Simons was commissioned a
second lieutenant in the
Field Artillery Branch in 1941, and was initially assigned to the
98th Field Artillery Battalion, a part of one of the Army's pack mule units. In his first assignment as a platoon leader, he as the new lieutenant was so quiet and reserved (he later said he wanted to learn from the
sergeants that seemed to know their business well) that one of his sergeants came to believe that Simons was a
mute. The unit was dispatched to Australia, but immediately diverted to
New Guinea in the early stages of World War II, and Simons thrived in the harsh jungle environment. He was soon promoted to the rank of
Captain and served as a Battery Commander in the battalion from 1942 to 1943. The mules did not prove suitable in the jungle, and the unit was dissolved in 1943. Simons took his battery to the newly forming
Ranger Battalion that would come out of the dissolution of his old unit. He soon became the commander of "B" (Baker) Company and later the battalion Executive Officer (XO) of the
6th Ranger Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel
Henry Mucci. Simons participated in several hazardous landings with the Rangers in the Pacific. He led a team of engineers and Navy personnel tasked to de-mine the
Leyte channel before the invasion of the island began in earnest. On
Luzon in the Philippines, he participated in the
Raid at Cabanatuan that rescued approximately 500 POWs who were mostly survivors of the
Bataan Death March. For his actions in the raid he was awarded the
Silver Star. He quickly rose to the rank of
Major and continued to prove his worth as a combat leader. At the conclusion of World War II, Major Simons left the active Army for five years. Simons was recalled to active duty in 1951 to serve as an infantry instructor and Ranger trainer in the Amphibious and Jungle Training camp at
Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Other assignments included a year as a Public Information Officer (PIO, now
"Public Affairs Officer" or PAO) at
Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a job that he despised: He held a low opinion of the media, one that would prove itself in later years and assignments. "The press hasn't done very well for the American soldier," he would later remark. Simons also completed tours with the
Military Assistance Advisory Group, Turkey and
XVIII Airborne Corps before joining the
7th Special Forces Group in 1958. In 1960 he served as Deputy Commander/Chief of Staff of the
U.S. Army Special Warfare Center. Promoted to
lieutenant colonel in 1961, he commanded the 107-man
Operation White Star Mobile Training Team in Laos from 1961 to 1962 and was the first commander of the
8th Special Forces Group, Panama from 1962 to 1964. From Panama, he was assigned to the
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG), which conducted numerous behind-the-line missions in Southeast Asia. In 1970, Simons was hand-picked to command the army component of
Operation Ivory Coast, a joint special operations effort to rescue American prisoners of war from the Sơn Tây prison in North Vietnam. While it did not rescue any prisoners (the camp was still used as a military installation but the prisoners had been removed a few months earlier), the otherwise highly-successful operation did force North Vietnam to consolidate all of the prisoners into a few central compounds in
Hanoi, resulting in a boost in the prisoners' morale and improved treatment. They were also heartened to know that a rescue effort had been attempted. The North Vietnamese were shaken at the ease in which Americans could invade so close to their capital, and no American lives were lost in the operation (and only one minor injury, a sprained ankle). For his outstanding leadership, Simons was decorated by President
Richard Nixon with the
Distinguished Service Cross at the White House on November 25, 1970. Simons' nickname "Bull" was taken from a physical training game called the "bull pit", where one soldier climbs down into a pit in the ground, and other soldiers engage in trying to pull the first soldier from the pit. Simon's large physical stature and great strength — even in his fifties, he did 250
push-ups every day — made him a formidable challenge to remove from the pit, and the name "Bull" stuck. == In retirement ==