This month we honor Vietnam veteran Dick Nash. I have been in contact with Dick since I started to work on the 2-22IN history, and he has been a great mentor to me through the process of researching all that is involved with the 22nd and specifically Triple Deuce!
Dick was born in Northwest Illinois and grew up on the farm. He would join the Army and go through his Infantry and officer training at Ft. Campbell Kentucky and Ft. McClellan Alabama. When I asked him why he joined the Army he said, “To serve as my family has for generations”.
Dick would do his first 11 months of Platoon Leader duty at Fort Carson Colorado with the 5th Infantry Division. During this time, he was part of an airlift to Washington D.C. to deal with the Poor People’s Campaign or Poor People’s March. This march was organized by Martian Luther King and the SCLC to protest for the income inequality felt at that time. Dick Nash like all honorable soldiers helped secure and ensure safety.
In 1969 it was time for LT Nash to go to Vietnam. January 14th, 1969 Dick arrived at Fire Support Base Wood. When I asked Dick what his first memory in Vietnam was, he said, “Finding out in the first hour meeting my platoon that I was replacing one of my best friends from Ft. Carson who had been KIA 6 days earlier. Put things in perspective right away…” He said that he was relieved to find out though that David Rockwell Cocker was his company commander, who Dick claims was the best company commander to ever serve in the Army. Cocker would be killed May 17th, 1969.
When I asked Dick, what was one of the things that stood out to him in Vietnam he said, “Just the relief of finding out that the news media was wrong about American combat vets. They were all the good things we know they were and are not the pieces of crap reported on American TV’s in the Sixties.” Do not always trust the media’s portrayal of things.
Dick would serve in 2-22IN A Co and HHC as a platoon leader of a line platoon and the mortar platoon. Dick like so many other veterans saw intense combat during the Vietnam war. He served his country and did what our nation asked of him. Dick served in the 25th Infantry Division AO through 1969 out of Fire Base Wood. Their Area of operation was up and down the Cambodian border northwest of Saigon.
I asked Dick about the comradery that was forged through combat in Vietnam. He said, “I have called the men I served with my “other family” since the day I left the Army. You start out worrying about living through combat, and suddenly realizing you worry even more about getting all of your unit home alive. Band of Brothers is a very accurate description.”
Dick like all of us that have deployed to foreign lands learn a lot about life and ourselves. When I asked Dick what the was the best or most important lesson, he learned from his experience in Vietnam he said, “That teamwork is not just a figure of speech. It is the Army way of life.”
After Vietnam Dick would return to farming. He would also work as a supervisor in the trucking industry till early retirement. Once the trucking industry he worked for was bought by another company, Dick would go back on for 12 more years to drive again.
Dick like many of the other veterans of the 22nd Infantry Regiment is extremely proud to be part of this amazing unit and its history. When I asked him what his favorite part of the 22nd Infantry history was he said, “One of my favorites is at the beginning when the British general observed the first 22nd Regiment and said they were not volunteers, they were ‘Regulars, by God’”.
Dick was located in 1998 by the Vietnam Triple Deuce which is a group for Vietnam vets who served with us. “I hold fierce pride at being part of this group. I have been president of Vietnam Triple Deuce for most of the last twenty years and amazed at the good that organization has done for the vets of our unit.”
Now Dick Nash is retired and enjoys fishing. I am glad that I got connected with him and I feel as though I have made a new friend, even though for now it has been via the interwebs. A big part of Dick’s life has been the reunions that the 22nd Infantry Society puts on. He wrote an article about it in the last issue of the Double Deucer that I encourage you to read.
Lastly, Dick had some advice for current soldiers of the 22nd Infantry, “You will some day later in life wish to see again those who you walked the walk with in the 22nd Infantry. Record all the contact info you can on those people today to help you track them down later. You will not regret it…”
- John Cooper (Afghanistan 2018-2021)
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