“There had been 108 men on the fit-for-duty report the morning we left for Albany, and only eight on the duty report the day after.” This line stuck with me more than any other one in the section; it is a staggering statistic. I cannot imagine losing that many people, or having that many injured, in a single battle. I was appalled when they described the NVA just walking among the American dead and killing the injured. Lt Col Nguyen Huu An mentioned the amount of respect he had for the Americans, but the actions of his men speak otherwise.
Lt. Rescorla is a fine example of transformational leadership at Albany. Upon landing he had a positive attitude which rubbed off on the other soldiers and significantly raised the morale. Rescorla relied on the component of inspirational motivation; he walked among his men and individually pepped them up by telling them what a good job they had done. I don’t think there is any way that transactional leadership would have been effective at Albany because of the number of casualties, the men would not have responded to a system of rewards and punishments when that many of their friends had been killed. Rescorla realizes this and because of his ability to utilize transformational leadership he is a valuable leader during the battle.
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