Athletes And War -- Call Recalled -- War In Iraq Brings Back Memories Players Tried To Forget

CUTLINE: ROCKY BLEIER'S BOOK, ``FIGHTING BACK,'' TELLS OF HIS EXPERIENCE AS AN INFANTRY-MAN IN VIETNAM

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Early Wednesday evening, Bill Campbell twirled the dial of his car radio, trying to find a station to tell him a way out of a typical Chicago commuter jam.

No sooner had the former major-league pitcher found what he was looking for than a bulletin on the U.S air attack on Iraq interrupted the traffic report and threw him back more than 20 years, to another war.

An Army grunt who carried a radio for 13 months and participated in more jungle firefights than he wants to remember, Campbell could not help but think of the horrors of Vietnam.

``I heard the news about the Middle East war starting and I got a funny feeling,'' he said. ``It was a worry about what was going on, what was going to happen to the men and the country and the world. They were thoughts I never had before and suddenly I realized what my folks and everyone else back in the States must have been thinking of me and others in Vietnam.''

Few pro athletes served in Vietnam, with the noted exceptions of Campbell, Rocky Bleier, the Pittsburgh Steelers running back, and Al Bumbry, a Baltimore Orioles outfielder. It was much different from World War II, when many big-name pros - baseball stars Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Bob Feller, and NFL stars George McAfee, Bill Osmanski and Frank Filchock - joined up.

``Back then, the situation was different,'' said Warren Spahn, who enlisted before starting a major-league career that led to the Hall of Fame. ``The preservation of the country seemed at stake. You dropped everything to go and do the things that were necessary.''

Phillies' pitcher Hugh Mulcahy was the first player drafted, and by the end of 1942, hundreds had gone. By the spring of 1945, the number had grown to 384 major-league baseball players and 238 NFL players. Many played on service teams or wound up in special services, making tours or speaking at war bond rallies. But not all.

Al Blozis, the New York Giants' All-Pro tackle, was killed by German machine gun fire in France. Cecil Travis, Washington Senators' shortstop and a potential Hall of Famer who hit .359 in 1941, his seventh season over .300, lost toes during the Battle of the Bulge and was never the same player.

Williams served twice as a Marine fighter pilot, called back for the Korean conflict at age 34. On the third of his 39 missions, his Sabre jet was hit by anti-aircraft fire. Refusing to bail out, Williams nursed his fighter home and landed on fire at 200 miles an hour at a South Korean base.

He refuses to talk about his service time. ``There is nothing I want to recollect,'' he recently told a friend in Maine.

By the end of the Korean war, many professional athletes were joining reserve units, a practice many teams facilitated in order to help their players fulfill their service obligation. The players did six months of basic and advanced training and served one weekend a month for the next six years.

By the late 1960s, when Vietnam developed into a full-scale war that demanded increased manpower, teams continued to get players into reserve units.

``Yeah, a lot of us did it,'' said Buzzie Bavasi, former general manager with Los Angeles, San Diego and California. ``I helped guys get into reserve units. I got (Don) Drysdale and (Sandy) Koufax in in the late '50s and we were still doing it when Vietnam started.

``Then it looked bad to some people, athletes avoiding service or something. But it was something we had been doing all along. For one thing, teams wanted to be able to count on having players and this was the best way of regulating when we would have them or not.''

Lou Gorman, who recently retired with the rank of captain after 30 years in the Naval Reserve, said he placed players in the reserves for the Orioles and Royals.

``The units liked having the players, too,'' he said. ``It was good for morale and publicity. We had contacts with units near the cities where we played to control the travel time to drills.''

Mets shortstop Buddy Harrelson and pitcher Nolan Ryan showed both sides of the teams' preference for convenience during the 1969 pennant race. Harrelson, in a unit in Bayside, N.Y., was able to make it in from weekend drills for late Sunday games.

Ryan, however, reported to a unit near his home in Alvin, Texas, and had to leave on Thursday to arrive in time for weekend drills.

``That situation might have had an effect on Ryan's career,'' recalled Jack Lang, a veteran baseball writer who covered the Mets. ``Ryan was later traded because he was unavailable for use in the regular rotation, and some say his reserve time caused the trade.''

Baseball teams, which have more players at both major- and minor-league levels than other pro sports combined, made extensive use of the part-time military service. The 1973 Sporting News Player Register, for instance, lists more than 1,000 players on major-league rosters, and 115 with military service.

Of those, only a handful - 10 - saw regular service.

In football, it was much the same. As far as regular service went, of more than 1,375 players listed, only seven missed as much as a full season. Most notable are Bleier and Dallas quarterback Roger Staubach, a 1965 Navy graduate who served in Vietnam.

Bleier's experiences in 1968-69, including being drafted, trying too late to get into a reserve unit and fighting as an Army foot soldier, are detailed in his book, ``Fighting Back.'' Bleier describes in detail a number of experiences, climaxing with the North Vietnamese ambush in which a grenade explosion tore up his foot.

In the hospital, a day after being evacuated from the field, Bleier recalled picking up a copy of the Stars & Stripes, the military newspaper, and reading a story which referred to him as ``Rocky Bleier, the ex-football player.''

``That had an implication,'' Bleier said, ``I did not want to consider.''

Campbell was not wounded, but wonders how.

``I'm 6-foot-3 to start, and I'm carrying around a radio with a 6-foot antenna, and you know the lieutenant wanted it up all the time in case we needed to get help quick,'' he said. ``It felt like I was waving a neon sign reading, `Right here, guys.' ''

Campbell, who lives in Chicago and was pitching in the recently folded Senior Baseball League, recalls feeling that ``no amount of training prepared us for the experiences. I never got hurt, but there were some near-misses. A lot of patrols, lot of action. A lot of stuff I've made myself forget. It got a little hairy at times.''

When he got into baseball in 1971, Campbell found himself a center of attention. Other players were fascinated by his experiences. ``It created some kind of mystique around me,'' he said.

He also found he had been one of the few players, or even pro prospects, who could not escape the draft.

``I had no resentment,'' Campbell said. ``Maybe I was too happy to be back, safe and sound. My only recollection is that I thought other players were fortunate to get into the reserves or stay out of it with medical deferments.''

He had dropped out of a four-year college program at home in California.

``It seemed like the next day I got my letter from the draft board. I tried to get into the reserve, Coast Guard, but they were booked up. I had had elbow surgery for bone chips, but they laughed at me at the induction physical. In 1968, they were taking anyone who breathed.

``I will never forget standing on a black tile floor and sweating in a hot room and leaving barefoot prints on the floor. The guy next to me had feet flat as a pancake. They took him, too.

``That physical was the first time I ever felt like cattle, herded in lines from one station to the next. When it was over they hung cards around our necks, red or green. Those days were so tough that they had a draft for the Marines, and as the Marine went around selecting those, we didn't realize it was the color of card that decided it.

``I just prayed. Army was tough, but the Marines, oh no. Those with green cards were going into the Marines. I had a red card.''

Bumbry and Garry Maddox, a Phillies outfielder, were not drafted. Maddox enlisted. Bumbry wound up in Vietnam as a lieutenant after a college ROTC program.

``The school required ROTC your first two years,'' Bumbry said. ``But at the end of that time I was listed 1-A, prime choice in 1967. So I went back for two more years, figuring the war would never last that long. But the war waited for me.''

Bumbry, now a Boston Red Sox coach, went to Vietnam as a platoon leader, leading 40 men.

``I was not there to be a hero, I was basically there to help my men survive,'' he said. ``I think we did okay. In 11 months, we only had two killed. But I'll never forget them, what we went through or how it tore into me to lose them.''

Now, the Gulf war has done to Bumbry what it did to Campbell, awakened long-ago thoughts of when he responded to the call of a country ``that had given me so much.''

``I hate to see this fighting,'' Bumbry said. ``I've heard analysts say how it is a different war. No, it isn't. All wars are alike, bad alike.''

Maddox, now operating his own business in Philadelphia, refuses to go back in his mind to Vietnam.

``I hope you will understand,'' he said softly. ``I felt an obligation to serve. And I was 19 and not to be held back. I was going over to win it by myself if I had to . . . but I didn't.''