Ghosts of the Past - Ranger Story

8/12/2019 Ghosts of the Past - Ranger Story

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Ghosts of the Past | Anna-Melissa Tribune

amtrib.com/sections/news/ghosts-past.html

Submitted photo Dick Hayden, left, and Cheng-Ming Kao, second from left.

Submitted photo Scott, Emily and Carter Manning, General Lee, Leeâs son-in-law John W. Tai and Lt Col.

James Huang

http://amtrib.com/sections/news/ghosts-past.html



Submitted photo General Lee skypes with Dick Hayden half-a-world away

Submitted photo Hayden, top right; Kao middle row left; Weng, bottom row left



Submitted photo Dick Hayden, kneeling in center, with Cheng-Ming Kao and Chi-Hsiung Weng to his right

By Rodney Williams

Managing Editor

The past sometimes has a funny way of making itself known in the present. To some, this comes as an

intrusion, but to Melissa resident Dick Hayden, it comes as a miracle.

Those who do not know Hayden well probably have no clue that the respected, unassuming voice on the

Melissa City Council was a U.S. Army Ranger and Green Beret in the early 1960s. And it was during his

Ranger training that Hayden made a connection that would affect him for the rest of his life.

In 1961, Hayden was in U.S. Army Ranger School, one of the first National Guardsmen to train with the

elite unit. Alongside him was another man who was also marking a first; Cheng-Ming Kao was one of three

Taiwanese soldiers and first non-Americans to go through the school. Throughout their training, Kao and

Hayden became close in a friendship forged of work, sweat and adrenaline.

They did not start out as bosom buddies in the beginning, however.

“We went over to the Ranger school…and then they break you into buddy teams. I saw Kao was going to

be my buddy and I about died because…he had a scowl on his face and couldn’t speak very good English.

I didn’t know if I was going to make it through,” said Hayden.

At first, the two didn’t get along famously because they knew they had to beat each other. The training was

dangerous – at night, in the cold, around water – so everyone got a “buddy.” There was a map reading

class and each buddy team was dropped off at night in a designated waypoint unknown to them where

they received map coordinates that told them where they were and where they needed to go. Teams were

not allowed to use flashlights; a flashlight turned on meant the end of the line for that team. Failing to finish

the task or not finishing on time also meant the end of the line for Ranger hopefuls.

“I didn’t have a clue where we were, I was just following Kao,” said Hayden. “And we made it. We were

one of the first groups to make it back [to the checkpoint.] We did so good that I got the first compliment I

had received [in the military] and I don’t remember ever receiving another one. The Ranger there when we

got back said, ‘You guys did good,’ and Kao smiled for the first time and said, ‘Buddy, we did good!’

They say friendships forged under duress are those marked by the strongest bonds. The case could be



made for a young Hayden and Kao as exemplars of this sentiment as each made sure the other was to

finish training.

“Another time, we had this tactical officer we called Mr. Clean because he looked like the cleaning guy with

the shaved head; he liked to run us,” recalled Hayden. “One day we fell out for a run in the mountains and

we knew we were going to run a long way. I wasn’t much of a runner and pretty soon guys started falling

out. Finally, I just figured I would drop out and just quit running, and Kao turned around and said, ‘You don’t

stop, you my buddy.’ He turned around and gave me this dirty look, and I got so mad at him that I said I

would finish this route if I died doing it. We finished that route; it was 11.2 miles.

“That was a big thing for me. After that, I knew I could push myself.”

The pair, despite a significant communications barrier, continued to have the other’s back. On one

nighttime training run they were to exit a helicopter. The instructions were to leave from a specific side, but

the chopper got turned around and came in from a different direction. Kao didn’t realize this and was about

to jump straight into the tail rotor when Hayden grabbed his pack and threw him backwards, saving his life.

Experiences like these happened throughout the entire Ranger course.

Hayden said he probably wouldn’t have made it through Ranger school without Kao. “I helped him, too, but

he was the main guy. And he didn’t have to; he was the type of guy he was all business. I was his

responsibility and he looked out for me. I wouldn’t have made that run [without him.]”

After they graduated in 1962, Kao and the two other Taiwanese soldiers went back to their country; Kao

and Hayden continued to write frequently, however. Then somewhere around January the following year,

the letters from Kao stopped. It wasn’t until April of that year that Hayden found out from a colleague that

Kao had died during a training accident. He was devastated - Kao had become one of his best friends.

Though he was given the address of Kao’s family, sadness and life intervened in Hayden writing the family.

Sitting in a North Texas office telling the story 53 years later, it’s clear from the timber of his voice that this

is one of those things Hayden will regret for the rest of his life.

But this would not be a miracle story without something to feel good about. Enter Emily and Scott and baby

Carter Manning, Hayden’s granddaughter, son-in-law and great-grandson. They obviously share in

Grandpa Hayden’s adventurous spirit and are visiting 12 countries in 12 months “to discover the joys of

world travel as a family—one country at a time.” One of those countries was Taiwan, and when Hayden

found out that they were visiting Taiwan he asked them to see what they could find in regard to Lt. Kao’s

family so that he could get in touch with them again and find out more about his late friend. The Mannings

could not read Chinese and had never been to Taiwan but despite all those roadblocks were eager for the

challenge.

Hayden knew that Kao had graduated initially from the Chinese Military Academy (CMA) in Taiwan, but he

didn’t know much else. The travelers Googled it and found out that it was located in the same city they

were staying in for the month, Kaohsiung. The Mannings walked to the front gates of the CMA and, in their own words, “tried to seem as dumb as possible hoping that the guards would bring someone who spoke

English to tell us to get lost so we could then explain what we’re trying to do.” Eventually the plan worked

after half an hour of trying to use Google Translate.

Lt Col. James Huang came to see what the fuss was about and this is where things started to turn in

Hayden’s favor. The Mannings showed Huang a picture of Kao and presented all the facts they had

regarding his family’s potential whereabouts. It was not much to go on: an address of his father from 50

years back, the year of Kao’s graduation from Ranger school, the year of his death, and the names of his

fellow Ranger graduates. That was it.



As Scott wrote, “It was a needle in a haystack in every possible sense.”

Nevertheless, Huang brought the family inside, telling them along the way that if they had come a day

before or a day after they would have been turned away immediately as the cadets were on leave since the

day prior and the instructors had a day off. Again, fate seemed to be on their side. Huang escorted the

party to the records division to see what they could dig up but it turned into a bust with no information

found. With nothing to go on, the kindly Huang escorted the family to the train station. He did, however, tell

them to send him an email with whatever further details they could come up with and he would try his best.

Two days later, Scott received news: Huang had been as good as his word and had found something of

interest. It seems that one of Hayden’s old friends was now a retired lieutenant general and former navy

admiral. Huang had not forgotten the unique request; indeed, he had asked military contacts, posted on

Facebook and racked his brain for other search possibilities. It was then that he had made a connection

between the name of one of the other Ranger graduates Scott had mentioned and someone he knew very

well – his former general.

As it turns out, Lt. Chein-Chung Lee went on to become the Admiral of the Coast Guard and then a four-

star general in the Taiwanese Army. His colleague and fellow Ranger graduate, Lt. Chi-Hsiung Weng, also

became a general and a doctor with degrees from MIT and Harvard. Lee remembered Kao well and was

more than happy to relay what he knew, with but one caveat: he wanted to do it in person.

Lee desired to meet the traveling Americans and take them to lunch in Taipei. Scott described Lee as “a

kind, wonderful, and amazing man with an even more amazing history. He spoke to us with respect, and

referred to Emily’s grandfather as he would his good friend - despite them not knowing each other well at

all. This was the effect of the Ranger training, turning strangers into brothers. He said several times to

Emily, ‘The granddaughter of a Ranger is my granddaughter.’”

Though he hadn’t spoken any conversational English since his training in 1961, Lee agreed to a video

Skype call with Hayden. These two men had met for the first time 53 years earlier, and after replaying old

memories, Lee told Hayden the entire story of Kao’s death and his family. The story turned out to be one of

epic sadness. During a training exercise Kao jumped headfirst into a lake, forgetting that he was supposedto go in feet first due to the height of the jump. Lee, Kao’s peer at the time, was the first to jump in after him

and pull him to shore to administer CPR. It was too late, however, as Kao died on impact.

The news devastated Kao’s family; he was an only child and the only line of succession for three

generations back. He had no aunts and uncles. After Kao’s death his father died due to sadness, followed

by his grandfather and then his mother. Within a decade, an entire family line was wiped out.

Kao’s legacy, however, lived on in Lee and Weng as they went on to become generals. The men attribute

their success to the memory of their brother.

Hayden went on to find the blessed pairing in life: happiness and success. He was the executive vice-

president of Swift and Company when the company was bought and moved to Texas and has since helped

raise a family of six children, 26 grandchildren and 30 great-grandchildren. And thanks to the efforts of the

traveling Mannings and the dogged and tireless efforts of Huang – without whom none of this would have

been possible – he got to claim the closure he had for so long desired.

This experience could have gone so many different ways, but how it ended up was the most fantastic way

possible. Having been able to speak to General Lee, Hayden finally got the closure for which he had

longed for more than 50 years. He counts it as one of the greatest moments in his life.

“It was one of the biggest things…everything fell into place and it was proof that miracles do happen, there

are no coincidences. There were a lot of prayers involved,” said Hayden.



The meeting had a huge impact on the General, as well. His son-in-law, John W. Tai, wrote for him in a

letter to Hayden, saying “Before his most recent encounter with you, my father-in-law had always spoken

with great affection about his days in the Ranger School. He is very proud of his achievement as one of

the few Taiwan military officers to have successfully graduated from this intense training program. It has

been very clear to me that this was an experience that he holds close to his heart. As far as I can see, your

recent conversation with him allowed him to reminisce with more emotion and at a greater depth of feeling

about that experience than at any other time since he left the Ranger School. In a nutshell, you have

allowed him to travel down memory lane and relive that moment in his youth with an unprecedented depth

of emotion. For this, he is very grateful to you.”

As for the future, Hayden had better brush up on his Chinese as he has been invited to experience the

90th anniversary of the Chinese Military Academy. Kao would have been proud of his buddy.

Editor’s Note: Much of this story was shamelessly source from the brilliant work of Emily, Scott and baby

Carter on the TwelveCountriesdotCom blog.

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Ghosts of the Past - Ranger Story