the older Howard kids. Bob Howard would always remember his Granny Callie as a devout Christian; she was one of the few positive role models young Bob and his eldest sister, Jeannie, had. She taught the two children how to read from the Bible and empowered Bob with the drive to make something of himself. The Howard kids respected their Granny Callie. So it was no small matter when she grabbed young Bob by his ear.

"Boy, what have you been running from?" she said.

Between gasps for breath, Bob began relating his story. Callie waved him quiet with her hand. She was not a fan of fighting, but she knew that her grandson would not be able to avoid conflict through the rest of the school year.

Granny Callie stared into his bright blue eyes. "I'd better never catch you running from something ever again," she said. "If you're going to run, you best run towards your problems, not away!"

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

Her succinct advice would stick with Bob Howard through the rest of his life.

The following day, Bob tied up his new shoes and headed off to school. That afternoon on the way home, he steeled his nerves as he approached the homes of the older boys. When he was confronted by the Opelika bullies, he looked them straight in the eyes. He did not run up the hill.

Granny Callie wasn't sure what to say at first when her grandson arrived home. His clothes were dirty and torn and he was sweaty. His face, arms, and fists had scratches and bruises. Young Bob didn't offer many details on how well he had stood his ground. He merely smiled and pointed at his feet.

He was still wearing his new sneakers.


Robert Lewis Howard was born on July 11, 1939, in Opelika, Alabama. His parents were young and struggled to make ends meet in their little community. Opelika, the county seat of Lee County, was located a hundred miles southwest of Atlanta and only twenty minutes from the Georgia border. Opelika was chartered as a town in 1854; its population in 1939 was just greater than six thousand souls.

Robert's father, Charlie C. Howard, had been born in Lee County in 1920 to Barney Howard and Nettie Brown. One of seven kids, Charlie was raised in a poor farming family who rode out the Great Depression in Alabama. During World War II, Charlie and his three brothers-Barney, Palmer, and Homer-each enlisted or were drafted into the U.S. Army and fought for their country. All returned home, although Palmer Howard was wounded in action in the Mediterranean Theater in the spring of 1944. Charlie married Martha Nichols, who gave birth to their first son, Robert Lewis Howard, before she reached the age of fifteen.

By the time Charlie Howard enlisted in the Army in 1944, he and Martha had two more children, Betty Jean and Charles Howard Jr. Their marriage would eventually produce seven kids. During the war, Martha Howard helped provide for her growing family by working at a local textile mill. Oldest son Robert and some of his siblings helped work the farm and pick cotton in their youth while attending grade school in Opelika.

Charlie Howard was a hard-drinking, unpleasant man after he returned from the war. He became a taxi driver for a local company where others from his family worked. His long work hours and bouts with alcohol left little time for raising his kids.

As Bob reached his teen years, school was far from the most important thing in his life. He was powerfully built and athletic and involved in football and other sports, but he had a larger purpose-to escape from Opelika, blaze his own trails, and avoid ending up like his father.

Bob remembered that when he was a young boy, people delivered government-assistance milk and cheese to his home. Although the family was dirt-poor, he was impressed that his Granny Callie always managed to help provide for the Howard boys who had gone off to war. She would pack one-gallon syrup cans full of homemade cookies to ship overseas.

Callie instilled a strong sense of patriotism in her grandchildren. "She taught me in a simple old way to appreciate my country and the love of our country," Bob later recalled.

"Every time you see the American flag, you see freedom, liberty, and Almighty God," she told her grandson. This belief would remain with Bob Howard throughout his life. Another was "Never have hate in your heart."

During high school, Bob worked for the same taxi company as his father. He served as a "taxicab starter" and as a dispatcher, sending out cabbies for patrons who had requested a ride. The thirty dollars per month he earned was enough to convince him that he did not need to finish high school. Like many other teenage boys in prewar America, he quit school to help provide for his family. But by 1956, Bob returned to school long enough to earn his high-school-equivalency diploma.

When Howard turned seventeen on July 11, 1956, he already had a plan for his escape from Opelika. The U.S. Army base at Fort Benning, Georgia, near Columbus was only a forty-five-minute drive from Opelika. As a little boy, he had seen young paratroopers marching past his home. Standing by the roadside, Bob had marveled at their khaki uniforms and the glider patches some wore on their hats and shoulders.

As he approached his seventeenth birthday, he had become convinced of a new purpose.

I'd like to be a paratrooper, he thought....

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593475844
• ISBN 13: 9780593475843
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Dutton; https://www.penguin.com/dutton-childrens-overview/; ; Im Mittelfeld 25; K?ln; Deutschland; 51105; Deutschland