PAINT IT BLACK

The Information Age is great - I can have running conversations with people on the other side of the planet. This came out of a meeting with Special Agent SUPERFREAK over in the UK, planning the next phase of Project STORMBRINGER . . . this vid clip is the FREAK's favorite Stones tune . . . S.L.



I was stationed in Okinawa when this show was on, we used to watch it on the Armed Forces Far East Network. The intro was the best part of the whole show, the stories were lame. Back in those days there was one channel on the F.E.N. so you watched what they wanted you to watch. All the G.I.s called "F.E.N." the Forced Entertainment Network.

Conversation:

STORMBRINGER: I just spent the last hour and a half clearing walkways and half the driveway so we can get in & out in case of emergency . . . too much wind blowing snow to do all at once. Blowing snow & ice all over my face.

SUPERFREAK: I'll trade if you like, I'd rather be clearing snow than watching the rain piss down.

STORMBRINGER: I was thinking about that while I was handling that snow blower like a team of mules.

SUPERFREAK: Thinking about what?

STORMBRINGER: About how we get these great winters while y'all get mostly rain . . . but YOU'RE in JOLLY OLDE ENGLAND . . . while I'm stuck in boring old North America.

SUPERFREAK: Anyone who would swop "Jolly Olde England" for America must be considered clinically insane and immediately locked up for their own safety! For all the problems at the moment, the U.S. is still the land of opportunity. Britain is the land of missed chances and lost opportunity. We are still being made to pay by the rest of the world for the sins of our forefathers,we are overrun by immigrants who we daren't say no to, despite the fact they are draining our resources. A large portion of our own citizens seem to think they are owed a living without them having to lift a finger whilst deserving people get screwed over yet again . . . who would choose that?!!

STORMBRINGER: You guys need a Tea Party.

SUPERFREAK:We've already got a Tea Party going on over here, our kind of Tea Party . . .

. . . what we need is a bloody miracle!

True, that . . . although they've just about ballsed things up permanently over here with the Obamacare, and the lovers & admirers of Northern European Socialism are in for a rude shock when they see how much inefficient, low budget Government healthcare is going to cost in taxes, fees and penalties . . .

STORMBRINGER SENDS

EX-SPECIAL FORCES MEMBERS DROP IN

This is my old outfit . . . of course, I wasn't in Vietnam, and I didn't do what these guys did. They are the type of heroes who were still serving as Platoon Sergeants, First Sergeants when I was a private. When I got to Special Forces, they were the Team Sergeants, Sergeants-Major, and crusty old Warrant Officers - S.L.


by Nick Stubbs
MacDill AFB Thunderbolt

6/23/2011 - MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. - In the steamy jungles of Vietnam in 1957, nearly eight years before America began major combat operations there, members of the U.S. Army's 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) were in country, advising and training indigenous warriors.

It was all on the down-low, as were all missions until the end of the war. Secrecy is stock and trade of the Green Berets, after all.

Flags proudly wave over the United States Special Operations Command Memorial Plaza during a memorial service in which members of the 1st Special Forces Group Reunion honored their fallen comrades, at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., June 20, 2011. The memorial service included a moment of silence and a tribute to fallen members of 1st Special Forces Group from Viet Nam through Operation Enduring Freedom (Philippines and Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman Basic David Tracy)

But it was no secret in Tampa this week when some 200 veterans of the famous unit gathered for a ceremony at U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base Monday. Arriving in town over the weekend, the group of old soldiers staged at the DoubleTree Hotel at Rocky Point. It was a time to remember, laugh and shed a tear or more for those who were lost.

Formed at Camp Drake, Japan, June 24, 1957, 1st SFG served in the Pacific region and provided some of the first American military members to serve in Vietnam. It wouldn't be until 1965 when major combat operations would begin, sending many members of the 1st on very dangerous missions well behind enemy lines.

How far behind lines?

"We were the front line - sometimes 70 miles behind what they called the front line," said retired Master Sgt. David Kauhaahna, who joked that his special forces code name is "Brother K."

Retired Lt. Col. Keith Walter, Lt. Col. Jim Bean and Retired Sgt. Maj. Russ McDaniel, members of the United States Special Operations Command Parachute Team, The Para-Commandos, descend toward the 1st Special Forces Group Reunion memorial service. Sergeant Major McDaniel flew the POW/MIA flag behind him during the descent which was presented to former prisoner of war Isaac “Ike” Camacho. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman Basic David Tracy)


He arrived in country November of 1965, and served in Laos among other places. Like most others of the 1st, he operated in small units, usually just six men. Three of them might be indigenous Montagnards, or mountain people who earned a reputation as some of the toughest warriors and expert jungle guides in the country.

Being so far behind lines, and with support far away, there was always the risk of not making it through any mission.

"Lots," said Sergeant Kauhaahna of close brushes he had with death. "Lots of times."
One sticks out in his memory.

"We were surrounded by enemy, and they had set the elephant grass on fire and it was closing in on us," he recalled. "We thought that was it for us, but helicopters got there just in time to pull us out; we would have been slaughtered."

Isaac "Ike" Camacho, Vietnam POW that escaped from his capture, receives a POW/MIA flag from Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Smith, United States Special Operations Command, during the 1st Special Operation Group annual reunion at MacDill Air Force Base, June 20, 2011


Close calls were part of the job, said retired Sgt. Major Billy Waugh, who served just shy of eight years in Vietnam, and has a Purple Heart for all eight (along with a Legion of Merit, a Silver Star and four Bronze Stars).

"A lot of what we were doing was directing air strikes (targeting and surveillance as members of the Studies and Observation Group)," said Sergeant Waugh, who recalled that the U.S. Air Force fighters and bombers evolved into being "very effective" at tactical air strikes during his years of service. "They took a little while to get the hang of it, but once they did, they did a heck of job."

When not performing SOG duties, "Our job was to kill and destroy," said Sergeant Waugh.

Members of the 1st were invaluable to downed pilots in need of rescue behind enemy lines.

"We were the only guys there, so we did the job," said Sergeant Waugh.

The memories fill volumes, and are only outnumbered by the close kinships members of the historical group share, said Sergeant Waugh, which is why the reunions are regularly held. This year's event marks the first in Tampa, and a special one in that it was in the same town as MacDill Air Force Base and SOCOM.

"We are glad we could gather here this time," Sergeant Waugh said. "It's a sort of coming together."

Today's Bird HERE


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TANGO MIKE MIKE

I once had the honor of meeting Roy Benavidez. What they don't tell you on this montage is that this was Roy's second tour in Vietnam when he earned the Medal of Honor. He stepped on a landmine during his first tour and was medically released from the Army. Roy built his body back up, proved to the docs he was fit for service and then went on to try out and complete Green Beret training.

The scuttlebutt amongst the old Sergeant Majors I used to work with at the Special Warfare Center was that when Roy was put in for the MOH it was turned down by the powers that be in the conventional Army, on the grounds that a disproportionate number of Medals had already gone to Special Forces. It wasn't until after the war wound down and we'd endured the shame and discontent of the Carter years that the case for Roy's Medal could be pushed up to the highest level.

President Ronald Reagan awarded the Medal of Honor to Roy P. Benavidez on February 24, 1981.

Reagan reportedly turned to the press and said: "If the story of his heroism were a movie script, you would not believe it". He then read the official award citation:

Medal of Honor

BENAVIDEZ, ROY P.

Master Sergeant. Detachment B-56, 5th Special Forces Group, Republic of Vietnam

West of Loc Ninh on May 2, 1968

Master Sergeant (then Staff Sergeant) Roy P. Benavidez United States Army, who distinguished himself by a series of daring and extremely valorous actions on 2 May 1968 while assigned to Detachment B56, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces, Republic of Vietnam. On the morning of 2 May 1968, a 12-man Special Forces Reconnaissance Team was inserted by helicopters in a dense jungle area west of Loc Ninh, Vietnam to gather intelligence information about confirmed large-scale enemy activity. This area was controlled and routinely patrolled by the North Vietnamese Army. After a short period of time on the ground, the team met heavy enemy resistance, and requested emergency extraction. Three helicopters attempted extraction, but were unable to land due to intense enemy small arms and anti-aircraft fire. Sergeant Benavidez was at the Forward Operating Base in Loc Ninh monitoring the operation by radio when these helicopters returned to off-load wounded crewmembers and to assess aircraft damage. Sergeant Benavidez voluntarily boarded a returning aircraft to assist in another extraction attempt. Realizing that all the team members were either dead or wounded and unable to move to the pickup zone, he directed the aircraft to a nearby clearing where he jumped from the hovering helicopter, and ran approximately 75 meters under withering small arms fire to the crippled team. Prior to reaching the team's position he was wounded in his right leg, face, and head. Despite these painful injuries, he took charge, repositioning the team members and directing their fire to facilitate the landing of an extraction aircraft, and the loading of wounded and dead team members. He then threw smoke canisters to direct the aircraft to the team's position. Despite his severe wounds and under intense enemy fire, he carried and dragged half of the wounded team members to the awaiting aircraft. He then provided protective fire by running alongside the aircraft as it moved to pick up the remaining team members. As the enemy's fire intensified, he hurried to recover the body and classified documents on the dead team leader. When he reached the leader's body, Sergeant Benavidez was severely wounded by small arms fire in the abdomen and grenade fragments in his back. At nearly the same moment, the aircraft pilot was mortally wounded, and his helicopter crashed. Although in extremely critical condition due to his multiple wounds, Sergeant Benavidez secured the classified documents and made his way back to the wreckage, where he aided the wounded out of the overturned aircraft, and gathered the stunned survivors into a defensive perimeter. Under increasing enemy automatic weapons and grenade fire, he moved around the perimeter distributing water and ammunition to his weary men, reinstilling in them a will to live and fight. Facing a buildup of enemy opposition with a beleaguered team, Sergeant Benavidez mustered his strength, began calling in tactical air strikes and directed the fire from supporting gunships to suppress the enemy's fire and so permit another extraction attempt. He was wounded again in his thigh by small arms fire while administering first aid to a wounded team member just before another extraction helicopter was able to land. His indomitable spirit kept him going as he began to ferry his comrades to the craft. On his second trip with the wounded, he was clubbed with additional wounds to his head and arms before killing his adversary. He then continued under devastating fire to carry the wounded to the helicopter. Upon reaching the aircraft, he spotted and killed two enemy soldiers who were rushing the craft from an angle that prevented the aircraft door gunner from firing upon them. With little strength remaining, he made one last trip to the perimeter to ensure that all classified material had been collected or destroyed, and to bring in the remaining wounded. Only then, in extremely serious condition from numerous wounds and loss of blood, did he allow himself to be pulled into the extraction aircraft. Sergeant Benavidez' gallant choice to join voluntarily his comrades who were in critical straits, to expose himself constantly to withering enemy fire, and his refusal to be stopped despite numerous severe wounds, saved the lives of at least eight men. His fearless personal leadership, tenacious devotion to duty, and extremely valorous actions in the face of overwhelming odds were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service, and reflect the utmost credit on him and the United States Army.

Today's Bird HERE


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A UNIQUE HOMECOMING

It's not news - not anymore at least - but it is a fascinating story nonetheless - I found it on the THE BRONZE BLOG featured over there to the right as the BLOGSITE OF THE NANOSECOND - S.L.

DANANG, Vietnam - Saturday, November 7, 2009 - On the day his side lost the Vietnam War, Hung Ba Le fled his homeland at the age of 5 in a fishing trawler crammed with 400 refugees.

That was the day Le and his family embarked on an uncertain journey in a fishing boat piloted by Le's father, who was a commander in the South Vietnamese navy. They were rescued at sea by the USS Barbour County, taken to a U.S. base in the Philippines, a refugee camp in California and finally to northern Virginia, where they rebuilt their lives

Thirty-four years later, he made an unlikely homecoming – as the commander of a U.S. Navy destroyer.

Le piloted the USS Lassen on Saturday into Danang, home of China Beach where U.S. troops frequently headed for R&R during the war, which ended on April 30, 1975, when the southern city of Saigon was taken by Communist troops from North Vietnam.

"I thought that one day I would return but I really didn't expect to be returning as the commander of a Navy warship," Le said after stepping ashore Saturday. "It's an incredible personal honor."

"I'm proud to be an American, but I'm also very proud of my Vietnamese heritage," said Le, who spoke a few halting words in Vietnamese.


And so you should be. You should always love your native land - even if you are an immigrant in a new land. This is a concept I personally know something about. Love of Country is Patriotism - a noble sentiment - this should not be confused, however, with loyalty to the country to which you swear allegiance, nor with like or dislike of the political organization that happens to be running your country. - S.L.




Something Special for Today's Birds



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R.I.P. LOWELL WESLEY STEVENS

I got the word over the weekend . . .

Lowell W. Stevens Sr.

FAYETTEVILLE - Retired Master Sgt. Lowell Wesley Stevens Sr., 69, of Fayetteville, died Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011. Services: Memorial, 12:30 p.m. Monday in Rogers and Breece Funeral Home chapel in Fayetteville. Burial in Sandhills State Veterans Cemetery in Spring Lake. Survived by: Wife, Emiko; son, Lowell Jr.; daughters, Natalie and Cheryl; sister, Frances James; and four grandchildren.
- Published in Fayetteville Observer on January 29, 2011

Sgt. Lowell Stevens, top right, poses with other 1st Special Forces Group Soldiers and the indigeneous Montagnard soldiers in Vietnam before a mission into Laos in 1967. - photo courtesy of Lowell Stevens


Lowell Stevens served with SOG - the secretive "Studies and Observations Group" in Vietnam; he completed six tours in Vietnam and went on to become Sergeant Major of Blue Light, the classified counter-terrorist unit that preceded Delta.

After retiring from active duty, Lowell ran Range Control for Camp MacKall, where Special Forces conducts a major portion of their training.

I knew Lowell from the years I spent at SERE; he always got a lot of respect from everyone - the old war dogs and the younger generations alike. He is in that Big Drop Zone in the Sky now.

Monday Mystery Bird HERE

EEBEN BARLOW

Eeben Barlow founded the Private Military Company (PMC) Executive Outcomes (EO) in 1989. The company trained SADF Special Forces in intelligence skills. Operating primarily in Africa helping African governments that had been abandoned by the West, EO served such corporate clients as De Beers (diamonds) and Ranger Oil in Northern Angola. EO later operated in Sierra Leone against the rebel movement RUF in that country and assisted Indonesian Special Forces in the hostage-release operation in Irian Jaya in 1996.

EO also operated in South America and the Far East. Nowadays Eeben Barlow lectures to military colleges and universities on defense, intelligence and security issues.



Eeben Barlow is currently an independent consultant. Eeben Barlow's Military and Security Blog is a serious look at military and security matters.




From Eeben Barlow's blog:


STRATEGY AND TACTICS OF WAR


When a nation’s armed forces are committed to war, the war is fought at three distinct yet inter-related levels. These three levels are:

1. Strategic Level

2. Operational Level

3. Tactical Level


Warfare at the strategic level can be broken down into four distinctive types of strategic warfare. These four types are:


1. Offensive Warfare

2. Defensive Warfare

3. Attrition Warfare

4. Revolutionary Warfare.


Each type of Strategic Warfare can be further broken down into different sub-types of warfare. As an example, Offensive Warfare can be subdivided into either a Distant Strategic Offensive or a Close Strategic Offensive – the type being determined by the proximity of the offensive.

At the Operational Level, usually confined to a specific theatre of operations, the military strategy is accomplished by the setting of operational objectives, within that specific theatre, to meet the military strategy’s goals. Poor planning, non-compliance to doctrine and inadequate tactics can result in failure, thus impacting negatively on the overall military strategy.

The Tactical level is that level where the techniques to attain the strategy are implemented by various unit levels such as a division, a brigade, a company or even a section. It is, therefore, at the Tactical level that tactics come into play. The tactics employed will be dependent on numerous factors such as the phase of war, the enemy, the terrain, the weather, own forces capabilities, the local population and so forth.




Eeben Barlow's autobiography: Executive Outcomes: Against All Odds




Whereas the principle aim of war is to always achieve victory over the enemy, regardless of the type of warfare, the modern-day war can be viewed as having five main strategic goals:


1. To repulse an aggressive act by the enemy, contain and destroy it.

2. To invade, conquer and destroy an enemy.

3. To seize and exploit the resources of an enemy.

4. To energise foreign policy by means other than diplomacy.

5. To gain favourable public opinion and strengthen national resolve and will.


To achieve these strategic goals, the military will adopt a specific posture in order to accomplish its allocated mission. The posture will thus be determined by the perceived enemy threat and will therefore determine the military’s doctrine and tactics.

The tactics, in turn, are related to the specific phase of warfare that is being implemented. These phases - excluding the intermediate or transitional phases - are:


1. The advance

2. The attack

3. The withdrawal

4. The defence


Sound military strategies will lead to well-developed doctrines, good planning based on sound intelligence and correct application of tactics. It is, however, at the tactical level that the war can be either won or lost.


This is where I disagree - the United States was never defeated on the tactical level in Vietnam; there was never a decisive Communist victory against United States Forces on the battlefield.

Perhaps this was because while we were engaged in a distant, strategic war; the Viet Communists were fighting Revolutionary Warfare, and were willing to adopt attrition tactics to achieve their Strategic aims.

The American defeat in the Vietnam Conflict was STRATEGIC in nature, and it occurred at Berkeley, Kent State, Columbia, and a hundred other college campuses, where the few of the anti-war movement held the many of the entire country hostage - Sean Linnane

THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR

I get letters & I answer every one of them. Check this out:


Sean:
Need your feedback. I am thinking about writing a commentary on the current states (sic) of US forces, particularly the troops on the ground doing the fighting, in terms of the long period we've been in Iraq and Afghanistan. I cannot help thinking that we have asked too much of these and the National Guard troops we've sent to combat. They are, I believe, about one percent of the US population being asked to fight for all the rest of us. I come from a different era of the universal draft in the 1960s when it was understood to be one's patriotic duty to serve and that every able-bodied young man was expected to.

On the record or off, I would appreciate your thoughts if you care to share them.

Regards,
A.



This is what I came back with:


I'm on the road right now, cannot write at length. I don't know where you're going with this, here's my take on it:





I enlisted Infantry 11C mortar maggot, Airborne my whole career, first time re-up came around I went "down the street" to Special Forces and never looked back.





When I first came into the all-volunteer Army our drill sergeants and platoon sergeants were all 'Nam vets, they all served in the draft Army and they all told us the same thing: that we wouldn't want to be in combat with a bunch of draftees who did not want to be there. They told us about disciplinary problems in the draftee military you would not believe.




Don't get me wrong - I am quite sure that most of the Vietnam generation served honorably - I am just going by what I heard from multiple sources amongst the professionals who stayed in afterward and made the Army a career.


The war we are currently engaged in is The One Hundred Years War and the sooner the American People get used to the idea the better. I do not differentiate between the "Iraq War" and the "Afghanistan War" - they are simply different theaters of the same war. It makes no difference to the G.I. who is KIA'd whether its Iraq or Afghanistan or the Philippines or the Horn of Africa or Yemen or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or the Pentagon on September 11th 2001; they were all killed by the same people - al Qaeda - and we must never forget that their objective is TO KILL EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US.







We can win this war; there is a way to win it. Any war is winnable just as every war can be lost and when both sides are convinced they’re about to lose, they’re both right (#41, Murphys Law of Combat). The way to win this war is NOT via "taking counsel of our fears" in other words succumbing to desperate loser philosophies out there. "When you find yourself in a war, the stupidest thing to do is anything BUT whatever it takes to win it. In fact it is criminal not to seek victory, because defeat means death & destruction to you & yours." - this is the Philosophy of STORMBRINGER.

So now we have a warrior class - so what? We always did in this country, now its a little more visible and guess what? At least twenty three of our kind are running for Congress in November.






I had the honor & privilege to serve 25 years in the greatest army that ever marched across a battlefield. I am not a hero but I served in the company of heroes. If I had to do it all over again I would not change a thing.

STORMBRINGER SENDS


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THE ONLY WOMAN TO EVER SERVE IN THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION

Susan Travers - Adjutant-Chef, Legion Etranger; Legion d'Honneur, Medaille Militaire, Croix de Guerre.


Early life

Travers was born in Southern England, the daughter of a Royal Navy admiral, but grew up in the south of France, where she was a semi-professional tennis player.
Early war

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Travers joined the French Red Cross as a nurse, but later became an ambulance driver with the French Expeditionary Force in Finland. With the German invasion of Denmark and Norway, she retreated from Denmark through to Finland. She then escaped by ship to Iceland and returned from there to England where she joined General De Gaulle's Free French forces.

By 1941, she was the chauffeur for a medical officer of the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion, during the Syrian campaign in which Vichy French legionnaires fought Free French legionnaires. She was nicknamed "La Miss" by the legionnaires. She then traveled to North Africa via Dahomey and the Congo. During that journey, she had a brief affair with Georgian nobleman and Foreign Legion officer Dimitri Amilakhvari. She was then assigned as driver to Colonel Marie-Pierre Koenig and also became his lover.


Bir Hakeim

In late May 1942,

Attached to the 8th Army and despatched to hold the desolate desert fort of Bir Hakeim in Libya in 1942, Koenig's forces were almost pounded to dust by Rommel's Afrika Korps in what became one of the greatest sieges in the history of the Western Desert campaign

With Stuka planes, Panzer tanks and heavy artillery at their disposal, the Germans expected to take the fort in 15 minutes. In what became a symbol of resistance across the world, the Free French held it for 15 days.

The Luftwaffe flew 1,400 sorties against the defences of Bir Hakeim, whilst four German/Italian divisions attacked on the ground. During the bombing, a piece of shrapnel tore a hole in Koenig's car and Travers (with the assistance of a Vietnamese driver) carried the part to a field workshop where mechanics fixed it.

Refusing to leave her lover's side when all female personnel were ordered to escape, Susan stayed on in Bir Hakeim, the only woman among more than 3,500 men. Her fellow soldiers dug her into a coffin-sized hole in the desert floor, where she lay in temperatures of 51C for more than 15 days, listening to the cries of the dying and wounded.

When all water, food and ammunition had run out, Koenig decided to lead a breakout through the minefields and three concentric rings of German tanks.

On 10 June, Travers drove Koenig's staff car during the retreat. The retreating column ran into minefields and German machine gun fire. Koenig ordered Travers to drive at the front of the column. Travers stated: "He said, 'We have to get in front. If we go the rest will follow.' It is a delightful feeling, going as fast as you can in the dark. My main concern was that the engine would stall."

At 10:30, on 11 June, the column entered British lines. Travers' vehicle had been hit by eleven bullets, with a shock absorber destroyed, and the brakes were unserviceable. Her affair with Koenig ended after this battle, when he returned to his wife.




General Marie-Pierre Koenig - "She was exceptionally brave."



The rest of World War II

Travers went on to serve in Italy, France, and Germany, where she respectively drove an ambulance, lorry, and a self-propelled anti-tank gun. Later in the war, she was wounded when she drove over a mine.


Post-war

After the war she was formally enrolled in the Légion Étrangère, as an Adjutant-Chef (chief adjutant; similar to a warrant officer, often same responsibilities as the lieutenant). Travers served in Vietnam, during the First Indochina War. She married Adjutant-Chef Nicolas Schlegelmilch, who had fought at Bir Hakeim with the 13th Demi-Brigade, and they had two sons. In retirement, they lived on the outskirts of Paris.

Image courtesy Jim Hackworth ProArtShirts.Com

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TET OFFENSIVE

This day in 1968, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) launched what came to be known as the Tet Offensive. It was a military disaster for the Communists, but an overwhelming psychological victory over the American people. Despite catastrophic losses, the North Vietnamese Communists achieved a greater objective in showing their troops and the world that they could coordinate large scale operations over hundreds of square miles with perfect timing. It was a huge morale boost for the Communists, even though they took heavy casualties.


Through the years I served with many Vietnam veterans, and have heard incredible anecdotes from that war. It sounds better coming from a vet; I'd like to ask readers to share with us your memories of Tet, below.


S.L.


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PARDO's PUSH

Pardo's Push was an aviation maneuver carried out by Captain Bob Pardo in order move his wingman's badly damaged F-4 Phantom II to friendly air space during the Vietnam War.

Captain Bob Pardo (with back-seater 1st Lt. Steve Wayne) and wingman Captain Earl Aman (with back-seater Lt. Robert Houghton) were assigned to the 433rd Tactical Fighter Squadron at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. In March 1967, they were trying to attack a steel mill in North Vietnam just north of Hanoi.





THE PUSH

On March 10, 1967, the sky was clear for a bombing run. Both F-4 Phantoms were hit by anti-aircraft guns. Aman's plane took the worst damage; his fuel tank had been hit, and he quickly lost most of his fuel. He did not have enough fuel to make it to a tanker aircraft over Laos.

To avoid having Aman and Houghton bail out over hostile territory, Pardo decided to try pushing the airplane. Pardo first tried to use Aman's drag chute compartment to push the plane. However, turblence was too great and this failed.

Next, Pardo tried to use Aman's tailhook to push the plane. Pardo moved behind Aman until the tailhook was against Pardo's windshield. Pardo told Aman to shut down his engines; Aman was nearly out of fuel and the engine jets interfered with Pardo's plan. The push worked, reducing the rate of descent considerably, but the tailhook slipped off the windshield every 15 to 30 seconds, and Pardo would reposition his plane. Pardo also struggled with a fire in one of his own engines and eventually had to shut it down. For the last 10 minutes of flight, Pardo used the one remaining engine to slow the descent of both planes.

With Pardo's plane running out of fuel after pushing Aman's plane almost 88 miles, the planes reached Laos airspace at an altitude of 6000 feet. This left them about two minutes of flying time. The two pilots and their partners ejected, evaded capture, and were picked up by rescue helicopters.

Although Pardo was initially criticized for not saving his own aircraft, he and Wayne eventually received the Silver Star for the maneuver.

UPPING THE ANTE

The final chapter of 2009 was written by the enemy:



CIA workers killed by 'Afghan soldier'

". . . worst against US intelligence officials since 1983."


5 Canadians killed in Afghanistan

Five Canadians — four soldiers and a Calgary Herald reporter — were killed in a bomb blast Wednesday in Afghanistan . . . a Canadian civilian was also wounded in the attack at about 4 p.m. local time.


Afghan insurgents seize 2 French journalists-police

KABUL, Dec 31 (Reuters) - Insurgents kidnapped two French journalists, their translator and driver northeast of the Afghan capital, a police official said on Thursday.



The Taliban - henceforth referred to as "the enemy" - are working hard to develop their latent insurgency into a war of movement. They shot their wad earlier on, during the annual Spring Offensive. Reeling back after US and NATO operations covered in STORMBRINGER, the enemy was toast.




This Marine wants to kick Taliban ass!


But in modern warfare, defeat on the battlefield does not necessarily translate into defeat. When the Communist North Vietnamese Army launched the infamous Tet Offensive of 1968 in collusion with their southern allies the People's Liberation Front (i.e. Viet Cong), they suffered over 92,000 killed, 81,000 wounded and 5000 missing versus US and allied (SVN/AUS/NZ/ROK) 9,078 killed, 35,212 wounded, 1,530 missing.

Tet was a disaster for the Communists, and resulted in the total extermination of the Viet Cong as a battlefield formation. And yet their defeat on the battlefield was viewed as a victory over the American efforts, as our own media - the same surrender dogs who would have us cut and run in the Middle East - proclaimed the war was no longer winnable, that "We Are Mired in Stalemate."






Whatever you say, Uncle Walter. I guess you were asleep the day in Journalism School when they put out:


"When both sides are convinced they’re about to lose, they’re both right."

#41. Murphy's Law of Combat


The sad truth of it was we could have won Vietnam. If we'de have dropped the 82d Airborne on Drop Zone Hanoi immediately following Tet '68, the war would have be WON - point, blank and simple. I know, I know; "Victory" - what a concept.


Comparing Afghanistan, or the Global War on Terror in it's entirety, to Vietnam is not a good analogy; and yet, the Cut-and-Run yellow bellies of the Left love to compare every single military engagement the United States has experienced since 1975 to Vietnam. I remember watching CNN's coverage of the air campaign in Afghanistan in October 2001; two weeks into it the word was thrown out there: "are we engaged in a stalemate?"

The Left loves America to lose, they drool at the thought of America losing, because they hate the image of America in her role as the Leader of the Free World.




How come we're never presented with heroic images of American troops in action, kicking ass and taking names?


If we MUST compare the GWOT to Vietnam, let us pose a few questions:

"How many enemy capitals did we take during Vietnam?"

"What was the Communist Viet 9/11 attack on us?"

George W. Bush liberated MILLIONS in the GWOT, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and yet the leftist mainstream media and their mouthpieces in Congress have done everything and anything to de-legitimize this conflict, to snatch Victory from the jaws of Defeat and hand it over to an insidious, inhuman, barbaric enemy that only wishes to kill EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US in a series of escalating operations that will make 9/11 look like a Sunday School picnic.




The face of our enemies' Satanic leader . . .



. . . and THESE guys worship his ass:




Just like Tet, it's the New Year. The ball is in your court, Mr. Obama, the decision is yours. Engage the enemy, consolidate our earlier victories, crush their ability to prevail on the battlefield and extinguish their will to win; or, embrace fear and despair, cut and run in the face of enemy opposition in a pitiful demonstration of hand wringing mea culpa's.

The enemy has upped the ante - what are you gonna do, Barry? Meet their bid and raise them? Or fold?





"Uh . . . that's it . . . I'm just gonna . . . uh . . . hold with what I got . . ."





You're the President of the United States, the decision is yours to make. We're all waiting . . .

A HERO PASSES . . .

Colonel (Retired) Robert L. Howard, 70, Medal of Honor (Republic of Vietnam) died Wednesday, 23 December 2009 in Waco Texas. At the time of his death Cl. Howard was believed to be the most-decorated living American soldier. Howard will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Howard grew up in Opelika, Alabama, enlisted in the United States Army in 1956 at the age of 17, and retired as a full colonel in 1992.

In Vietnam, he served in the U.S. Army Special Forces and spent most of his five tours in the secretive Military Assistance Command, Vietnam-Studies and Observation Group (MACV-SOG), an unconventional force that conducted high-risk deep-penetration reconnaissance and interdiction missions. He was nominated three times for the Medal of Honor; he was eventually awarded the Medal in 1971 for the rescue of a seriously wounded platoon leader while under enemy fire.



SFC Robert Howard (front left) in Vietnam with some of the guys MACV-SOG (CCC).

Standing behind Howard at far left is SGT Chuck Erikson - my Battalion CSM in Okinawa. Erikson participated in the Son Tay Raid, on the "BlueBoy Element" chopper with Dick Meadows. (Photo courtesy John Plaster)




Medal Of Honor Citation





HOWARD, ROBERT L.

Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces. Place and date: Republic of Vietnam, 30 December 1968. Entered service at: Montgomery, Alabama. Born: 11 July 1939, Opelika, Alabama.

Citation: For Conspicuous Gallantry and Intrepidity in Action at the Risk of his
Life Above and Beyond the Call of Duty.

1st Lt. Howard (then Sergeant First Class), distinguished himself while serving as platoon sergeant of an American-Vietnamese platoon which was on a mission to rescue a missing American soldier in enemy controlled territory in the Republic of Vietnam. The platoon had left its helicopter landing zone and was moving out on its mission when it was attacked by an estimated 2-company force. During the initial engagement, 1st Lt. Howard was wounded and his weapon destroyed by a grenade explosion. 1st Lt. Howard saw his platoon leader had been wounded seriously and was exposed to fire. Although unable to walk, and weaponless, 1st Lt. Howard unhesitatingly crawled through a hail of fire to retrieve his wounded leader. As 1st Lt. Howard was administering first aid and removing the officer's equipment, an enemy bullet struck 1 of the ammunition pouches on the lieutenant's belt, detonating several magazines of ammunition. 1st Lt. Howard momentarily sought cover and then realizing that he must rejoin the platoon, which had been disorganized by the enemy attack, he again began dragging the seriously wounded officer toward the platoon area. Through his outstanding example of indomitable courage and bravery, 1st Lt. Howard was able to rally the platoon into an organized defense force. With complete disregard for his safety, 1st Lt. Howard crawled from position to position, administering first aid to the wounded, giving encouragement to the defenders and directing their fire on the encircling enemy. For 3 1/2 hours 1st Lt. Howard's small force and supporting aircraft successfully repulsed enemy attacks and finally were in sufficient control to permit the landing of rescue helicopters. 1st Lt. Howard personally supervised the loading of his men and did not leave the bullet-swept landing zone until all were aboard safely. 1st Lt. Howard's gallantry in action, his complete devotion to the welfare of his men at the risk of his life were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

(Source: U.S. Army Center of Military History







When I first reported to Fort Bragg in the early 80s, Colonel (then Major) Howard was serving at nearby Camp MacKall, where he conducted rigorous daily morning PT runs with the Special Forces candidates in training. Once asked by a journalist why he continued to do this, despite his significant wounds from Vietnam and his highly decorated status, Colonel Howard simply replied, "Because I'm a soldier - this is my job."






He is an American Hero.





Honor him.





.

COL. LEWIS LEE MILLETT, MOH

by PETER WORTHINGTON


I first spotted him at a banquet and awards ceremony in Seoul, marking the 50th anniversary of the Korean war – a grizzled old colonel with a white handlebar moustache and the Medal of Honor around his neck.

But what caught my attention was two Canadian war medals nestled among the 26 medal ribbons he wore – the Canadian Volunteer medal with overseas clasp, and Victory medal from WWII.

“How come?” I asked him.

A mischievous grin spread his face. He introduced himself – Col. Lewis Lee Millett, a storied American fighting soldier, although I didn’t know it at the time.



Col. Lewis Millett


“I got the Medal of Honor thanks to the Canadian army,” he quipped. “The Canadians taught me bayonet fighting, and I led a bayonet charge in the Korean war.” He paused, waiting for inevitable questions.

I was with my friend, Vince Courtenay, both of us Korean vets from the same battalion of the Princess Pats in Korea.

Millett, then around 80 years old, told how he’d joined the U.S. army at age 21 in the summer of 1941 – and then deserted, because the U.S. wasn’t yet in the war. He came to Canada and joined our army to go overseas. He wanted to fight Nazis. “As I recall, the Canadian infantry was always doing bayonet training – stabbing straw-filled dummies, parry, thrust, shouting. It made an impression on me.”

After Pearl Harbor, when the U.S. entered the war, he transferred back to the U.S. army, served in North Africa and Italy, winning the Silver Star. When paperwork caught up with him that he had deserted in 1941, his commanding officer court-martialed him – fined him $50, and promptly promoted him to 2nd lieutenant.

“I believe I am the only colonel in the regular army who was ever court-martialed and convicted of desertion,” he laughed. In Korea, he also won the Distinguished Service Cross, next to the Medal of Honor in prestige, but he seemed inordinately proud of his two Canadian medals.

In the ferocious fighting of early 1951, Millett recalled reading a document that said the Chinese believed American soldiers dreaded hand-to-hand combat, and were fearful of “cold steel.”

“We’ll see about that, you sons of bitches,” he muttered. At a feature called Hill 180, under grenade and rifle fire, he led two platoons in a bayonet charge up the hill.



Painting of Capt. Lew Millett leading the bayonet charge up Hill 180 in Korea, February 1951, that won him the Medal of Honour. Painting hangs in the UN Command Officers Mess in Seoul.


“I always had my men fix bayonets,” he said. “I never forgot the Canadian training. We didn’t do much bayonet drill in those days, but I gotta say, those Chinese didn’t know what hit them when we charged.”

Millett led the way and routed the Chinese. His Medal of Honor citation reads: “His dauntless leadership and personal courage so inspired his men that they stormed into the hostile position and used their bayonets with such lethal effect that the enemy fled in wild disorder.”



Col. Millett's self-portrait of the charge.


In the Vietnam war, Millett was involved in a clandestine intelligence program aimed at subverting and killing Viet Cong in the countryside. He retired in 1973 when he felt the U.S. was abandoning South Vietnam.

He once told an interviewer: “I believe deeply in freedom. I’ve fought in three wars, and volunteered for all of them . . . I believe as a free man it is your duty to help those under the attack of tyranny. It’s as simple as that.”

Lewis Millett, old soldier, died on Nov. 14, age 89: A free man, a brave man, an American patriot.


Peter Worthington is the founding editor of the Toronto Sun, where he is a columnist.


This story first appeared on FrumForum and is reposted here by permission of the author.

WHY WE FIGHT - A Vietnam Veteran's Perspective

Speech by Major General Robert Scales USA (Ret) at Truman Library, 12 September 2009

Mr. Skelton, Mr Cleaver, distinguished guests and, most importantly, fellow veterans. What a great thrill it is see my comrades in arms assembled here so many years after we shared our experiences in war.







Firebase Bastogne, Vietnam 1970









Let me give you the bottom line up front: I'm proud I served in Vietnam. Like you I didn't kill innocents, I killed the enemy; I didn't fight for big oil or for some lame conspiracy. I fought for a country I believed in and for the buddies who kept me alive. Like you I was troubled that, unlike my father, I didn't come back to a grateful nation. It took a generation and another war, Desert Storm, for the nation to come back to me.

Also like you I remember the war being 99 percent boredom and one percent pure abject terror. But not all my memories of Vietnam are terrible. There were times when I enjoyed my service in combat. Such sentiment must seem strange to a society today that has, thanks to our superb volunteer military, been completely insulated from war. If they thought about Vietnam at all our fellow citizens would imagine that fifty years would have been sufficient to erase this unpleasant war from our conscientiousness. Looking over this assembly it's obvious that the memory lingers, and those of us who fought in that war remember.

The question is why? If this war was so terrible why are we here? It's my privilege today to try to answer that question not only for you, brother veterans, but maybe for a wider audience for whom, fifty years on, Vietnam is as strangely distant as World War One was to our generation.








American soldiers in France, 1918







Vietnam is seared in our memory for the same reason that wars have lingered in the minds of soldiers for as long as wars have been fought. From Marathon to Mosul young men and now women have marched off to war to learn that the cold fear of violent death and the prospects of killing another human being heighten the senses and sear these experiences deeply and irrevocably into our souls and linger in the back recesses of our minds.

After Vietnam we may have gone on to thrilling lives or dull; we might have found love or loneliness, success or failure. But our experiences have stayed with us in brilliant Technicolor and with a clarity undiminished by time. For what ever primal reason war heightens the senses. When in combat we see sharper, hear more clearly and develop a sixth sense about everything around us.

Remember the sights? I recall sitting in the jungle one bright moonlit night marveling on the beauty of Vietnam. How lush and green it was; how attractive and gentle the people, how stoic and unmoved they were amid the chaos that surrounded them.

Do you remember the sounds? Where else could you stand outside a bunker and listen to the cacophonous mix of Jimi Hendrix, Merle Haggard and Jefferson Airplane? Or how about the sounds of incoming? Remember it wasn't a boom like in the movies but a horrifying noise like a passing train followed by a crack and the whistle of flying fragments.






Firebase Currahee, Vietnam 1969







Remember the smells? The sharpness of cordite, the choking stench of rotting jungle and the tragic sweet smell of enemy dead.

I remember the touch, the wet, sticky sensation when I touched one of my wounded soldiers one last time before the medevac rushed him forever from our presence but not from my memory, and the guilt I felt realizing that his pain was caused by my inattention and my lack of experience. Even taste is a sense that brings back memories. Remember the end of the day after the log bird flew away leaving mail, C rations and warm beer? Only the first sergeant had sufficient gravitas to be allowed to turn the C ration cases over so that all of us could reach in and pull out a box on the unlabeled side hoping that it wasn't going to be ham and lima beans again.

Look, forty years on I can forgive the guy who put powder in our ammunition so foul that it caused our M-16s to jam. I'm OK with helicopters that arrived late. I'm over artillery landing too close and the occasional canceled air strike. But I will never forgive the Pentagon bureaucrat who in an incredibly lame moment thought that a soldier would open a can of that green, greasy, gelatinous goo called ham and lima beans and actually eat it.

But to paraphrase that iconic war hero of our generation, Forrest Gump, life is like a case of C Rations, you never know what you're going to get because for every box of ham and lima beans there was that rapturous moment when you would turn over the box and discover the bacchanalian joy of peaches and pound cake. It's all a metaphor for the surreal nature of that war and its small pleasures . . . those who have never known war cannot believe that anyone can find joy in hot beer and cold pound cake. But we can.





FireBase Bastogne, Vietnam 1969





Another reason why Vietnam remains in our consciousness is that the experience has made us better. Don't get me wrong. I'm not arguing for war as a self improvement course. And I realize that war's trauma has damaged many of our fellow veterans physically, psychologically and morally. But recent research on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder by behavioral scientists has unearthed a phenomenon familiar to most veterans: that the trauma of war strengthens rather than weakens us (They call it Post Traumatic Growth). We know that a near death experience makes us better leaders by increasing our self reliance, resilience, self image, confidence and ability to deal with adversity. Combat veterans tend to approach the future wiser, more spiritual and content with an amplified appreciation for life. We know this is true. It's nice to see that the human scientists now agree.

I'm proud that our service left a legacy that has made today's military better. Sadly Americans too often prefer to fight wars with technology. Our experience in Vietnam taught the nation the lesson that war is inherently a human not a technological endeavor. Our experience is a distant whisper in the ear of today's technology wizards that firepower is not sufficient to win, that the enemy has a vote, that the object of war should not be to kill the enemy but to win the trust and allegiance of the people and that the ultimate weapon in this kind or war is a superbly trained, motivated, and equipped soldier who is tightly bonded to his buddies and who trusts his leaders.

I've visited our young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan several times. On each visit I've seen first hand the strong connection between our war and theirs. These are worthy warriors who operate in a manner remarkably reminiscent of the way we fought so many years ago. The similarities are surreal. Close your eyes for a moment and it all comes rushing back. In Afghanistan I watched soldiers from my old unit, the 101st Airborne Division, as they conducted daily patrols from firebases constructed and manned in a manner virtually the same as those we occupied and fought from so many years ago. Every day these sky soldiers trudge outside the wire and climb across impossible terrain with the purpose as one sergeant put it - to kill the bad guys, protect the god guys and bring home as many of my soldiers as I can. You legacy is alive and well. You should be proud.





101st Airborne soldiers on patrol in Afghanistan







The timeless connection between our generation and theirs can be seen in the unity and fighting spirit of our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Again and again, I get asked the same old question from folks who watch soldiers in action on television: why is their morale so high? Don't they know the American people are getting fed up with these wars? Don't they know Afghanistan is going badly? Often they come to me incredulous about what they perceive as a misspent sense of patriotism and loyalty.

I tell them time and again what every one of you sitting here today, those of you who have seen the face of war, understand: it's not really about loyalty. It's not about a belief in some abstract notion concerning war aims or national strategy. It's not even about winning or losing. On those lonely firebases as we dug through C ration boxes and drank hot beer we didn't argue the righteousness of our cause or ponder the latest pronouncements from McNamara or Nixon or Ho Chi Minh for that matter. Some of us might have trusted our leaders or maybe not. We might have been well informed and passionate about the protests at home or maybe not. We might have groused about the rich and privileged who found a way to avoid service but we probably didn't. We might have volunteered for the war to stop the spread of global communism or maybe we just had a failing semester and got swept up in the draft.

In war young soldiers think about their buddies. They talk about families, wives and girlfriends and relate to each other through very personal confessions. For the most part the military we served with in Vietnam did not come from the social elite. We didn't have Harvard degrees or the pedigree of political bluebloods. We were in large measure volunteers and draftees from middle and lower class America. Just as in Iraq today we came from every corner of our country to meet in a beautiful yet harsh and forbidding place, a place that we've seen and experienced but can never explain adequately to those who were never there.

Soldiers suffer, fight and occasionally die for each other. It's as simple as that. What brought us to fight in the jungle was no different than the motive force that compels young soldiers today to kick open a door in Ramadi with the expectation that what lies on the other side is either an innocent huddling with a child in her arms or a fanatic insurgent yearning to buy his ticket to eternity by killing the infidel. No difference. Patriotism and a paycheck may get a soldier into the military but fear of letting his buddies down gets a soldier to do something that might just as well get him killed.











101st trooper in combat in Afghanistan











What makes a person successful in America today is a far cry from what would have made him a success in the minds of those assembled here today. Big bucks gained in law or real estate, or big deals closed on the stock market made some of our countrymen rich. But as they have grown older they now realize that they have no buddies. There is no one who they are willing to die for or who is willing to die for them. William Manchester served as a Marine in the Pacific during World War II and put the sentiment precisely right when he wrote: "Any man in combat who lacks comrades who will die for him, or for whom he is willing to die is not a man at all. He is truly damned."

The Anglo Saxon heritage of buddy loyalty is long and frightfully won. Almost six hundred years ago the English king, Henry V, waited on a cold and muddy battlefield to face a French army many times his size. Shakespeare captured the ethos of that moment in his play Henry V. To be sure Shakespeare wasn't there but he was there in spirit because he understood the emotions that gripped and the bonds that brought together both king and soldier. Henry didn't talk about national strategy. He didn't try to justify faulty intelligence or ill formed command decisions that put his soldiers at such a terrible disadvantage. Instead, he talked about what made English soldiers fight and what in all probably would allow them to prevail the next day against terrible odds. Remember this is a monarch talking to his men:


This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother;
be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.








Laurence Olivier playing Henry V in the 1944 film







You all here assembled inherit the spirit of St Crispin's day. You know and understand the strength of comfort that those whom you protect, those in America now abed, will never know. You have lived a life of self awareness and personal satisfaction that those who watched you from afar in this country who hold their manhood cheap can only envy.

I don't care whether America honors or even remembers the good service we performed in Vietnam. It doesn't bother me that war is an image that America would rather ignore. It's enough for me to have the privilege to be among you. It's sufficient to talk to each of you about things we have seen and kinships we have shared in the tough and heartless crucible of war.







US and Confederate dead, Gettysburg 1863









Some day we will all join those who are serving so gallantly now and have preceded us on battlefields from Gettysburg to Wanat. We will gather inside a firebase to open a case of C rations with every box peaches and pound cake. We will join with a band of brothers to recount the experience of serving something greater than ourselves. I believe in my very soul that the almightily reserves a corner of heaven, probably around a perpetual campfire where some day we can meet and embrace all of the band of brothers throughout the ages to tell our stories while envious standers-by watch and wonder how horrific and incendiary the crucible of violence must have been to bring such a disparate assemblage so close to the hand of God.