When Bill Yarborough took command of Special Forces in 1961, he presided over four years of metamorphosis and explosive growth, and left as a major general. No matter how often and how badly he'd ruffled the feathers of his superiors fighting for his beloved Green Berets, his career had prospered.
During those four years of ferment, a great many warriors joined the now-transformcd U.S. Special Forces. One of them was a young captain named Carl Stiner. It is now time for his story.
IV
COUNTRY CARL
Carl Stiner grew up on a hundred-acre farm in rural northeast Tennessee, eight miles from the nearest town, La Follette. In the 1930s and '40s, the divide between town and country in that part of the world was vast. The main roads were paved; the rest were dirt or gravel. There were occasional trips to town, but people still mostly shopped in country stores. There were few cars, and electricity was scarce, finally reaching the Stiner farm in 1948. People made their own entertainment. For boys, most of that was outdoors — hunting or hiking in the nearby Cumberland Mountains, and swimming or fishing in Norris Lake, the big TVA project built in 1936.
It was a God- and country-loving community. Everybody went to (mostly) Baptist churches on Sunday, and every able-bodied young man served his country.
A bus line ran twice a day between La Follette and nearby Middlesboro, Kentucky. Stiner still has vivid memories of looking out across the fields at age six or seven and watching older boys walk toward the highway to catch the bus to the induction center in La Follette during World War II. Whether they'd been drafted or volunteered, they all went. Later, he listened with respect as the returning boys, now men, recounted their combat experiences — the dread, discomfort, and pain, but the fun, too, and the joy of parades through newly liberated towns. The sacrifices had a purpose that even a ten-year-old could recognize.
When the time came, he knew he owed his country no less service than these men had given.[5]
Like most folks in rural Appalachia, the Stiner family's roots in America went far back.
The Steiner (the original spelling) family came to this country from Germany around 1710. Five Steiner brothers settled in Pennsylvania, then Steiners moved to Virginia and North Carolina. In 1820, Henry Stiner (the spelling had simplified by then) crossed over into East Tennessee, looking for land. He found what he was looking for at the Great Bend of the Powell River. The soil along the river was rich, the woods were full of deer, the river was abundant with fish, and only four other families were living nearby. Henry purchased 1,000 acres and then went back to North Carolina to collect his family. Several other families returned with them to the Powell River Valley. By 1889, the settlement had three stores, a steam sawmill, and a gristmill; living there were twenty-seven families, including more than a hundred children; there were thirty-five dogs and sixty-five horses.
Later, in 1936, the rising of Norris Lake displaced the community at the Great Bend of Powell River. Among those forced to move were Emit Stiner and his family. Emit was Carl's father.
Carl Stiner remembers his family this way:
Starting in 1936, my father worked as a diamond drill operator and powder man for the Tennessee Valley Authority, constructing Norris Dam as well as some of the other TVA dams that were built in the thirties and forties. He drilled foundations for the dams and set the charges for blasting out rock or spillways. By the time the war started, he already had several children, which meant he was not drafted, but was instead taken into service for the construction of the Oak Ridge nuclear plant (a few miles from La Follette).
When he was not building dams and nuclear plants, my father farmed. But during the war, Oak Ridge took precedence.
The plant was started in 1942 (though its existence was not officially known until President Truman announced production of the atomic bomb in August 1945). It was a crash program, and security was very tight. The facility was protected by a high Cyclone fence, armed security guards patrolled on horses, and construction workers had to live like army forces in a barracks on the plant complex (where they were often kept busy seven days a week). But occasionally my father could get loose and come home on the weekends. When he was away, my mother, Hassic Stiner, supervised the farm and took care of the family.
I was the oldest of five — three other brothers and a sister. And my paternal grandparents also lived with us.
We all worked hard. Counting leased land, we farmed about two hundred acres, raising tobacco, grain crops, and cattle — and that was before tractors. Horses and mules did that job. About the time one of the boys turned six, he went to the fields to work; and during the growing season (when we weren't at school) we worked sunup to sundown, weather permitting, six days a week. Even if it rained, there was something to do, like pitching hay, or grinding feed for the cattle.
It was hard, but our life was not harsh. There was time off on Sunday for church, friends, and play. Since there was only one car per family which wasn't used much for recreation, our friends would congregate at a common place, which was as likely as not our farm. Fifteen or twenty boys might gather there on Sunday afternoons for ball games or boxing.
The boys liked our farm because of its central location, its large level field for our ball games; and there was plenty of livestock, in case we decided to do a little rodeoing (but never when my dad was around, because he didn't like you messing with the livestock). Sometimes we ended the day by choosing sides and fighting a corncob battle among the barns. One of these could last for a couple of hours. Getting hit on the side of the head with a wet corncob is an experience that's not easy to forget.
There was also plenty to enjoy up in the mountains (they call it hiking these days; we called it climbing) — cave formations, waterfalls, spectacular views; and the copperheads were an ever-present but exciting challenge. Nearby Norris Lake always beckoned for swimming, boating, and fishing. It was a beautiful lake, nestled in the mountains, narrow, deep, and huge, with lots of jags and branches running up into the hollows — more than eight hundred miles of shoreline. We'd go fishing on a Friday or Saturday night, build a big fire, and sit there and fish until the next day. In season we went hunting.
My dad was a superb hunter, and he always owned a pair of splendid bird dogs. From the time I was old enough to recognize what a shotgun was for, I wanted to go with him. He started letting me do it about the time I started to help him work the farm. Not that I was old enough or big enough to carry a gun or shoot. But I could stalk thickets and brush piles, and flush birds out; and 1 could learn weapon safety from him, as well as all his hunting tricks.
I was thirteen when I was given my first shotgun. It was a single shot, and I couldn't load it until a dog was actually pointing. That way I'd have a chance at hitting the bird, but wasn't otherwise dangerous. If I missed the bird, my dad still had time to shoot it himself.
When I was older and had learned everything he felt I needed to know about hunting, I was allowed out on my own. In high school, a bunch of my friends and I would always go out on Thanksgiving Day, rain or shine, for our annual quail hunt (for safety purposes, there were never more than four in a single hunting party). We'd be out all day, without stopping to cat. And then our mothers would put out the big turkey meal in the evening.
It was a great place to be young. We found adventure in everything we did. If it wasn't there already, we made it that way. We went out and found things to do that gave us enjoyment, and learned to see the good and the purpose in whatever we were doing — even the heavy, manual farm labor. This meant it was pretty hard to be bored and frustrated.
5
Because of his background, some of his Army friends later came to call him "Country Carl": a friendly nickname, not a derisive one. Stiner has always loved his origins, and anyone mistaking Stiner for a rube is likely to discover his own mistake with rich embarrassment.