First Chapter: Commitment to Courage
The Life and Extraordinary Career of a Veteran FBI Agent by Donald L. Redden, PH.D.
Sometimes the safe path isn’t the right one
As a young man, Don Redden didn’t have big plans for his future beyond raising a family, a good career at General Electric, and making it through the Vietnam War alive. His plan was simple, honest, and safe. When Don’s tour of duty in the Army was over and he got home alive, it looked like he was on track to achieve everything he had set out to do.
A chance encounter with an FBI agent led him to make a momentous decision and abandon the safe path he had set for himself. He would apply to join the FBI. This began the adventure of a lifetime. From bank robberies to kidnappings to murder, Don did what he had to, sometimes against protocol and sometimes against instinct, to protect those he could and bring justice for those he couldn’t.
Chapter 1: Kentucky Days
On August 7, 1944, my father Edward Eugene Redden became a prisoner of war. It was just over one month after D-Day. He had landed on June 11, 1944, five days after the main invasion. A member of Company D, First Battalion, 117th Infantry Regiment, 30th Infantry Division in Normandy, his unit relieved the 1st Infantry Division at Mortain, France. The next day was very foggy. In the distance, the soldiers could hear a column of tanks approaching. The commander decided that they were American tanks, and did not take defensive measures. No one else believed him, as they were sure that it was the Germans coming. My father ran for a foxhole, preparing for combat, but his sergeant told him to stay where he was. In the fog, my father could barely see what was around him. Someone approached him, but he took no action. After all, those were American troops. The next thing he knew he was facing a German soldier with an MP-40 machine gun pointing at him. It turns out that they had encountered the 1st SS Panzer Division, the elite motorized infantry unit that at one time was Hitler’s personal bodyguards, and my father was captured when the Germans took Mortain.
As a boy, my father—who went by Gene, never Ed—lived in Dayton, Ohio, but moved to Frankfort, Kentucky when he was orphaned and adopted by his aunt and uncle, Mary and Roddie Redden. When he met my mother, Virginia Armstrong, she was living on a 300-acre farm her father managed in Graefenburg, Kentucky, about ten miles away. They were married for only a little while before he was drafted into the Army. My father trained as a foot soldier and was sent to Europe to take on the Germans. Without my father around, money was tight, and my mother took a job at a small store in Frankfort.
According to my mother, sometime around my second birthday she received the telegram. It was from Adjutant General James Ulio, and it said, “We are sorry to report your husband Eugene Redden is missing in action.” (I still have that telegram today.) My mother was crushed. Nothing is worse than receiving a telegram stating that your husband has been killed in action, but this was a close second. What did missing in action mean? She found out soon enough. Not long after the first telegram, a second one arrived: “We are sorry to report your husband is a prisoner of war and we are doing everything possible to rescue him.”
My father lived a year in a German prison camp, Stalag 12D, in Trier, Germany, just east of Luxembourg and about 475 miles from where he was captured. My father didn’t talk about that time very much. I learned later that French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre was there at the same time as my father. If they met, I’ll never know.
My father was liberated when the war ended in September 1945 and returned home not long after. My mother said that he was skin and bones when she saw him next. I was a toddler and don’t have a memory of my father’s return. There are no family pictures of him at that time.
My father didn’t want to be a farmer, which severely limited his career options in Frankfort, Kentucky in 1946. Around that time, we moved to Louisville where my parents thought there would be work and a place to live. The way my mother tells the story, it took them a long time to find housing because every place they tried wouldn’t allow children. Me. Dad got so frustrated that he was quoted as saying, “Is this what I get after a year spent in a concentration camp?” Somehow, they were eventually able to find an apartment that would accept them and was suitable for a family of three.
My father found a job in an accounting firm. He was a hard worker and received several promotions. He also enrolled in the University of Louisville and earned very good grades, eventually receiving a degree in accounting. My brother Paul came into the family when I was six. Dad had saved enough money to build a small house in South Louisville, which is where we lived until I was a sophomore in high school. At that time, he took a position at Container Corporation of America as a Personnel Manager and we moved across Louisville to be closer to his new job.
Sports was important to us as a family. My father was an avid golfer and coached youth baseball for many years. My brother and I played baseball, football, and basketball, and our parents were very encouraging. They believed in excellence, and if we were going to participate in sports, we had to do so at a very high level. They also felt discipline was a trait of good behavior and it was expected that my brother and I would not cross the line. I don’t remember either my brother or me testing them on this.
The church was a central part of our lives. My father was a deacon in Louisville, and both of my parents were very active in church. The church we attended was youth oriented. As a result, many activities were available, such as basketball teams. Since I was all about sports I participated in the church team and had a good time. During the summer, my brother and I attended Vacation Bible School for two weeks. For me, the attraction was not only about religion but the myriad of activities that included games and contests. It was not a struggle to go to church as we enjoyed the friendships we made there. Additionally, every year the church had youth week where services, Sunday school, ushers, and special music was turned over to the youth. We had to plan, teach, preach, and sing in the choir. One year, I was selected to be the youth pastor and give a sermon. I was maybe fifteen years old, and terrified. My parents talked me through it. I made it through with only minor scratches on my ego. I’m not sure what would have happened if I didn’t have the support of my parents. Luckily, I didn’t have to find out. At least, not at this age.
The church was a source of spiritual learning for me and I remain committed to my faith. My mother’s brother, Boyd Armstrong, was a Baptist minister in Alabama. His son, Larry, was a Baptist minister there as well. They visited us in Louisville many times and were very influential in my religious upbringing. Besides, they were very nice people, easy to get along with, and I enjoyed them a great deal.
In the early 1960s, my father was transferred to St. Louis. My mother began working in a bank as a credit manager and my brother was still in school. I had just graduated high school, and as was expected, went to college. I enrolled in Georgetown College on the other side of Frankfort from Louisville, with serious plans to play baseball. But that didn’t last long.
I became disenchanted with Georgetown. Enthusiasm is not the same as athletic ability, which shouldn’t have been a surprise but was in a lot of ways. My baseball career was on the downhill and my grades were not the greatest. Something about the place was rubbing me the wrong way, and while I was passing, I feared if I did not drop out I was likely to be asked to leave. But it wasn’t just that. There were so many rules, I couldn’t keep them all straight. They were oppressive and, in my opinion—now as then—arbitrary. For example, religion class was required to graduate, and attending chapel two days each week was mandatory. We were assigned seats at chapel and there were other students documenting who was absent. The idea of my peers spying on me to earn points with the administration didn’t sit well with my sense of justice. If we missed even once, we would face demerits. If we “earned” 100 demerits, they could kick us out of school.
There were other rules as well, and they were enforced in unfair ways. I remember one day particularly clearly. My roommates and I had just played a double header baseball game as part of the Georgetown team. We went to our dorm room, undressed, and went to the shower down the hall. We left our dirty uniforms on the floor. We fully intended to pick them up and put them away or take them to the laundry. While in the shower, the dean entered our room and saw the clothing lying on the floor. When we returned, he had come and gone, but had put a note on each of our beds ordering us to report to his office. We dressed and headed there immediately. He told us he was giving us each ten demerits for having a dirty dorm room. I was ticked off. That was the final straw for me. As soon as the fall semester of my sophomore year was over, I left.
While attending Georgetown, I began dating a girl on campus, Ann. She was a little bit older than me. Her career at Georgetown had been more successful than mine, and she was getting ready to graduate with a degree in education. She had a teaching job lined up in Louisville, and I followed her there. Ann and I were getting serious about our relationship, and it seemed like the right thing for me to do. She was living in an apartment in Louisville and teaching math in high school. I didn’t move in with her, though. That wasn’t how it worked back then. Instead, she asked her parents if I could stay at their house while looking for employment, and they agreed. Their house was huge and there was plenty of room. I was looking for a job, and I had a pretty good idea that I could find something substantial without a college degree, although it would be a challenge. When I wasn’t out applying for jobs, I helped her parents by doing chores around the house.
Looking back, it was a pretty easy time. Neither my parents nor Ann’s were pressuring me to find a job—it was a given that I would find something. My first job was with a real estate office. I was the rental manager and made $60 dollars a week. Despite everyone’s confidence in me, I was starting to become desperate, and when this came along, I took what I could. I wish I could put my finger on why the job did not work out. All I can say is, being a rental manager wasn’t in my blood, and I eventually had to resign.
Part of the problem was this was in the days of the draft, and I was reasonably certain that I would be called up for active duty and, more than likely, get shipped off to Vietnam. The probability of being drafted weighed on me. Of course, I was not unique in this response to the times, but that didn’t make it any easier. And considering the fact that I had dropped out of school and was mostly out of work, the likelihood of becoming a soldier—with or without my choosing—didn’t give me a lot of motivation. Like many of the people my age at that time, I was adrift. There were two things that kept me going and gave me the direction I needed: Ann and the church.
Ann and I attended church with her family, and as luck would have it, her father knew a member who worked for General Electric. When I asked him if GE was hiring, he told me that they did have some openings. He asked me to come into his office the next day. I had little or no experience, but the hiring manager said he would give me a chance. The position was at GE’s Appliance Park in Louisville working in the range department. Shortly thereafter, I found myself improbably working as a Time Study Analyst, which meant I was looking into ways for our assembly line workers to be more efficient. Later I was promoted to Planner, determining the number of ranges, based on sales, to be built. Some people have a low opinion about industrial and manufacturing jobs, but it’s important for me to say that I really enjoyed the job and GE was a great place to work. I learned a lot about management and leadership, as I had to deal with the union resolving grievances, which was difficult at times. It was a good learning experience, and I was confident this was my career. There was opportunity for advancement, and I had a positive reputation and a good work ethic. The retirement plan was excellent, and I liked being there.
Ann’s parents and mine, I am sure, had been wondering if I was going to make anything of myself. True to form, our parents stood by me with encouragement and patience, but they did not hand me anything. On the contrary, I was given the opportunity to make my own way in the world. With the job at GE, I thought I was doing just that.
1964 was a busy year for Ann and me. We married at Ann’s parent’s church in Prospect, Kentucky. My uncle, the minister from Alabama, performed the service. We were already living in the Louisville area, and we rented an apartment near the school where Ann was teaching. I enrolled with the University of Louisville night school, studying business. I was working at GE and enjoying being a newlywed. But I couldn’t get the draft off my mind, so I took matters into my own hands.
Not long after Ann and I married, I joined the Kentucky Army National Guard for a six-year stint. I felt that by doing so, I was taking control of my destiny, at least as much as anyone could. Ann was supportive, and understood that I was joining to try to protect her as much as possible. My father, on the other hand, practically came unglued. While he believed in serving the country, he did not believe in this war, and the thought of his oldest son going through what he had in that concentration camp for a year—the prisoner of war camps in Vietnam were said to be a hundred times worse—was almost too much for him to take. When he found out I had enlisted in the National Guard, he called me and gave me a piece of his mind. I couldn’t remember him ever being that angry—or that scared. I tried explaining my reasons, but it wasn’t my logic that had him so upset. Ever since the beginning of the war in Vietnam, he had had a lump in the pit of his stomach about what might happen if I were drafted. He didn’t see my decision as a smart move. He saw it as walking into the lion’s den. Now the question was no longer if I would be called up, but when. I did my best to reassure him that I would be okay, but by the time I got off the phone, I was pretty shaken.
Still, things fell into a routine, and for four years everything seemed to be going well. I was married, working a full-time job, going to school four nights a week, attending monthly meetings and drills at the National Guard armory, and spending two weeks every summer at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. I was expecting to graduate from Louisville in May 1968. My job at GE was good and getting better. Ann was teaching and doing well. We were busy and we were happy.
On Friday, April 19, 1968, I was sitting at my desk at GE when a fellow employee came in and asked me if I had heard the news. Nearly everyone at GE knew I was in the Army. He said he had just heard on the radio that my unit had been called to active duty. I had 30 days to report. My heart sunk. My father had been right. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when.
Ready to continue? Get the book here… Commitment to Courage
