It has been ten days since my friend Bill Hecker was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq along with four other soldiers. I have spent the last week reflecting upon the influence Bill had on my life. I knew him well but briefly, only about four years when we were working together as commanders based in Germany. The impact his death has had on me has been profound.
I remember going on reconnaissance missions through the Mosel River Valley in Germany with Bill Hecker. Bill introduced me to Federweiser. Federweiser is made exclusively in the German wine country and is not even known by very many Germans outside the wine country. Bill was a master at sniffing out river crossings for military vehicles and a great restaurant usually tucked into some castle courtyard or tiny village square.
Bill Hecker was a connoisseur of fine food and drink and a true epicure in the best sense of the word. I remember rolling over hundreds of kilometers of German countryside with Bill running Headquarters Battery and me running Service Battery. Together we controlled the entire logistics capability for a 600 man artillery battalion. Bill and I would leapfrog our units across roads and fields while supplying beans, bullets, food, fuel, medics, communication, command and control on a twenty-four hour basis. We would combine different parts of both units to maximum efficiency. I felt in our actions as if Bill Hecker was a brother. We worked so well together that the two Battalion Executive Officers that were with 4-27 Field Artillery during our tenure Major David McCauley and Major William Miracle rarely had to deal with anything but family support issues back home while Hecker and I were on the logistics job. Bill Hecker always kept me laughing and was a true professional who cared deeply for the troops.
Bill introduced me to the world of great books and started me collecting leatherbound classic books from Easton Press. I still collect books to this day. Much of my knowledge of literature comes from the authors introduced to me by Bill Hecker. The most memorable author which I encountered through Bill was Milan Kundera who wrote Immortality and The incredible Lightness of Being. Before deploying to Bosnia, Hecker read and studied books such as The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric to build rapport with the people of the region. I read now that he did the same in preparation for deployment to Iraq. Bill was truly a modern eclectic renaissance man.
Bill was officially known as William Friedrich Hecker III. He was a direct male descendant of Friedrich Karl Franz Hecker who was one of the most popular heroes of uprisings in Germany in 1848 calling for a constitutional republic. I remember Bill Hecker being pulled out of the field to attend a public relations meeting in Constance, Germany were he was literally given a key to the city and an apartment for his use any time he would visit. As the great, great, great, great grandson of Friedrich Hecker, Bill was celebrated by many Germans for a reason unknown to most people in America and was an excellent ambassador between the countries. Bill was always a patriotic American first but was proud of his eccentric German heritage.
I remember tipping German biers at the Rheinlander Club in Baumholder, Germany and in various Gasthauses across the German countryside. I remember drinking fine wines on a Rhein River cruise with Bill and our fellow officers. Hecker was always the instigator of a laugh-out-loud joke or a deadly serious discussion about history and warfare. Bill is different from the common image of a soldier. Bill was an intellectual and a scholar warrior. He even wrote a book. I will miss Bill Hecker tremendously, for the impact he made on my life. Bill is the type of man that exemplifies the people fighting to keep attacks like the one which killed him in Iraq instead of on our home streets. I salute you and thank you Bill Hecker.
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