This side of Technicolor, no one wages war on the range quite like Harold L. Oppenheimer, 47, head of the U.S.'s biggest cattle management firm. By his definition, "ranching is the nearest thing in business to a military operation. You deal with large amounts of terrain, large-scale logistics. On the battlefield as in a roundup, success depends on timing, men, and movement."
Oppenheimer's military judgment is hard to fault. A Marine reserve officer since World War II, when he led a battalion ashore at Okinawa, he was called up for Korea, returned last May from a combat tour in Viet...