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Lead, Follow, or Get the Hell Out of the Way

by C.C. Ryder

356 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0605; ISBN 1-4120-0236-2; US$29.00, C$36.00, EUR23.40, £16.30

Spanning the life and military career of the man who changed forever the future of U.S. Air Force combat-support engineering. Exciting, funny, touched with pathos­a very entertaining read!

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book Brigadier General William Thomas Meredith, known to his friends as Tom, was born in 1919 in Halifax County, Virginia, where his father was a school principal. After much relocation throughout the state, Tom attended the College of William and Mary on a sports scholarship and seemed to be heading for a career as a professional baseball player. The Pittsburgh Pirates eventually recruited him as a catcher, offering him an annual salary of $3,000 but turned down his extravagant counter demand of $3,500 a year! It was 1941, and war was raging in Europe and festering in the Pacific, so he walked away from baseball and enlisted in the army, beginning a military career that would span more than three decades. After basic and some engineering training, he joined the Haynes Mission, spent two years in the jungles of Burma, leading a guerilla patrol, in Northern India, building air bases, and was awarded a battlefield commission to 2nd lieutenant. Then came Korea, Viet Name (where he commanded the 554th Civil Engineering Squadron) and the 1414th Air Base Group in Saudi Arabia. In 1950, he began a long association with the Pentagon as Officer in Charge of Master Planning, Hqtrs. Military Air transport Command (MATS) at Andrews AFB. For three years, he worked on projects resulting in major expansion of Air Transport Bases all over the world. Then came several years in Great Britain as Director of Engineering and Construction, planning and building facilities for the Army, Navy and Air Force in the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. Moving up through the ranks from Private to Brigadier General, he ultimately was instrumental in establishing programs for the USAF that were so important and fundamentally valuable that, even though he retired from active service in 1973, they still provide combat engineering support, worldwide, for the USAF today. Known as Prime BEEF and RED HORSE (Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron, Engineering), these concepts provided comprehensive engineering and heavy construction equipment support to the USAF in combat theaters, and were a vital part of America's operations in Viet Name, during Desert Storm and again in Afghanistan. In 1986, to honor the father of USAF combat and contingency engineering, the Air force created The Meredith Trophy, personally awarded annually be General Meredith to the winning Prime BEEF team at a competition called the Readiness Challenge, held at Tyndall AFB in Florida. Retirement after such a lengthy, illustrious and often arduous career would put most men in a mood to kick back, maybe do a little fishing and work on their memoirs, but not so Tom Meredith. In 1973, he returned, as a civilian, to Saudi Arabia for a period of two years, with the Tumpane Construction Company. Then, joining the prestigious firm of Parsons Brinckerhoff, he managed a major project linking the Reading and Pennsylvania Railroads into a commuter rail system under the city of Philadelphia and later, as President of a new Parsons Brinckerhoff corporation branch, oversaw the building of the beautiful Sunshine Skyway Bridge in St. Petersburg, Florida. He retired from Parsons Brinckerhoff in 1990, but during this time period he and close friend and associate Truman O'Keefe pooled 50 years of combined experience to develop the Meredith/O'Keefe Management and Construction Control System, using it successfully on all jobs they managed. Via their company, Mere'Queen Associates, they promoted and taught their system all over the country. General Meredith also was an active participant in developing and promoting a product called Pyrocool, a unique chemical formula that extinguishes fires by "cooling" rather than smothering them. This product subsequently played a critical role in reducing the temperatures at "ground zero" after the terrible destruction of the World Trade Centers, making it possible for the rescue workers to continue their work. At the request of Vice President George Bush, he formed a team including retired Ambassador Hank Byroade, Reverend Jerry Falwell, Montana Senator John Melcher, Congressman John Mackie, and defense advisor Richard Stilwell to explore ways to help and to stabilize the economic and political situations in the Philippines. He tells many fascinating stories of the personal relationships he forged with Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. An active leader of the Society of American Military Engineers, Meredith is a Fellow of the Society. Serving as regional Vice President four times and national Vice President twice, he was awarded their Newman Award in 1965, and the prestigious Gold Award in 1986. In 1985, General Meredith and his wife, Patricia, also participated in a People to People Ambassador trip to China with SAME members. He remains active in both RED HORSE activities and in Republican politics and has helped run election campaigns for both Senator John Warner and Oliver North. In addition to being in demand for speaking engagements all over the country, General Meredith has spent the last two years compiling and organizing materials and notes for this biography.

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About the Author Born and raised in Canada, Mr. Ryder moved to the USA after completing five years of military service. After a career in the entertainment industry spanning some 35 years, he began writing professionally. Author of many magazine articles and a newspaper column in California, he has written a novel called The Great Cantaloupe Caper and currently authors a weekly newspaper humor column titled, In Search of Sanity.

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Sample Excerpts

BRIGADIER GENERAL WILLIAM T. MEREDITH, USAF, (Rt.)

Brigadier General William Thomas Meredith, known to his friends as Tom, was born in 1919 in Halifax County, Virginia, where his father was a school principal. After much relocation throughout the state, Tom attended the College of William and Mary on a sports scholarship and seemed to be heading for a career as a professional baseball player. The Pittsburgh Pirates eventually recruited him as a catcher, offering him an annual salary of $3,000 but turned down his extravagant counter demand of $3,500 a year! It was 1941, and war was raging in Europe and festering in the Pacifi c, so he walked away from baseball and enlisted in the army, beginning a military career that would span more than three decades. After basic and some engineering training, he joined the Haynes Mission, spent two years in the jungles of Burma, leading a guerilla patrol, in Northern India, building air bases, and was awarded a battlefi eld commission to 2nd lieutenant. Then came Korea, Viet Nam (where he commanded the 554th Civil Engineering Squadron) and the 1414th Air Base Group in Saudi Arabia.

In 1950, he began a long association with the Pentagon as Offi cer in Charge of Master Planning, Hqtrs. Military Air Transport Command (MATS) at Andrews AFB. For three years, he worked on projects resulting in major expansion of Air Transport Bases all over the world.

Then came several years in Great Britain as Director of Engineering and Construction, planning and building facilities for the Army, Navy and Air Force in the United Kingdom and Scandinavia.

Moving up through the ranks from Private to Brigadier General, he ultimately was instrumental in establishing programs for the USAF that were so important and fundamentally valuable that, even though he retired from active service in 1973, they still provide combat engineering support, worldwide, for the USAF today.

Known as Prime BEEF and RED HORSE (Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron, Engineering), these concepts provided comprehensive engineering and heavy construction equipment support to the USAF in combat theaters, and were a vital part of Americašs operations in Viet Nam, during Desert Storm, Afghanistan and most recently in the war to liberate Iraq.

In 1986, to honor the father of USAF combat and contingency engineering, the Air Force created The Meredith Trophy, personally awarded annually by General Meredith to the winning Prime BEEF team at a competition called the Readiness Challenge, held at Tyndall AFB in Florida.

Retirement after such a lengthy, illustrious and often arduous career would put most men in a mood to kick back, maybe do a little fishing and work on their memoirs, but not so Tom Meredith. In 1973, he returned, as a civilian, to Saudi Arabia for a period of two years, with the Tumpane Construction Company. Then, joining the prestigious firm of Parsons Brinckerhoff, he managed a major project linking the Reading and Pennsylvania Railroads into a commuter rail system under the city of Philadelphia and later, as President of a new Parsons Brinckerhoff corporation branch, oversaw the building of the beautiful Sunshine Skyway Bridge in St. Petersburg, Florida.

He retired from Parsons Brinckerhoff in 1990, but during this time period he and close friend and associate Truman O'Keefe pooled 50 years of combined experience to develop the Meredith/O'Keefe Management and Construction Control System, using it successfully on all jobs they managed. Via their company, Mere'Queen Associates, they promoted and taught their system all over the country.

General Meredith also was an active participant in developing and promoting a product called Pyrocool, a unique chemical formula that extinguishes fi res by "cooling" rather than smothering them. This product subsequently played a critical role in reducing the temperatures at "ground zero" after the terrible destruction of the World Trade Centers, making it possible for the rescue workers to continue their work.

In 1986, at the request of Vice President George Bush, he formed a team including retired Ambassador Hank Byroade, Reverend Jerry Falwell, Montana Senator John Melcher, Congressman John Mackie, and defense advisor Richard Stilwell to explore ways to help and to stabilize the economic and political situations in the Philippines. He tells many fascinating stories of the personal relationships he forged with Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.

An active leader of the Society of American Military Engineers, Meredith is a Fellow of the Society. Serving as regional Vice President four times and national Vice President twice, he was awarded their Newman Award in 1965, and the prestigious Gold Award in 1986.

In 1995, General Meredith and his wife, Patricia, also participated in a People to People Ambassador trip to China with SAME members. He remains active in both RED HORSE activities and in Republican politics and has helped run election campaigns for both Senator John Warner and Oliver North.

In addition to being in demand for speaking engagements all over the country, General Meredith has spent the last two years compiling and organizing materials and notes for this biography.

FOREWORD

No soldier was ever honored for what he received.
Honor has been the reward for what he gave.
Calvin Coolidge

It had been a long, pensive journey for Tom Meredith. A journey from Ocala, in central Florida, to Virginia Beach, Virginia, filled with a flood of memories and reflections spanning the more than three decades of his military service. His reminiscences carried him from boot camp in the U.S. Army, to the steaming jungles of Burma, to Vietnam, and through his long association with the Pentagon, as an officer in the USAF.

Brigadier General Tom Meredith, Ret., was on his way to pay his last respects and to say farewell to eighteen fallen comrades. But more than that, he was feeling the loss as though these men had been his own children. And in many ways they were.

Just a few days before, on Saturday, March 3, 2001, a USAF cargo plane en route from Fort Walton Beach, Florida, to Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia had crashed into a field near Macon, Georgia, killing everyone on board. The C-23 Sherpa, part of Florida National Guard's 171st Aviation Battalion based in Lakeland, FL, had just finished a training exercise. The twenty-one men who died that day in the service of their country included eighteen civil engineers, part of an elite United States Air Force combat support organization called RED HORSEŠ

* * * * *

It was back in the 1960s that a directive from then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had galvanized Air Force officials into taking long overdue action on a problem that had confronted them almost since the formation of that branch of the service soon after World War II. What was needed was a unit structure that would be capable of quickly and efficiently transporting Air Force engineers, maintenance, construction and other specialty service personnel, along with their equipment and machinery to some of the most remote places in the world. But more than that, the training regimen for these units had to produce soldiers and airmen proficient in combat skills, flexible enough to move at a moment's notice, and able to operate under extremely stressful conditions, while maintaining their individual specialty training.

World War II, Korea, and now the looming specter of war in Vietnam were showing what a great need there was for a new system. A system of men, equipment, and coordination similar to the Navy SeaBees, to support the Air force in combat and other emergency conditions with the building of airstrips, roads, bridges and revetments. The brass had little trouble focusing on the right man for the job of creating such a unit. The assignment went to an Air Force Colonel at the prime of his productive years in the service, a man whose fighting skills and mettle had been tested in the jungles of Burma and in Saudi Arabia. A graduate of the Air War College, and a man with a background strong in civil engineering and man-management skills, Lt. Colonel William T. Meredith.

What evolved out of the tremendous brain trust of officers and civilians called the Civil Engineering Manpower Study Group, put together by Meredith in December, 1963, were in-depth studies that enabled the Air Force accurately to defi ne its civil engineering manpower requirements in terms of quantity, quality, and civilian/military mix at a time when aerospace and related technologies were undergoing radical changes. In a short period of time, the reports put together by this study group, the most comprehensive ever made of these types of quantitative and qualitative requirements, finally made it possible to get a handle on the needs for: 1) reorientation and redistribution of the Civil Engineer force from a peace-time posture to one prepared to meet Air Force requirements in times of emergency, 2) improved training and career opportunities for the Civil Engineer force, and 3) a single manager within the Directorate of Civil Engineering, Hq USAF, for this newly reoriented and redistributed force.

Working directly with Major General Benjamin O. Davis, the first African-American to attain general rank, Meredith and his team got the Air Staff and the Congress to approve Air Force requirements for a total civil engineering force of over 100,000 personnel, including 37,000 in uniform.

It took almost two years to organize uniformed engineers into the new Prime BEEF (Base Engineer Emergency Forces) units, but what resulted was a model of tactical engineering efficiency and optimal use of manpower. The system gave wing and base commanders, for the first time, a local, peacetime military base engineering capability that could be deployed overseas in wartime or used to meet any contingency emergency requirements.

The Prime BEEF concept was first deployed in August, 1965, in San Isidro, Dominican Republic, and after Bien Hoa was attacked, wartime BEEF teams were sent to Vietnam to shore up air base defenses. Air Force leaders were quick to heap praise on the new team concept, and reported that it was proving to be superior to the prior systems.

But it wasn't long before Colonel Meredith found himself having to deal with yet another major challenge. Air Force leaders in Vietnam were finding that they needed heavy combat construction engineering support, beyond the capabilities of Prime BEEF. Once again the Secretary of Defense agreed and, in October of 1965, USAF Chief of Staff General John P. McConnell gave USAF civil engineering just sixty days to field and equip new units to meet that need.

Once again, working against the double-barreled difficulties of serious time constraints and considerable skepticism from many in the Pentagon, Tom Meredith stepped up to the plate swinging. He organized staff, got people, funding, and logistics support; established organization and training; arranged a shipment staging area; and got a ship for the first load of equipment bound for Southeast Asia. He was truly "living" his personal motto: "Lead, Follow, Or Get The Hell Out Of The Way!" What evolved from this tremendous effort were self-sufficient, highly skilled 400-man units - scaled to half the size of an Army aviation engineering battalion - which were self-contained (with their own logistical support elements) and combat-trained: RED HORSE!

The RED HORSE (Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron, Engineering) units were developed to be concise, hard-hitting, mobile, and able to survive under the most demanding conditions, worldwide. The first units were on the high seas by January of 1966, heading for Asia, and within a short time there were five RED HORSE squadrons in Vietnam and one in reserve in Thailand, with a total strength of 2,400 personnel, augmented by 6,000 Nationals. And the proud commander of one of those RED HORSE Squadrons, the 554th CES, in Phan Rang, Vietnam, was Colonel William T. Meredith.

Military historians say that USAF combat engineering really got started in Vietnam. After lessons learned in Korea, the Air Force did indeed devise its own engineering force, but what gave it form and substance, what breathed life into it - the quality of its personnel, the supportive doctrines, training, organization, programs, and logistics - came about because of Tom Meredith.

The units that he forged almost four decades ago are not only still in use today, making tremendous contributions to the military successes and victories in operations like Desert Storm, Afghanistan and in the current conflict in Iraq, but also have been expanded to include vital roles in the Reserves and the Air National Guard.

* * * * *

The colors on this sad day somehow seemed softer, more muted: the blues and reds of the flag-draped caskets, the splashes of the Honor Guards' shoulder patches, the sunlight dappling through the sprigs of greenery, heralding the arrival of a new spring in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Brigadier General William T. Meredith, Ret., stood solemnly at attention among the officers, non-coms, and family members as the names of the eighteen airmen of the 203rd RED HORSE Flight, Virginia Air National Guard were read into the rolls of the honored dead: Master Sergeant James Beninati
Staff Sergeant Paul J.Blancato
Technical Sergeant Ernest Blawas
Staff Sergeant Andrew H. Bridges
Master Sergeant Eric G. Bulman
Staff Sergeant Paul E. Cramer
Technical Sergeant Michael E. East
Staff Sergeant Ronald L. Elkin
Staff Sergeant James P. Ferguson
Staff Sergeant Randy V. Johnson
Senior Airman Matthew E. Kidd
Master Sergeant Michael E. Lane
Tech Sergeant Edwin B. Richardson
Tech Sergeant Dean J. Shelby
Staff Sergeant John L. Sincavage
Staff Sergeant Gregory Skurupey
Staff Sergeant Richard Summerell
Major Frederick Watkins

The sharp reports of the 21-gun salute echoed, then echoed again, followed by the plaintive notes of Taps floating across the spring day. In the silence that followed, for just a small moment, the world seemed to pause to pay respect to those who had given everything for God and country. Tom Meredith had brought his children home.

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Catalogue Information

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