"The Billionaire Green Beret " - John Walton

Former SOG soldier, John Walton, was the son of Sam Walton, who founded the Wal-Mart discount store chain that became one of the world’s biggest companies. Unlike his father, Walton didn’t pursue a business career. He attended the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, dropping out after two years. He then joined the Army and served in Vietnam. But his duties were far from ‘regular.’ He was a Special Forces soldier in a unit code-named the Studies and Observations Group, or SOG (cover for "special operations group"), a secret, elite military unit that often operated in Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam in what had been called America’s “Secret War.” Walton joined the unit in 1968, right after the Tet offensive. He became a member of a SOG “Hatchet Force” which consisted of small cross border teams generally made up with two or three Americans and up to five Indigenous troops; sometimes South Vietnamese, sometimes Montagnards and sometimes Chinese Brue, but always very capable, loyal and fierce warriors who knew how to operate in the jungles with stealth and outstanding bravery. On almost every mission there was a firefight. A particularly horrifying battle occurred in the A Shau Valley in Laos while he was assigned to ST (strike team) Louisiana. The team mission was to find a fellow Green Beret who had been separated from his team when it was forced to evacuate after running into a large enemy force. John was the commando team's No. 2 as well as its medic. In the low light of early morning, ST Louisiana was dropped from Sikorsky H-34 helicopters onto a ridge near the DMZ and was attacked by North Vietnamese army soldiers. In a memoir titled Across the Fence: The Secret War in Vietnam, fellow Green Beret John Stryker Meyer gives an account of that day: "Four of the NVA's rounds struck the tail gunner, wounding him severely. As Walton swung his CAR-15 [a submachine gun version of the M-16] toward the enemy soldier ... [his] rounds hit the NVA soldier and drove him back in the jungle." The account goes on to say that Walton's commanding officer, Wilbur "Pete" Boggs, called in a napalm strike that landed yards away from John. Soon the six-man team was surrounded. One was dead and three were wounded. John tended to casualties, including Boggs, who was knocked semiconscious by shrapnel, and Tom Cunningham, who was badly hurt with a knee that was blown out and started hemorrhaging very, very severely. Walton applied a tourniquet to his leg to stop the severe hemorrhaging. With Boggs down, Walton was now in charge. He picked up the radio and called in two choppers for extraction. As the first Sikorsky H-34 (King Bee) dropped in and lifted off with some of the men, the NVA intensified its assault. A second chopper was needed to get all the men out, but the landing zone was too hot to make it in. Walton and his team thought they were doomed, but suddenly the first chopper came back down, even though their added weight might make it too heavy to take off again. With the enemy advancing into the clearing, firing at the helicopter, and Walton trying to keep Cunningham alive, the King Bee took off and barely made it over the treetops. Credit: Together We Served

 

 John Walton RIP of the Wal Mart Walton's

Extracted from Page 119, On The Ground, by John Stryker Meyer & John E. Peters

A personal side to John Walton
By: J. STRYKER MEYER - Staff Writer

The headlines announcing the tragic death of John Walton focused on the personal fortune he had amassed as the second of three sons of American icon and entrepreneurial pioneer Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart.
Since 1968, the John Walton I knew was first and foremost a family man ---- when his father was dying of cancer, he flew around the world searching for remedies to the disease that ultimately claimed Sam Walton's life.

He was an intelligent free spirit who went his own way in life ---- becoming a Green Beret medic and succeeding in the businesses he started while extolling the virtues of charter schools.
Yet, the man who died Monday when his ultra-light aircraft crashed in Grand Teton National Park, was the same, humble, caring man I first met 37 years ago in Phu Bai, South Vietnam.
In the early days of our friendship, we exchanged family notes: my dad was a milkman, his dad "had a five-and-dime store" in Bentonville, Ark., and we had strong, no-nonsense moms.
In May 1968, we were young Green Berets who had just entered the secret war that was fought during the Vietnam War. We were stationed at FOB 1 in Phu Bai as members of small reconnaissance teams that ran top-secret missions across the fence into Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam.
In August of '68, on one such mission, Walton's six-man recon team was surrounded and overrun by enemy soldiers. The attack was so fierce, the team leader called an airstrike on his team to break the enemy attack. That strike killed one team member, wounded the team leader and severed the right leg of the Green Beret radio operator Tom Cunningham Jr., of Durham, N.H. Another team member was wounded four times by AK-47 gunfire by an enemy soldier whom Walton killed.
A South Vietnamese helicopter pilot, Capt. Thinh Dinh, landed and picked up the five living members of the team while under heavy gunfire and barely extracted the team from its sure-death firefight with hundreds of enemy soldiers.
As '68 rolled along, our friendship grew as we became strong competitors in Scrabble, poker and impromptu football games.
He also shared his dreams: he said that if he lived, he would return to the U.S., buy a motorcycle and drive across country. Then, he'd get his pilot license, find a job and explore Mexico and Central and South America.
He pursued those dreams with vigor, eventually becoming a crop-duster for six months a year, while driving his VW bus south, into and through Mexico. During those years, I'd called his mom for John's latest phone number while my mom would get calls from John. By the '80s, as Wal-Mart became a force to be reckoned with, John went his own way, building several success businesses while living with his wife, Christy, on a trimaran before they bought a sailing captain's historic house in National City. They also had a beach in North County.
John Walton also cared about the environment. When we met for a recent breakfast in Oceanside, he drove a small Toyota hybrid.
And, he remembered his comrades from Vietnam. In 2003, he flew his executive jet to Fargo, N.D., to pick up now-Col. Thinh and family to fly them to a reunion in Las Vegas that honored the Vietnamese pilots who operated in the secret war.
That's the kind of guy he was ---- one who cared more about others than himself.
J. Stryker Meyer can be reached at (760) 901-4089.

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The following is from SOG...THE Secret War's of America's Commandoes in Vietnam by  John Plaster; however it contains a number of errors including putting John on the wrong team. The article by J. Stryker Meyer above contains the correct information.
On 3 August 1968 a reconstituted RT Idaho, led by One-Zero Wilbur Boggs, inserted into the Ashau Valley about ten miles from where the old RT Idaho had vanished on 20 May. Boggs' One-One, Specialist Four John Walton, was an accomplished poker player, friendly, intelligent and a talented medic capable of surgery. Idaho's One-Two was a new man, Private First Class Tom Cunningham.
Not long after insertion, swarms of NVA descended on RT Idaho, and soon One-Zero Boggs was seriously wounded, two 'Yards' were dead and the team immobile, hopelessly encircled by NVA so close Walton could see smoke from their cigarettes. With the team about to be overrun, young Walton did the only he could and called an air strike practically on top of RT Idaho, which hit friend and foe alike.
The NVA pulled back. It took every bit of Walton's medical skill to keep his wounded teammates alive, though Tom Cunninham would lose a leg. That anybody made it out is attributable to Walton's courage, cool head and medical ability. He was awarded the Sliver Star.
Back home in Arkansas, the young Green Beret's enterprising father was transforming his drugstore chain into the world's largest family owned retail system--Wal Mart --

A time to be born, a time to die;
A time to plant, a time to reap;
A time to kill, a time to heal;
A time to laugh, a time to weep.
A time of love, a time of hate;
A time of war, a time of peace;
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late.

Lonnie Heidtke
CE Black Widow 474
C/101st AHB 68-69
Chippewa Falls, WI