A Cavalier career

Medical Lake resident Gary Starr had a talent for hitting the target while in the Army.

His first assignment as newly-minted second lieutenant was platoon leader in an U.S. Army mechanized infantry battalion in Germany in early 1967, where he took first place in the Army’s 8th Division Pathfinders marksmanship competition.

Later that year, after a promotion to 1st lieutenant, Starr was given command of an Army Airborne infantry company within the 8th Division. Under his leadership the entire company won a shooting competition.

“I taught these kids how to shoot,” Starr said.

So impressed was the division commander, a two-star general, that he sent Starr and his company to compete in an inter-division shooting competition.

“I’ve got a case of wine bet with the division commander down there. You better win,” the general ordered behind a cloud of cigar smoke.

The helicopter

It was November in Germany, and rather than ride in open trucks, Starr and his men were flown to the weekend competition. It was his first time in a helicopter, and he could barely contain his excitement, he recalled. He told his troops to sit anywhere they wanted — except the seat right behind the pilot, who gave the young infantry officer a headset so he could listen-in on the radio chatter.

“It was incredible,” Starr said.

His company won the competition decisively, but Starr had other things on his mind, and the following Monday he applied for flight school.

Meanwhile, as he waited for a response to his application, his shooting team went on to win first place in the entire European command. Starr was offered an opportunity to join the Army’s marksmanship team in Fort Benning, Ga., a career move into a group that functions as a feeder for Olympic shooters. He decided he would accept it.

“What did I have to look forward to? Vietnam?” he said.

Then, two months before his departure to Benning, Starr was summoned to his battalion commander’s office, who cursed at him, called him a traitor, then threw a large brown envelope at him.

The wait was over; thoughts of the Army shooting team vanished.

The envelope contained new orders: Lt. Starr was going to flight school.

Vietnam rescue

Now 76 years old and slightly bent and broken with age, Starr remains fit in appearance and still carries himself with an unmistakable officers bearing in both speech and mannerisms, not to mention enthusiasm that shows through his piercing blue eyes when he shares his many stories.

Born in New York City in 1943, he was an Army ROTC cadet at the University of Dayton before being commissioned a second lieutenant in 1965 as the war in Vietnam reached a crescendo.

By 1969, Starr, now a captain, was a Scout platoon leader flying OH6 light observation helicopters, called a “Loach,” in Vietnam. His mission: “to go start a fight.”

Once, after a day of flying, he was doing his post-flight check when the radio erupted. A long-range reconnaissance patrol, or LRRP team, whose only job was to sit, listen and observe — not engage the enemy — had been discovered. They were on the run, taking fire and needed extraction.

The only other person available, Starr grabbed another pilot and they took off in a UH1 Huey “Slick” helicopter to grab the LRRP team.

They found them in heavy jungle. With no place to land, Starr had the flight crew lower a McGuire rig — a modified rope used for multiple person, single extraction situations — into a hole in the jungle canopy, hauling the beleaguered LRRP team to relative safety. Several appeared wounded.

Starr dropped the team, still dangling below, at the nearest firebase. As he was leaving a voice on the radio asked who was flying the helicopter.

“This is Cavalier White, at your service,” Starr replied back, giving them his call sign.

Post-Vietnam

He returned to the United States in early 1970. He requested a second combat tour but was denied. Not everybody has been there yet, he was told.

Starr’s return to the U.S. wasn’t without incident. It’s an unfortunate part of U.S. history that military personnel were reviled at the time. In uniform the day he arrived home from Vietnam, he was spit upon and called a warmonger.

“Like I was responsible for the war,” he said. “That was regrettable.”

One day soon after, while driving in Allendale, N.J, a fire station siren sounded. The noise and tempo was identical to that used by his scout unit in Vietnam that would sound when there was an emergency. Starr had to pull over he began shaking so badly.

A police officer found him there, shaking uncontrollably. An ambulance was called.

“The sound of that siren meant that one of my troops was in trouble,” Starr said.

Thank you, sir

It was that dedication to his troops that earned Starr a unusually high degree of respect.

He was given command of an entire Army helicopter attack squadron in Fort Hood, Texas, in 1985. Anne, his wife of 56 years, and camp follower and official cheerleader throughout Starr’s 28-year Army career, recalled her husband’s words to his troops when he took command.

“These,” Starr said, pointing to the silver oak leaves on his shoulders, signifying the rank of lieutenant colonel, “are here for you.”

His words weren’t just platitudes. During his two year tenure, Starr’s squadron was selected as the Army’s aviation unit of the year, primarily after going 18 months with zero accidents. As a result they deployed for six weeks to the Middle East to train Jordanian pilots and mechanics on cobra attack helicopters.

Starr also made it a habit to have daily, one-on-one chats with individual enlisted men under his command who were struggling. He then wrote the soldier’s parents a letter of reassurance, complete with personal details so the family knew he was sincere.

“It was a way to get a kid tied to back home,” he said, “and the kid and the parents to know I cared about them.”

That level of concern made a difference that manifested itself immediately after his change of command ceremony, when he inevitably passed the leadership baton of his beloved squadron on to a new commander.

Traditionally, after the formal change of command ceremony, the outgoing commander leaves unobtrusively via the back door. When Starr made to leave after the ceremony, there, standing at the back of the headquarters building, were all of his 280-plus soldiers, who had left the formal parade field to individually say goodbye to their CO one last time.

“It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen,” Anne recalled.

He shook every last hand, Starr said.

“They knew I cared for them and took care of them,” he said.

It was a poignant moment such that the memory brought tears to the old warriors eyes some 30 years later.

“I loved that tour,” Starr said. “It was fantastic.”

Agent Thompson

In 1980, Starr, a major at the time, arrived for duty at Fort Bliss, Texas, as a regimental operations officer for the 3rd Armored Calvary regiment. A life long, passionate falconer, upon arrival he’d applied for the permits necessary to practice falconing. He received a visit from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Agent John Thompson, ostensibly to deliver his falconry permits.

But Thompson lingered after delivering the paperwork, and eventually asked about Starr’s 1st Cavalry Division patch on his uniform. The two men quickly determined that they had not only served in Vietnam at the same time, but in the same area.

Did you know a pilot with the call sign Cavalier White, Thompson asked Starr?

While Thompson went on to describe how he and his LRRP team were extracted from the jungle under heavy fire by a gutsy helicopter pilot who “just hovered there” while getting shot at, Starr grabbed his old captain’s hat from his Vietnam days off his bookcase and handed it to the Thompson. Embroidered on the back were the words “Cavalier White.”

“And the tears started flowing — from both of us,” Starr said.

The two old warrior’s hugged and talked for over two hours.

Obstacles equal

successes

Throughout his career, Starr’s natural talents and determination helped him succeed.

Although he wanted to fly attack helicopters, he was initially assigned to a maintenance battalion as a test pilot when he arrived in Vietnam. But that didn’t stop him from asking — weekly — to be assigned to a combat unit.

After four months in-country, Starr got his chance when he accepted a challenge from his commander to fix the Airborne Cavalry squadron’s shoddy maintenance record.

“They were on their butts,” Starr said

As squadron maintenance officer, he took the unit’s helicopters from a lowly 25 percent combat readiness level to 80 percent combat-deployable in 60 days, and 90 percent after three months.

He was promised assignment to an attack helicopter squadron if he succeeded. But when a young lieutenant from a Scout squadron was killed in action, Starr was asked — not ordered — to volunteer to take the vacant position.

“My sail went limp” at the request, Starr recalled, knowing what he would do.

Despite his own long-held desires, he went to the Scouts — even though he’d promised Anne he wouldn’t.

Because flying Scouts was a very dangerous job.

“As I recall, in 1969, of the seven Scout leaders in Charlie troop, five of them went home in a body bag, and two on stretchers,” Starr said. “It wasn’t good for longevity. Scouts just got shot down a lot.”

So, as a Scout platoon leader, he endeavored to research hundreds of combat after-action reports to determine why Scout helicopters suffered such high attrition rates. From that effort he created 10 iron-clad rules and put them into a book draft titled “Never a Third Pass,” that he insisted his pilots follow, things like never making a third pass over a target, or never, never turn left (because an OH6 pilot sits in the right seat).

“Follow the rules and you’ll go home,” he told his pilots.

They did, and it showed — no helicopters were shot down and no one was killed or wounded in combat during the five months he flew with the Scouts.

“Everyone went home when I was in command,” he said.

The book was lost, however, when the Assistant Division Commander, who was so impressed that he asked if he could take it to study, was shot down and killed with the 600-page book — the only copy — in his possession. It was never found.

Time and again Starr’s determination and tenacity paid off.

He served as aide-de-camp to the commanding general at Fort Knox, Ky., for 28 months soon after returning from combat.

In 1974, when the Army was looking to insert some new blood into its officer corps after a scandal, he was one of four officers selected to teach at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a role traditionally reserved for alumni.

He was selected as an interviewee for an astronaut position at NASA (he didn’t get the job).

Back in Germany in 1981, now Lt. Col. Starr served as chief of force modernization for the Army’s VII Corp in Stuttgart, and played an integral role overseeing the transition of everything from handguns to tanks.

“The entire Army changed its equipment,” he said.

He attended the War College in 1987, a prerequisite for promotion to general.

Dedication

In talking with Starr, it’s clear his Army career was never about his needs or desires, but those of the Army, which he put above himself to the very end.

Gen. Douglas Macarthur famously said that old soldiers never die, they simply fade away.

Starr’s final duty station was in St. Louis, Mo., first as commander of the St. Louis Support Command, then finally as chief of staff at Aviation Systems Command, also in St. Louis.

He retired as a full colonel in 1993.

A humble man now content to work with his many falcons, Starr refuses to take credit for his many successes, instead giving it to the people around him — like the men early in his career who refined his natural shooting talent that inevitably put him in the seat of a helicopter, a ride that changed his Army career — and likely saved countless lives.

“Shooting got me into the position of getting on that flight,” Starr said. ”I would never have dreamed of applying to flight school until I got on that helicopter.”

Lee Hughes can be reached at [email protected].