This is how you "win hearts and minds"...by winning combat engagements. The credibility and honor of a military force can never be wholly established apart from direct military action. It's a timeless principle, which politicians who consider their persons too wise and valuable to ever be tested in combat would rather forget.
December 3, 2015 at 4:52 PM
Anonymous said...
And I'll say a prayer for the people of that village that were probably slaughtered by communist forces when our politicians stopped supplying the RVN. I'm sure the VC sympathizers had long memories..
December 4, 2015 at 5:00 AM
Anonymous said...
In 1968, I was twelve years old. We had three channels of "processed news" on television and protest songs on the AM transistor radio. There were communist sympathizers in our high school, so my older sister tells me. She was seventeen. We had two or three from our town that died in that war. The daily body counts on the evening news was scary. But the VC body count was always ten to twenty times the American body count. Me and my twelve year old friends wondered when we would get our draft notices. It was hard to talk about because we knew we could easily end up like the two or three. It was an unsettling time. I was glad in 1974 when it was all over, but I still didn't like Nixon. Now, at age 59, I look back and realize that he likely saved my life.
December 5, 2015 at 7:06 PM
There are many lessons in this fragment of history for the small unit leader and especially for the soon-to-be militia commander thrust into a situation where he must integrate newbies with veterans on the fly to achieve the best results. Don't let the political strategic failure of Vietnam blind you to some of its tactical successes that can be applied to future conflicts -- especially the civil war that is being thrust upon us by the collectivists of our own country. Print this one out and study it later at your leisure, and for distribution to other subordinate leaders.
"Praxis: "Fast Rifles.""
3 Comments -
This is how you "win hearts and minds"...by winning combat engagements. The credibility and honor of a military force can never be wholly established apart from direct military action. It's a timeless principle, which politicians who consider their persons too wise and valuable to ever be tested in combat would rather forget.
December 3, 2015 at 4:52 PM
And I'll say a prayer for the people of that village that were probably slaughtered by communist forces when our politicians stopped supplying the RVN. I'm sure the VC sympathizers had long memories..
December 4, 2015 at 5:00 AM
In 1968, I was twelve years old. We had three channels of "processed news" on television and protest songs on the AM transistor radio. There were communist sympathizers in our high school, so my older sister tells me. She was seventeen. We had two or three from our town that died in that war. The daily body counts on the evening news was scary. But the VC body count was always ten to twenty times the American body count. Me and my twelve year old friends wondered when we would get our draft notices. It was hard to talk about because we knew we could easily end up like the two or three. It was an unsettling time. I was glad in 1974 when it was all over, but I still didn't like Nixon. Now, at age 59, I look back and realize that he likely saved my life.
December 5, 2015 at 7:06 PM