COL Ola Lee Mize, RIP...

[Glebo]

RIP Sir....SALUTE


DISTINGUISHED MEMBER OF THE SPECIAL FORCES REGIMENT

Colonel Mize was born on 28 August 1931 and entered the United States Army on 18 April 1950. After completing Basic Training and Airborne School, he was assigned to the 325th AIR at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
In 1952, then Sergeant Mize, was assigned to the 15th Infantry Regiment, 3d Infantry Division, rising to the rank of First Sergeant.

While assigned to Company K, 15th Infantry Regiment, Sergeant Mize distinguished himself during action against the enemy near Surang-ni, Korea, on 10-11 June 1953. While committed to the defense of “Outpost Harry,” a strategically valuable position, the enemy launched a heavy attack. Sergeant Mize established an effective defense system and inflicted heavy casualties against attacks from enemy assault forces which had penetrated into trenches within the outpost area. Throughout the tenuous fight, Sergeant Mize led his Soldiers from bunker to bunker to clear the enemy forces. After reestablishing the defense, he moved from man to man, distributing ammunition and shouting words of encouragement, despite being blown down by artillery and grenade blasts three times.

On September 7, 1954 he was decorated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower with the Medal of Honor.

In 1956, Colonel Mize received his commission and was initially assigned to Fort Bragg and subsequently to Germany.
After leaving Germany in 1962, then Captain Mize, completed Special Forces training and was assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group. In late 1963, he was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group, where he was deployed to Vietnam as an A-Team Leader. In 1965, he was assigned to the Special Forces Training Group, where he was the Advanced Training Committee chief for SCUBA, HALO, and the SKY HOOK schools. Colonel Mize is credited for being the officer responsible for starting the present day Combat Divers Qualification Course in Key West, FL.

From 1966 to 1967, he was again assigned to Vietnam with the 5th Special Forces Group where he was an Operational A, B, and C Detachment Commander and once more in 1969, where he was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group as the Commander of the 3d Mobile Strike Force Command (Cambodian Troops).

In 1975 Colonel Mize was assigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he was initially the Special Forces School Chief for the Field Training Division and Resistance Division and subsequently the Commander of the Special Forces School.
Colonel Mize’s awards include the Medal of Honor, Silver Star, Legion of Merit (with Oak Leaf Cluster), Bronze Star (with four Oak Leaf Clusters), Ranger Tab, Master Parachutist Badge, SCUBA Badge, and the Combat Infantryman’s Badge (2nd award).
Colonel Mize retired in 1981and presently lives in Gadsden, AL with his wife, the former Betty Ruth Jackson. He has been a frequent speaker with the Regimental “dining ins,” an event that preceded the Regimental First Formations, where Special Forces candidates receive their berets. He is also active in the Medal of Honor Society and gives talks to school groups not only about the Medal of Honor, but the Army in general.

COLONEL OLA LEE MIZE

Inducted 29 JANUARY 2009

[Hot Mess]

RIP Sir.

[just11b]

Rest In Peace Colonel Mize!

[The Fat Guy]

Rest Peacefully, Sir

The reputation of the Combat Diver throughout Special Forces is still a formidable one, due mostly to the work you put into the course and more importantly, the men.

[8654maine]

RIP, Sir.

[Dangerous]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jmNNciM0aA

Rest in Peace Colonel. DOL

[Longrifle]

One of the very finest men to have ever worn our uniform has passed. RIP, Sir . . .
Link

[Just Another Guy]

RIP Sir. You were not only a role model but a tremendous mentor for those of us that followed you. Oh that's not to say he didn't have some rough edges (note my tact please)

[Tracy]

I worked with COL Mize ~32 years ago. My wife and I met him and his wife often at craft shows. Both of them used to make house decorations.

RIP Sir. See you in Valhalla.

[CDRODA396]

A true Warrior, Rest In Peace Sir and thank you for your service and the example you set for us all.

[Psyop Shaw]

Rest in peace Sir.

[PV74RU78]

RIP, Sir.

[Tommyboy52]

RIP Sir

It was an honor to have Colonel Mize on my E-5 board,before I went to Phase Three of the Special Forces Qualification Course.His signature is on my course diploma-which has always made me proud.I would run into him over the next couple years and he would always ask"How I was doing?" Really one of the best men,I have ever met in my entire life.

Valhalla has a seat for you

Mr. Mize ended up serving 31 years in the Army, collecting many decorations for heroism and rising to commander of the Special Forces school at Fort Bragg, N.C. But the Army had rejected him at first because he weighed only 120 pounds.

When he returned, a bit heftier, he had to surmount a bigger problem: he was blind in one eye, which had been accidentally pierced with an ice pick when he was 5 years old.

The vision exam of that time involved holding a paddle over one eye and looking at the chart with the other. He passed the test by briskly switching paddles in a way that made it look as if he was switching eyes, his wife said. He had practiced with spoons beforehand.

Mr. Mize had hoped to go to college after his tour of peacetime duty ended, but the Korean War was starting and he was eager to experience combat. He re-enlisted, and soon he saw horrific combat, as a sergeant.

On June 10, 1953, Sergeant Mize, a member of the Army’s Company K, 15th Infantry Regiment, Third Infantry Division, was helping to defend a strategic hill near Surang-ni in mountainous South Korea. The hill, called Outpost Harry by the Americans, sat between American and Communist lines, each several hundred yards away, according to VFW Magazine.

The Medal of Honor citation said that after learning that a fellow soldier at a listening post had been wounded, Sergeant Mize, accompanied by a medic, rescued him. When he noticed that an American machine-gun nest had been overrun, he fought his way to the position, killing 10 North Korean and Chinese troops and dispersing the rest. He had been blown down three times by artillery and grenade blasts, and his men were astounded that he returned alive.

When the attacks subsided, Sergeant Mize took his few remaining men from bunker to bunker, firing and throwing grenades as they went, to create the impression that the remaining American force was larger than it actually was. At one point, the citation said, as an enemy soldier stepped behind an American and prepared to fire, Sergeant Mize killed him. At dawn, he helped regroup for a counterattack that drove the enemy away.

He killed as many as 65 enemy soldiers, by one account; he told his hometown newspaper, The Gadsden Times, in 1984 that after he saw another officer’s throat cut, he went “battle crazy.” Of 56 Americans involved in the Outpost Harry fighting, only eight survived.

Ola Lee Mize was born on Aug. 28, 1931. He dropped out of high school in his sophomore year to help his family meet expenses and joined the Army in 1948 because, he said, it paid better than working in a grocery store.

He initially refused the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award for valor, but finally accepted it on behalf of his men. It was presented by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in September 1954. At the ceremony, Mr. Eisenhower told Sergeant Mize’s fiancée, Betty Jackson, that as long as he chose to stay in the Army, her husband-to-be would never have to go into combat again.

He nonetheless volunteered four times for duty in Vietnam and served three-and-a-half tours with the Green Berets, the Army’s Special Forces unit. During his military career he was awarded the Legion of Merit twice, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star five times, the Purple Heart and many other decorations. He was assigned to the Special Forces school in 1975 and retired as a full colonel in 1981. He later worked as a motivational speaker and consultant.

[Joe723]

Rest in Peace.
Colonel Mize was the kind of man that makes you proud to be an American.