This Military Service Page was created/owned by
MAJ Mark E Cooper
to remember
Seitz, Richard Joe (Dangerous Dick), LTG.
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Contact Info
Home Town Leavenworth
Last Address Junction City, KS
Date of Passing Jun 08, 2013
Location of Interment Fort Riley Post Cemetery (VLM) - Fort Riley, Kansas
His nephew, John Seitz , confirmed that Richard Seitz died Saturday morning at his home in Junction City.
Richard Seitz was a native of Leavenworth, Kansas, but had been a resident of Junction City since 1975 after retiring from active duty service in the military. John Seitz noted his uncle was active in the Boy Scouts, the Armed Services YMCA, served as a former president of the local AUSA chapter, and was also involved with the Saint Xavier church activities, and in Republican Party politics. “He’s been involved in everything that involves soldiers and helping soldiers do better, and their families.”
Richard Seitz commanded the Second Battalion of the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment in World War Two. His selection for that command made him one of the youngest infantry battalion commanders during World War II at three days shy of his 25th birthday. In march 1967 Seitz was promoted to major general and a month later assumed command of the 82nd Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg. In May 1973 he was promoted to Lt. General, and his final assignment returned him to the Airborne as the commanding general of the XVIII Airborne Corps and Ft. Bragg.
The new Seitz Elementary School at Ft. Riley was named after Richard Seitz in 2012. His nephew stated, “He used to say, there’s a whole list, a long list of people who were more deserving of that. For my money there wasn’t anybody more deserving. He just did things for soldiers and their families, and the community.”
Richard Seitz is survived by four children: Rick Seitz, Judge Patricia Seitz, Dr. Catherine Seitz, and Dr. Victoria Seitz. Funeral Services will be handled by Penwell-Gabel Funeral Homes & Crematory.
Other Comments:
In Memory of Lt. GEN Richard J. Seitz
1918 - 2013
Lt. General Richard J. Seitz, age 95, completed a storied life on June 8, 2013 after suffering congestive heart failure. Born in Leavenworth, KS Feb. 18, 1918, he grew up in that city and then attended Kansas State University where in 1939 as a junior he began dating his first wife, Bettie Jean Merrill, a freshman. That same year Dick, foreseeing WWII looming on the horizon, accepted a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army. Once in the Army he went through the sixth jump school class the Army ever had thus becoming one of its first paratroopers.
With the advent of the war, Dick rose rapidly until at the age of only 25 in March 1942, as a Major, he was given command of the 2nd Battalion of the 517th Parachute Infantry Regimental Combat Team. Thereafter, he was promoted to Lt. Colonel and, as the Army’s youngest battalion commander, led his battalion throughout its historic combat operations in Europe with the personal radio call sign of “Dangerous Dick.”
The 517th was flung into combat at Anzio at the time of the breakout from that beachhead followed by fighting up the Italian Peninsula. They then made the combat jump into the southern invasion of France at 4AM, Aug.15, 1944 as the airborne element of Operation Dragoon with its subsequent heavy combat in the French Maritime Alps. Finally, put in reserve in Northeastern France in December 1944, Dick was drawing up Paris leave rosters for his men when Hitler launched the Battle of the Bulge.
At that point, Dick’s 2nd Battalion was married with a Regiment of the 7th Armored Division to form what became known as Task Force Seitz. It was pushed in to plug the gaps on the north slope of the Bulge every time the Germans tried to make a breakout. In doing so, his battalion went from 691 men to 380 through combat losses in some of the worst fighting of WWII. The battalion went on from the Bulge to see even further bloody combat in the subsequent battles of the Huertigen Forrest.
Before shipping out to Europe, Dick and Bettie continued to see each other whenever they had a chance to do so. In 1942, after graduating from Kansas State, Bettie joined the Red Cross and was subsequently sent to England in late 1943 to support the bomber groups of the Army Air Corp’s 8th Air Force. In the fall of 1944, she was moved to Holland to run an Army rest and rehabilitation center. There in January 1945, she read in Stars and Stripes that Task Force Seitz was heavily engaged in the fighting around St. Vith. By herself, she drove from Holland to the front in Belgium and managed to find the Regimental HQ of the 517th. But they would not allow her to go on to the very front lines where Dick was. However, this put them back in personal touch which led to their marriage in June 1945 in Joigny, France with one Red Cross bridesmaid and 1800 paratroopers in attendance in one of the greatest love stories of WWII.
Dick ended the war with the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and the Purple Heart plus what he most treasured besides his Parachute Wings, the Combat Infantryman’s Badge. Thereafter, during his lifelong Army career including nearly 37 years of active duty he also received numerous other decorations and awards including the Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit and the French Croix de Guerre and Legion of Honor. Along with these awards, his commands included the 2nd Airborne Battle Group, 503rd Infantry Regiment and the 82nd Airborne Division, which he led into Detroit and Washington, DC in 1967 to quell those cities’ riots. He also commanded the XVIII Airborne Corps and was Chief of Staff US Army Vietnam in 1965 through 1967 under General Westmoreland. As a Portuguese speaker he served two tours in Brazil, the last as Chief of the Joint US/Brazilian Military Commission and one year in Iran as a military advisor. He likewise served in Japan with the occupation forces immediately after World War II.
Dick and Bettie retired to Junction City in 1975. Unfortunately, Bettie died of a heart attack June 1, 1978. Thereafter, Dick was blessed to marry Virginia Crane, a widow, in 1980. She also predeceased him in 2006. In retirement, Dick remained extremely active with the Army through Ft. Riley as well as in the Junction City Community and in Kansas generally. During the Iraqi and Afghanistan Wars he would go out to Ft. Riley to see off and greet the deploying and redeploying units from those fights, no matter the hour day or night. He was past Chairman of the Ft. Riley National Bank, very active with the Coronado Council of the Boy Scouts, a Trustee of St. John’s Military Academy, on the Board of the Eisenhower Presidential Library, President of the Fort Riley-Central Kansas Chapter of the Association of the U.S. Army, and Chaired Junction City’s Economic Redevelopment Study Commission among many other activities. He was also honored as an Outstanding Citizen of Kansas, received the prestigious AUSA Creighton Abrams Award, and most recently had the General Richard J. Seitz Elementary School named in his honor on the post at Ft. Riley. He felt a particular affection for the faculty and students of that school whom he visited as often as he could. The best way to describe Dick is that he lived his life “Airborne all the way!” to the very end.
He was predeceased by his parents, John Casimir and Florence M. Seitz, and seven brothers and sisters including Brigadier General Andrew Seitz (US Army ret. and former commander of Ft. Riley), Warrant Officer Edward Seitz (US Army ret.), Henry Seitz, Frances Gaddis, Helen Charles, Mary Ann Seitz and her twin Jane Marie Hardy. Dick was the fifth in this line of eight siblings.
Dick is survived by his daughters, Senior US District Court Judge Patricia Seitz of Miami, FL; Doctor Cache Steinberg (PhD) of Richmond, VA; Doctor Victoria Seitz (PhD) of San Bernardino, Calif.; son, Richard M. Seitz (USAF ret.) currently heading the US Coast Guard’s C130 aircraft acquisition program, Washington, D.C., step-daughter Nancy Crane, of St. George, KS, son-in-laws Dr. Joel Steinberg MD and Alan Greer, attorney, granddaughter Jordan Christine Seitz, a senior at Arkansas State University and various nephews and nieces including Col. John Seitz US Army(ret.), Junction City, KS and Dr. Jim Hardy Superintendent of Schools in Chanute , KS.
Cremation has taken place and A Mass of the Resurrection will be held at 9:00 a.m., Monday, July 22, 2013 at the St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church with Father Al Brungardt and Father Kerry Ninemeyer concelebrating. Inurnment will follow with full military honors at Fort Riley Cemetery, Fort Riley, Kansas. A vigil service will be held at 7:00 p.m., Sunday, July 21, 2013 at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church. In lieu of flowers the family requests donations to either the LTG. Richard J. Seitz Veteran Scholarship at Kansas State University,c/o KSU Foundation, 2323 Anderson Avenue, Manhattan, KS 66502, St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, P.O. Box 399, Junction City, KS 66441, Junction City YMCA, P.O. Box 113, Junction City, KS 66441 or the Coronado Council of the Boy Scouts, P.O. Box 912, Salina, KS 67402.
Vietnam War/Counteroffensive Campaign (1965-66)
From Month/Year
December / 1965
To Month/Year
June / 1966
Description This campaign was from 25 December 1965 to 30 June 1966. United States operations after 1 July 1966 were a continuation of the earlier counteroffensive campaign. Recognizing the interdependence of political, economic, sociological, and military factors, the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared that American military objectives should be to cause North Vietnam to cease its control and support of the insurgency in South Vietnam and Laos, to assist South Vietnam in defeating Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam, and to assist South Vietnam in pacification extending governmental control over its territory.
North Vietnam continued to build its own forces inside South Vietnam. At first this was done by continued infiltration by sea and along the Ho Chi Minh trail and then, in early 1966, through the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). U.S. air elements received permission to conduct reconnaissance bombing raids, and tactical air strikes into North Vietnam just north of the DMZ, but ground forces were denied authority to conduct reconnaissance patrols in the northern portion of the DMZ and inside North Vietnam. Confined to South Vietnamese territory U.S. ground forces fought a war of attrition against the enemy, relying for a time on body counts as one standard indicator for measuring successful progress for winning the war.
During 1966 there were eighteen major operations, the most successful of these being Operation WHITE WING (MASHER). During this operation, the 1st Cavalry Division, Korean units, and ARVN forces cleared the northern half of Binh Dinh Province on the central coast. In the process they decimated a division, later designated the North Vietnamese 3d Division. The U.S. 3d Marine Division was moved into the area of the two northern provinces and in concert with South Vietnamese Army and other Marine Corps units, conducted Operation HASTINGS against enemy infiltrators across the DMZ.
The largest sweep of 1966 took place northwest of Saigon in Operation ATTLEBORO, involving 22,000 American and South Vietnamese troops pitted against the VC 9th Division and a NVA regiment. The Allies defeated the enemy and, in what became a frequent occurrence, forced him back to his havens in Cambodia or Laos.
By 31 December 1966, U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam numbered 385,300. Enemy forces also increased substantially, so that for the same period, total enemy strength was in excess of 282,000 in addition to an estimated 80,000 political cadres. By 30 June 1967, total U.S. forces in SVN had risen to 448,800, but enemy strength had increased as well.
On 8 January U.S. and South Vietnamese troops launched separate drives against two major VC strongholds in South Vietnam-in the so-called "Iron Triangle" about 25 miles northwest of Saigon. For years this area had been under development as a VC logistics base and headquarters to control enemy activity in and around Saigon. The Allies captured huge caches of rice and other foodstuffs, destroyed a mammoth system of tunnels, and seized documents of considerable intelligence value.
In February, the same U.S. forces that had cleared the "Iron Triangle", were committed with other units in the largest allied operation of the war to date, JUNCTION CITY. Over 22 U.S. and four ARVN battalions engaged the enemy, killing 2,728. After clearing this area, the Allies constructed three airfields; erected a bridge and fortified two camps in which CIDG garrisons remained as the other allied forces withdrew.
