Sapper storyteller: JBER skeet and trap shooter shares experiences

  • Published
  • By David Bedard
  • JBER Public Affairs
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  Nestled between the Elmendorf and Richardson halves of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is the JBER Skeet, Trap and Archery Range where Bill Kakel, a retired Army colonel, can often be found spinning a yarn between rounds of blasting clay pigeons out of the sky.

For decades, the gregarious marksman has been just as happy sharing stories of his service at Landing Zone Evans with fellow Vietnam veterans as giving pointers to neophyte Airmen learning the basics of shotgun sports.

Kakel grew up bird hunting in the thick, vine-strewn forests of his native Maryland, gaining an abiding yen to track and hit targets while fellowshipping with friends.

Though the Army would ultimately pluck him from his childhood home, his experience serving in Alaska found him a new dwelling in the Last Frontier.

For as long as he could remember, Kakel said, he wanted to join the Army in a bid to emulate his parents’ generation.

“In my day, all of the dads served in World War II,” Kakel recalled. “It could be Navy, the Army Air Corps, the Army or the Marine Corps. I admired them and wanted to be just like them.”

While he was still in middle school, Kakel sat down and penned a letter to his congressman declaring exactly where he thought his gateway to Army service was to be: the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

The Long Gray Line
When Kakel began his studies at the academy as a plebe in 1962, U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was limited to military aid and a limited number of American troops deployed in an advisory role.

Kakel said he originally wanted to be an armor officer like his hero, Gen. George Patton, commander of the 3rd Army, which had carved a swath through the Nazi Army in Europe.

After exposure to other branches of the Army, however, the cadet decided he wanted to be an engineer.

“What I liked about the engineers was you could have the academic part of it as well as the combat part,” he said. “To me, it was the best of both worlds.”

As a senior, Kakel ascended to the rank of cadet captain and graduated fourth in the class of 1966.

Much had happened in Vietnam since his admission to the academy. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of 1964 allowed for direct military intervention in the conflict. Operation Rolling Thunder began a bombing campaign of North Vietnam in 1965.

What had begun as a modest aid-and-advisory package had swelled into open conflict between the United States, its allies and the communist forces of North Vietnam.

Despite the added risk of going to war, Kakel said he didn’t regret following in the footsteps of the World War II generation.

“We were training to be Soldiers; that’s what we wanted to be, and Vietnam was where the action was,” Kakel explained. “All of us wanted to go. We were trained and qualified, and we believed that it was the right thing.”

Before he could get the opportunity to serve in Vietnam, the Army saw fit to send Kakel to graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in order to round him out as an engineer.

After Airborne and Ranger schools, Kakel was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, with the 82nd Airborne Division’s 307th Engineer Battalion.

Cutting his teeth jumping out of airplanes, Kakel’s opportunity to prove his mettle would come soon enough.

Airmobile sapper
Kakel deployed in 1968 and 69 to LZ Evans, Vietnam where he commanded B Company, 8th Engineer Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile).

Because his Sapper unit was airmobile, every piece of equipment – from bulldozers to dump trucks – could be transported by CH-54 “Tarhe” Skycrane and CH-47 Chinook helicopters.

“Our main mission was to build fire-support bases,” Kakel said. “We would go in and clear a place to put the artillery in. We would get the guns in, so they could provide indirect fire support for the infantry units that were air assaulting into our area of operations.”

Dug in, Kakel said 105-mm and 155-mm artillery as well as 4.2-inch mortars were free to lob high-explosive lifelines to American riflemen grappling with the enemy in the jungle.

While helping to emplace artillery at LZ Joe, Kakel said he could recognize which way the North Vietnamese Army was looking to attack. Because the LZ was adjacent to a rubber plantation, the NVA cut a group of trees as a way to mark an avenue of attack through a planned breach in the wire. The idea was to light the latex before a night incursion to focus the attack.

To counter the offensive, Kakel said he advised the artillery battery commander to emplace a howitzer near the projected breach.

Loaded with a birdshot-like flechette round, the howitzer was pointed directly at the enemy advance in much the same way artillery was used during the Civil War.

“We had flechette rounds – beehive we called it,” Kakel said. “You talk about a way to stop a human-wave assault, that’s it.

“Within a week, they attacked,” he continued. “It took one beehive round to end the whole thing.”

The Last Frontier
Kakel’s first assignment to Alaska wasn’t his first experience with the state. Earlier, he had written a proposal for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on how to proceed with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

“When I did that, I thought, ‘Hmmm, Alaska sounds like a place I would like to be,” he said.

When he was stationed with the Alaska District, USACE, in the 1970s, Kakel discovered a home away from home at the skeet and trap range at then-Fort Richardson. It was little more than a few Quonset huts, and Kakel hadn’t yet mastered the art of breaking pigeons.

“I felt intimidated because I wasn’t good enough, and then I realized it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Our league is a handicap league, so it doesn’t make a difference. What makes a difference is that you participate and have fun, that’s what it’s all about.”

More than a decade later, Kakel returned to command the Alaska District as a colonel.

An oil tanker struck a reef March 24, 1989, spilling nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil in Prince William Sound near Valdez.

According to the USACE publication “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Response to the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill,” the Department of Defense activated the Alaska Joint Task Force April 7 to offer military support to the crisis. Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney was the AK-JTF commander and Kakel would work as McInerney’s logistics officer while coordinating engineer support with the North Pacific Division, USACE.

According to the publication, the Corps provided support in the areas of construction, contract administration, technical advice and environmental evaluations.

Additionally, USACE deployed the highly maneuverable dredges Essayons and Yaquina, both well-suited to extracting oil from the shallow waters of the sound.

Kakel’s career had taken quite a turn from his days directing bulldozers in the jungles of Vietnam. Still, it was the same engineering expertise that would help him guide maritime and logistics Army support of a massive effort to respond to the spill.

After an assignment as head engineer at then-Fort Lewis, Washington, Kakel returned to his adopted home of Alaska.

On target
Dressed in his signature black leather jacket and peering through the magenta lenses of his shooting glasses, Kakel routinely takes aim at clays streaming across the JBER range.

Because summer gives way to fishing and fall presents hunting opportunities in Alaska, Kakel said winter is prime time for breaking pigeons under the looming Chugach Mountains.

“Where in the United States do you have a skeet range with white mountains, the beautiful sky?” Kakel asked rhetorically. “Yeah, it’s a little chilly, but you bundle up. This is a wonderful place, and it’s a fun activity.”

He said he has worked with numerous shotgun champions at the range, like Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew McNamara, and has seen many shooting comrades come and go as they received new assignments.

Still, Kakel said he loves to share his story with any service member willing to take the time to sit down after a round of skeet or trap, especially those who are just beginning to discover the sport.

“There’s nothing like seeing a young Soldier break his first target,” he said.