Colonel Carl Lockett Unsung Hero, Vietnam Veteran he knew Generals Powell and Schwarzkopf (Orignally Published Nov 8th)

Its Everything West Texas

Our Unsung hero this month is one of Abilene’s native sons who did well. Retired Colonel Carl Lockett was born in Abilene, Texas. His parents were Tom and Lenora Lockett. Carl was the 4th of 10 children.

As a young man his family lived at the corner of 10th and Ash which was across the street from the old Woodson School. He and his parents moved to Plainview for a few years, however they returned to Abilene for Carl’s senior year. Carl graduated from Carter G. Woodson High School.

After graduating from high school, it was difficult to go to college if you didn’t have a scholarship. After being out of high school for a year Lockett got a scholarship to attend Prairie View A&M College a historically black university. Lockett graduated from Prairie View A&M after four years of study with a degree in industrial arts. He was also commissioned as a 2nd Lt. in the United States Army as a military policeman. Lockett graduated as a distinguished military student. At that time if you accepted a regular Army commission you had to do a detail with one of the combat arms like infantry armor or artillery. Lockett chose infantry.

After graduating from Prairie View, Lockett was sent to Infantry Office Training and Airborne School in Ft. Benning, Georgia. His next destination was Vietnam. Lockett spent most of his time in an area known as the Central Highlands in Pelkie. When he first arrived in Vietnam, he spent some time in an area called Two Wawa on the southern coast of Vietnam.

A majority of the men under Lockett command were draftees. Lockett said “I only had one soldier in my unit that did not qualify to go to OCS and become an officer, so they were smart young guys.”

Lockett lost one solider under his command but had several that were injured. Speaking about that matter Lockett said “Fortunately for me and my unit I lost only one solider, he was a platoon leader”. “That’s a hard pill for an officer to swallow to see some of your men get killed.”

After Vietnam Carl was sent to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. It would be at this duty station that he would meet his wife Patricia “Pat”. He was sure after the second date that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. It took several proposals and a little more time to get Pat on board. Carl’s persistence paid big dividends; they had a full military wedding in the main chapel at Ft. Bragg.

Pat has been that dedicated wife, mother to their children and solid partner. They have been a team, now celebrating 53 years of marriage. Pat is a graduate of Bennett College and she also did graduate work at the University of Indiana. Carl said “She was the ideal military wife.”

One of Lockett’s most interesting assignments came when he was commanding a Criminal Investigative Services activity unit in Washington, D.C. This Unit was responsible for the security of General Colin Powell when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said this Unit also provided security for General Norman Schwarzkopf after Schwarzkopf retired. Lockett said “it was related to some threats that Schwarzkopf and his family had received.”

Lockett retired as a Colonel after serving 30 years in the service. During that 30-year period he would get a Master of Science degree from Troy State University and an M.A. from the Navy War College. After retiring he accepted a job with the U. S. Marshal System and moved to Houston. Lockett was in this job for only a short time. He said one day he was headed home from work when he looked down at his speed odometer and he was going 80 miles an hour and surrounded by 18 wheelers. At that point he said “My God, what am I doing? And then I decided that Houston was not the place for me”.

Lockett came back home and was hired by Assistant City Manager Kathy Merrill as Director of Planning and Zoning. He served in that

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