With a deafening crack, Vietnam veteran E. Paige Lanier pulled the lanyard on an M777 howitzer, sending a shell hovering over the prairie at Fort Carson’s huge coaching grounds south of Colorado Springs.
On that sunny fall day, Command Sgt. Maj. Rob McGinnis launched Lanier to the group gathered for an illustration of latest know-how as invaluable to the artillery regiment.
“He retains us rooted in our historical past and he retains us bonded collectively,” McGinnis mentioned. “We love him.”
Former Army Capt. Lanier, 85, helped symbolically shut the door on previous communications know-how that day. However he is a continuing presence across the 2nd Battalion, 77th Area Artillery on Fort Carson, visiting just a few instances a month. At a latest change of command ceremony, he sat within the entrance row, his purple hat a stark distinction in a sea of camouflage.
“The two-77 is simply his dwelling,” mentioned Capt. Sophia Suri, who helps Lanier as a board member of the regiment’s affiliation.
When troops had been returning dwelling from conflict within the Center East, Lanier and a gaggle of about 10 volunteers helped guarantee they had been greeted with pizza events, problem cash and free rides dwelling. He made positive these welcomes changed divorce attorneys representing sad spouses and taxi drivers eager to cost exorbitant charges. The volunteers primarily ran the legal professionals off base, he recalled.
Some Vietnam veterans had been spat upon or had purple substances thrown on them by protesters. Whereas it by no means occurred to Lanier personally, he mentioned a few of his pals confronted the offended reception, and the group needed to verify returning troopers by no means skilled something comparable.
“These are my household,” he mentioned throughout an interview at his dwelling in December, a number of months after firing the artillery on base. Whereas Lanier has lived in Colorado Springs since 1972, his Virginia accent got here by as he mirrored on years of volunteer work with Fort Carson troopers and his time as a younger officer in Vietnam.
E. Paige Lanier, who was an artilleryman within the battle of Suoi Tre in Vietnam, watches an train with Capt. Sophia Suri, because the artillerymen with the 2nd Battalion, 77th Area Artillery Regiment check new pc methods down vary Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025, at Fort Carson. (The Gazette, Christian Murdock)
Successful towards the chances
Sharing his tales from Vietnam with youthful troopers can be a part of his mission on base.
In early December, Lanier instructed the story of the Battle Soui Tre to Fort Carson troopers, as a featured speaker throughout a celebration of the 4th Infantry Division’s 108th birthday.
Lanier’s first deployment to Vietnam, as a primary lieutenant, in 1966 and ’67, got here at a time when the U.S. was attempting to seize Viet Cong management close to Cambodia, as a part of an offensive known as Operation Junction Metropolis.
As a part of that push, the Army established a base for artillery to offer help to floor troops close to the deserted village of Soui Tre.
“I believe they put us on the market for bait, as a result of they needed the enemy to assault us,” Lanier mentioned. The Viet Cong seemingly thought they might overrun the American troops, however the U.S. troopers beat them regardless of working out of ammunition at one level, he mentioned.
The battle began within the early morning of March 21, 1967, when the Viet Cong began a heavy mortar assault adopted by a floor assault with troops descending on them from the north, east and south, in line with an official Army account recommending the items within the battle for a presidential unit quotation. The account estimated 2,500 Viet Cong attacked.
The state of affairs was so important howitzers had been lowered “to fireplace instantly into the waves of advancing enemy troopers,” the account mentioned.
The artillerymen fired beehive rounds into the troopers full of nails with fins on the top as an alternative of a flat head, Lanier mentioned.
The beehive rounds would pin a soldier’s rifle to their physique and folks to timber, he mentioned, and contributed to the excessive dying toll. The official file mentioned 647 killed Viet Cong troopers, however Lanier is aware of it was a lot larger as a result of the defeated troops took the our bodies of their fellow troopers with them and as they retreated, American jets fired on them.
As a younger munitions officer on the time, Lanier collected the rounds from the munitions depot and obtained 18 further rounds of the beehive munition that his commanding officer ordered him to challenge to the weapons anyway, offering extra firepower to the 77th Artillery Regiment crews.
Throughout the preventing, the artillery crews cannibalized destroyed howitzers to maintain broken ones firing. After they ran out of ammunition, they grabbed rifles and stored firing on the enemy, Lanier mentioned. Cooks, clerks and others additionally jumped in to assist, the official file mentioned.
As U.S. troopers ran out of ammunition, they began utilizing weapons and ammunition from lifeless or wounded Viet Cong troopers, in line with the official file. The squaddies ran out of bullets after being issued double their regular provide, he mentioned.
Throughout the preventing, personnel carriers and tanks arrived with further weapons, Lanier mentioned, and the Individuals carried the day, with about 33 troopers killed and 187 wounded.
Throughout the battle, Lanier was lower than two miles away, charged with manning small arms and 1000’s of high-explosive rounds for the artillery. Lanier and his group acquired fortunate and weren’t found by the enemy fighters throughout the battle.
In different engagements, although, Lanier was tasked with calling artillery hearth and he had no drawback giving the order, he recalled.
“If we acquired one spherical fired at us, I might have artillery within the air,” he mentioned.
After enlisting in 1960 after which attending Officer Candidate Faculty, Lanier had thought of making the navy a profession. He got here from a household historical past of service. Among the many eight brothers in his household, six had served within the navy, two in World Warfare II, two in Korea and two in Vietnam, together with Lanier.
However he acquired annoyed with the decrease requirements for troopers launched by Secretary of Protection Robert McNamara.
“They couldn’t learn, they couldn’t write, they couldn’t march,” he recalled.
So he left and went into enterprise for himself as a touring salesman representing auto half producers, a profession he cherished and labored in for 42 years.
Work on Fort Carson
In 2007, when the 2nd Battalion, 77th Area Artillery Regiment moved again to Fort Carson from Fort Hood, Lanier acquired concerned with the regiment’s affiliation and arranged a reunion after making pals with the battalion’s commander.
Throughout the reunion, the Vietnam veterans helped practice the troopers on air-lifting artillery with helicopters, he mentioned.
For some, Lanier is a residing reminder of the regiment’s legacy. He additionally supplies a private connection to the troopers of the previous and an understanding of who they’re and what they went by, mentioned Capt. Suri, who has met different older artillerymen by the affiliation.
By way of these former troopers she mentioned she has realized about dedication to group.
“Your service is just not restricted to your time in energetic responsibility,” she mentioned.
Whereas Lanier is shifting slightly slower than he used to after a fall, he has no plans to cease volunteering with the artillerymen or telling their story. And he expects artillery can be related lengthy into the longer term as a result of it at all times has been.
“Artillery has been a spine of the navy without end,” he mentioned.
Whereas the artillery shell he fired in September might be his final, he mentioned that sunny day, he’s not ruling out the potential of one other invitation from his pals on the 2nd Battalion to fireplace a giant gun.
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