Veteran Service Award winner takes long road from tobacco farm to distinguished military career

By RANDY CAPPS

It was a steamy July afternoon in 1954 when Rudy Baker reached a decision that would change not only his life, but the lives of countless others.

“I was looking for anything except a tobacco patch,” he said, of that fateful summer day. “I had been cropping lugs all week on Devil’s Racetrack, some farm down there. About three o’clock, I said, ‘There’s got to be a better way to make a living.’ So I threw my hat on the ground, put my foot in it and said, ‘I quit.’ (My dad) said, ‘You can’t quit. You own 3 acres of this.’ I said, ‘You can have the three acres and whatever it gets.’”

He had just graduated from Selma High School, and went to High Point to work with a cousin in a furniture factory.

“On Friday afternoon, I came out of there with sawdust in my nose, eyes and hair and said, ‘This isn’t any better than the tobacco patch,’” he said. “I went down to the post office and saw a Navy recruiter with a sign up that said, ‘Be back in an hour.’ So, I sat down and waited. When one hour went by and he wasn’t back, I went across the hall and joined the Army.”

He retired as a colonel 38 years later and, after 18 more years working for First Citizens Bank, has worked tirelessly to help his fellow veterans. That’s why he’s the 2021 Johnston Now Honors Veterans Service Award winner.

“Whatever I can do,” he said. “The country’s been good to me. From a sharecropper’s son to an Army colonel to a senior vice president with First Citizens, I owe something back.”

For Baker, joining the Army took a little serendipity. Staying in it after his first enlistment, most of which was spent in Germany, was more of a practical decision.

“I served in the Army for three years, and when I got out, I had the option of driving a dump truck or going back in the tobacco patch,” he said. “Seventy-six days later, I rejoined the Army.”

In September 1961, thanks to the “blood stripe” policy, he got into Officer Candidate School in Fort Benning, Georgia.

He was one of 238 non-commissioned officers to enter, and he was among the 50% who graduated. Members of that class wrote a book, “The Boys of Benning,” and Baker’s story is chapter one.

Baker’s first tour in Vietnam featured a wide variety of experiences. On the upside, he got his captain’s bars on the ground after a “fun jump” from a helicopter, with his parachute flapping in the breeze behind him.

The downside was far, far worse.

“It was 18 September, 1965,” he said. “I’ll never forget that day.”

A helicopter assault was ordered near the village of Ah Nihn, but not much trouble was expected. It didn’t turn out that way.

“When the helicopters got out, they were so full of holes they couldn’t fly another lift in,” he said. “Half the battalion was in there. The other half was wanting to get in. When we got in there to get everybody out, we had 13 dead, and I don’t remember how many wounded. I can go to Washington, D.C., and the monument there. ... Go to Panel 2E, come down to line 86 and there’s 13 names in a row. And I knew every one of them. I just thank God I’m not up there.”

He went on to serve another tour in Vietnam and one in Iran, in addition to a host of stateside duty posts.

He spent a large portion of his career at Fort Bragg, and when he left the Army for good, he was the comptroller for the XVIII Airborne Corps stationed there.

“I’d have stayed on if they had let me command a brigade, but the only thing they wanted to give me was a job in Washington, D.C., in the Comptroller of the Army’s office,” he said.

So, after making sure he had a job with First Citizens Bank lined up, he left the Army in May 1987.

After some training, he wound up in charge of the bank branches on post at Fort Bragg.

“(My wife) called down one day to get me for something,” he said. “And I didn’t stay in that office. She said, ‘I can never find you in that office.’ And I said, ‘If I’m in that office, I’m not doing my job. I’ve got people that can run those branches. I need to be out seeing commanders and soldiers to find out what they need.’ It was a good job, and the MBA from Syracuse allowed me to get it. Of course, I’d been the comptroller at Fort Bragg for more than two years.”

He retired (again) after 18 years with First Citizens, went on to work as a team leader for the 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, New York, and worked with the U.S. Census Bureau here in Johnston County.

Baker and his wife, Pat, live in Clayton. They are both on their second marriages and have seven children, 15 grandchildren and seven greatgrandchildren.

These days, working with veterans is his passion. He’s been on the board of the Airborne Special Operations Museum in Fayetteville since its inception, belongs to four local service organizations and is the chair for the Johnston County Veterans Service Advisory Board.

“They need to (get involved),” he said of his fellow veterans. “We’ve got more than 14,000 veterans in Johnston County and we’ve got 16 veterans service organizations. So, a guy ought to belong to at least one of them and get involved so he can help other veterans. That’s what it’s all about.”

He’d like to see a place locally where that might happen a bit more easily.

“Johnston County needs a veterans center,” he said. “Where a veterans service officer can work out of and a space to hold veterans meetings. You go over to Harnett County, and they’ve got two big buildings. We need some place here.”

Considering the path he’s traveled from that tobacco farm in the southern part of the county, betting against him getting it done might be unwise.