Darrie Hewitt Richards

West Point, 1943JAN

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by William J. McIntyre, M.D. on February 10, 2019:

In January 1969 I was a new UH-1 door gunner assigned to the 201st Aviation Company in Nha Trang, TDY in Qui Nhon to fly BG Richards between bases. I had extended my Vietnam tour to go to that company and less than a month earlier had been a paratrooper (11C) with the 173rd Airborne Brigade. I had never talked to a general before General Richards and he seemed very approachable. Foolishly, I spoke to him over the helicopter intercom as one enlisted soldier might have spoken to another, saying "Sir", of course. He was very patient as this went on for 15 minutes with no one else saying a word. Finally we landed and the pilots chewed my butt good. The pilots had great respect for him and for his intellect, comparing other general officers we carried around unfavorably to him. Very illuminating to me was listening to him talk with a subordinate, a full colonel named Ludy. We flew the two of them along convoys between Qui Nhon and Pleiku. When BG Richards saw their trucks bunched up together, inviting an ambush, he would get on Colonel Ludy like a sergeant might get on to an errant private. It was fascinating for me as an E-4 to listen to, but I now realize that it occurred in my earshot only because it was literally an immediate life and death matter for those convoy drivers. He was a good man and a wonderful leader from whom I learned a great deal. I am writing this during a lull between patients late in my career as an emergency department physician at Bath Community Hospital in Hot Springs, Virginia. I too am very far along in life and in my career. I will turn age seventy in eight days.

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