DATE: Friday, July 18, 1997                 TAG: 9707180637

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   97 lines

JOINT CHIEFS NOMINEE KNOWN AS A SURVIVOR COLLEAGUES AND SUBORDINATES DESCRIBE SHELTON AS A ``SOLDIER'S SOLDIER.''

In the swamp of the Mekong Delta, 1st Lt. Henry H. Shelton learned the hard way about the Viet Cong weapon called ``pungee sticks.''

During one nighttime assault in 1967, while under enemy fire, Shelton tripped into a booby-trapped pit and was pierced in the leg by a bamboo spike covered with manure.

The Purple Heart that Shelton, a North Carolina native, earned for that wound was on his uniform Thursday in the White House Rose Garden as he accepted President Clinton's nomination to the nation's highest military post.

Once confirmed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the four-star Army general will have the entire 1.4-million-member U.S. military at his disposal. Still, there may be times in the weeks ahead - facing a confirmation hearing and decisions on when to bring home the troops from Bosnia - that Shelton wishes he were back in the bush, looking for VC.

Asked if Shelton could pass muster in Senate confirmation, Clinton replied: ``I have reason to believe that General Shelton can survive just about anything.''

Survival in tight circumstances and calm under fire emerged as two of the key qualities the 55-year-old Shelton brings to the nation's top uniformed military post. Colleagues and subordinates alike described him as a ``soldier's soldier'' who demanded much of his troops but put himself in the line of fire, who joined airborne soldiers in parachute jumps but also sat with them at lunch, listening to their gripes.

Wearing the green beret that marked his Special Forces service in Vietnam, the craggy-faced, 6-foot-5 general accepted Clinton's nomination by referring not to high-tech weapons or the high councils of the Pentagon but to the line soldiers.

``With this honor comes the awesome responsibility of ensuring that our armed forces remain trained, ready and equipped to deal with the threats and dangers of today, as well as an uncertain future,'' Shelton said. ``This is a responsibility that I accept without hesitation or reservation.''

Shelton took that same attitude into the back country of Vietnam in two dangerous tours in the mid- and late-1960s as part of the Green Berets, the elite Special Forces unit established by President John F. Kennedy to fight guerrilla wars.

``The Special Forces guys - that's hanging way out there in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of natives,'' said retired Gen. Henry E. Emerson, like Shelton a wounded Vietnam veteran.

Retired Gen. Michael Healy, the first Green Beret to rise to flag rank, said that Shelton, known to his colleagues as ``Hugh,'' quickly developed a reputation in Vietnam for deft dealings with South Vietnamese regulars as well as the tribal peoples enlisted to join the fight against the Viet Cong and communist North Vietnamese.

``He was unusually successful working with minorities, with the native troops - he was very solid, even as a lieutenant,'' Healy said.

Born in tiny Speed, N.C., Shelton grew up working tobacco fields, a task he later said made his Army Ranger School training seem easy by comparison.

Shelton's first tour in Vietnam involved high-risk reconnaissance missions into enemy territory, missions that became known for their high casualty rates. In a second tour in Vietnam as a company commander, Shelton patrolled the hotly contested Central Highlands region. Once again, Shelton's talent for delicate diplomatic negotiations - talents that will be called upon in his new assignment - showed through.

``We went out into the local villages that were primarily controlled by the Viet Cong,'' Shelton told the Fayetteville Observer-Times in a 1992 interview. ``You attempted to sway them, persuade them, that they should be loyal to the South Vietnamese government, and convince them that the Americans were in fact there to assist and help in any way they could as well as provide security for their villages.''

More than two decades later, airborne troops under Shelton's command brought much the same message to Haiti in a mission the general commanded from the Norfolk-based amphibious command ship Mount Whitney. It was Shelton who gave the last-minute orders to change what was to be a forcible entry into Haiti into a ``soft'' march in after negotiations with Haitian authorities averted a clash.

``Our mission in Haiti was a model of effectiveness, flexibility and safety,'' Clinton said. ``Thanks in large measure to General Shelton's determined leadership, America got a tough job done.''

His resume includes assignments for the joint staff, a required hurdle for senior officers in these days of joint military operations. His service in the Persian Gulf War included management of the largest helicopter assault in Army history.

Like Colin Powell, the first of three successive Army generals tapped for the top military post, Shelton tinkers with cars. For Powell it is old Volvos; Shelton prefers Corvettes. He is known as a family man, devoted to his wife, Carolyn, and three grown sons, and to his mother, Sarah, who still lives in tobacco country.

But military experts point to his service in Vietnam, in small-scale operations that mirror the hot-spot assignments the military faces today, as Shelton's formative experience. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS photo

President Clinton nominates Gen. Henry H. Shelton, right, for

chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a post now held by Gen. John

Shalikashvili, left.

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