"We few, we happy few…"

Someone once asked me this question "What was the coolest military unit of all time?"

And his question got me thinking....

Okay, I am prejudiced - extremely prejudiced.

The 407th Radio Research Detachment, U. S. Army Security Agency (1968–1972).

We provided signal and communications intelligence to the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) and were home based out of Quang Tri, Vietnam with small detachments of various fire bases along the North Vietnamese-South Vietnamese border. One in particular, Firebase A-4, was within 2 kilometers of North Vietnam.

Imagine an Army unit of approximately 50 enlisted men and 4 officers who all had “genius” level IQ’s - even the mechanics who maintained our vehicles. (The military at that time gave new soldiers a series of tests called the ASVAB, one of which [the GT] was pretty much an IQ test with a maximum possible score of 160 points - and 10 of the 50 who were enlisted men in the unit with me [1970–1971] had scored 160 on that test!). Survivors of the unit became college professors, published authors, lawyers, one eventually became a top plastic surgeon and one (me) became a jazz singer.

To paraphrase an old line from President Kennedy, it was one of the greatest assemblies of brain power in one place since President Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

Though it was not in the normal order of things, members of the unit saw more than their share of direct combat and firefights, but more importantly we, through our efforts collecting, analyzing and reporting intelligence, were responsible for a lot of American soldiers returning to the U.S. alive at their end of their tours.

How young we were then...

Not so young anymore - but we can still kick ass if needed.

My Band of Brothers.