Jasper Journal

Forty-six  years ago this week US Forces in Vietnam fought what has come to be known as the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley.  It was one of the first major engagements of that conflict. Part of the battle,  focusing on Landing Zone X Ray, was immortalized in the classic movie “We Were Soldiers.”

I recently came upon an article about how the wife of then Lt Col Hal Moore, used that battle to make a critical change in the casualty notification system. I thought this weekend I would share her contribution with you.  At the end of the article is a short video clip from  ”We Were Soldiers,” that I think is a beautiful and poignant tribute to all the soldiers involved in that action.    See you Monday.

“American soldiers and Marines had been dying in Vietnam in twos and threes when a battle erupted in an isolated valley called Ia Drang. In a matter of days, more than 230 American soldiers were dead. The sudden avalanche of casualty reports overwhelmed the Army’s notification system. Taxi drivers were enlisted to deliver telegrams that began,

The Secretary of the Army regrets to inform you . . .

In the Georgia town where many of the wives lived near the Army post, word quickly spread about the taxi deliveries. The sight of a yellow cab pulling up in front of a house caused panic inside. Julia Compton Moore was the wife of then Lieutenant Colonel Harold Moore, one of the commanding officers who was at Ia Drang. In the days after the battle, she’d been hurrying to the homes of those visited by the taxis, trying to comfort the young widows left holding yellow telegrams. Even in Army towns, they were isolated compared to the World War II years, when all your neighbors had someone in the service and the family next door or down the street knew exactly what you were going through when you received one of those telegrams. Vietnam was different. When a taxi driver knocked at Julia Moore’s own door, she hid at first, for a long time, before she finally forced herself to open the door and face the news that her husband, too, was dead.

The driver just wanted directions to another address.

Within two weeks, Julia Moore forced the Army to find a better way to notify families. No more taxi drivers, no more wives or parents left alone with a telegram. In fact, no more telegrams. Since that time, regulations have required that the news of every death must be delivered in person. Major injuries may also prompt a visit, but injuries are often reported to the family in a phone call. News of a death, however, is delivered in person by a member of the military, someone whose rank is equal to or higher than the rank of the casualty, preferably someone from the same overall unit or a similar one, or at least with a similar military background. They receive some training and, depending on the service (Army, Air Force, Navy, or Marines), they may be accompanied by a casualty assistance officer, whose job it will be during the days and weeks ahead to guide the bereaved family through a blizzard of military and government paperwork, insurance forms, legal hoops, and funeral arrangements. Casualty assistance officers do this job in addition to their regular duties. The casualty team also usually includes a chaplain. They all wear their dress uniforms.

Excerpted from While They’re At War: The True Story of American Families on the Homefront by Kristin Henderson.

Today we have a blog entry from Paul. The Libya situation is a hotly debated subject and Paul provides some interesting perspectives. Thanks my friend.

Repeating the Past

George Santayana, the Spanish philosopher, wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Regarding military operations, it appears that the Obama administration either cannot remember the past, or more frightening (and probably more likely), it does not know the past.

During the Vietnam War, the United States conducted an on-again/off-again bombing campaign for three and a half years. Called Operation Rolling Thunder, it began in 1965 and featured a limited, gradually escalating target set and bombing pauses. The operation featured 150,000 sorties, but never attacked North Vietnam’s strategic centers of gravity; as a result, the Ho Chi Minh regime adapted to the strikes. Featuring micro-management from the White House (the President himself selected targets at the Tuesday lunch), it was a spectacular lesson in how not to conduct an air campaign.

Unfortunately, it appears we are now repeating the error in Libya. After initial application of U.S. airpower (including tank-killing A-10s and long-loitering AC-130 gunships), we withdrew our strike aircraft. The baton passed to NATO (actually, to six of NATO’s 26 nations, but that is a topic for a future post), which did not have aircraft as well suited for the conflict as the A-10 and AC-130. As a result, Qadhafi’s forces adopted mitigation strategies (close-in urban warfare, using civilian vehicles, etc), which negated many of NATO’s aerial advantages.

A few days ago, the President decided to commit armed drones (as termed by the press; they are actually remotely-piloted aircraft). We will maintain two orbits over Libya, hardly enough to impact Qadhafi’s military (Libya is slightly larger than Alaska). At present, the Administration refuses to re-commit A-10s and AC-130s to the conflict.

So once again, we are treated to military gradualism — with limits set each step of the way — in the forlorn hope that such action will convince Qadhafi to cease and desist. The operant proposition appears to be: what is the least we can do and perhaps still get results? There is a principle of war called mass: delivering overwhelming combat power at the decisive time and place. The intended result for the enemy is disintegration through integrated destruction and dislocation. Anything less allows an enemy to develop countermeasures and survive.

Instead of conducting a quick and decisive campaign, the President has chosen to replicate the Vietnam War: the limited application of military power. Coupled with a muddled policy (Qadhafi must go, but we are not willing to apply enough power to do it), the result will be no more successful than Vietnam. How sad, especially for the hundreds of Libyans who will probably die at the hands of a brutal regime because of our feckless actions.

   A very thought provoking essay on a war that needs to be examined  closely, especially in light of the President’s growing emphasis . Ralph Peters is not afraid to call it like it is.

His analysis and comparisons are right on target. I  especially liked the comment  ” good marksmanship trumps good will.” Lets hope some in the administration are reading this as well. 

New York Post

January 27, 2009

Afghan-’Nam Blues

Do We Have A Realistic Goal?

By Ralph Peters

A NEW president with a strong domestic agenda and a career-long lack of interest in foreign policy inherits a distant war and feels he has to demonstrate his toughness: That was LBJ and Vietnam.

Will Afghanistan be President Obama’s Vietnam, with Pakistan as Cambodia on steroids?

Such comparisons have already been made, but miss the mark. The core reason we failed in Vietnam was our largesse: We poured in so much wealth that we corrupted the Vietnamese leadership, from presidents down to battlefield commanders, beyond all utility. We became North Vietnam’s best allies, destroying South Vietnam from within.

Our troops fought bravely, but infusions of well-intentioned aid undercut every success. All of the other reasons for our failure, from then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s arrogance through a long misreading of the war’s nature, were secondary. Instead of inspiring self-sacrifice in our counterparts, we generated a kleptocracy.

Like the Taliban (and al Qaeda), the North Vietnamese had the advantage of poverty. The strategic goal of the leadership cadres in Hanoi never wavered.

Now we’re “Vietnamizing” Afghanistan: dumping so much wealth on a poor country that we’re turning pickpockets into world-class thieves.

President Hamid Karzai is despised where he isn’t hated. The people view his government as corrupt and untrustworthy – and it is. A weak man, Karzai’s unwilling to stand up to warlords and narcos. Anxious to retain his illusory power, he takes our support for granted.

Karzai’s constant harping on American military “excesses” every time the Taliban claims the corpses holding Kalashnikovs were just discussing Oprah’s latest book-club pick is meant to please the locals – at our expense.

But we can’t see an alternative to Karzai. Our bad, not his.

The bitter truth (as in Vietnam) is that we still haven’t decided what we really want to achieve. We babble about nation-building where there’s no nation to build, just a premedieval mosaic of tribes that hate each other. And the Taliban are homeboys.

We want Afghans to be like us. They never will be. (Good morning,

Vietnam!)

If we want to alter the strategic environment amid a foreign population, we must be clear on three things: what we want to achieve, what the target population wants – and how much of what we want that population’s willing to accept.

Washington is vague and naive on all three points.

Another 30,000 US troops? Fine. As long as they have clear, achievable missions. More nonmilitary aid? OK. Tell us specifically what it will accomplish. And mark the bills.

We can’t bear any more of the Bush-Clinton-Bush approach of sending troops and mountains of aid in the nebulous hope that something good will happen.

Can anyone in the Obama administration articulate what we intend to achieve in Afghanistan? The Bush folks couldn’t. I doubt this bunch can either.

If our goal is to turn Afghanistan into a rule-of-law democracy, forget it. Iraq has an outside shot – it’s a semi-modern society – although success is far from guaranteed. But a modernized Afghan state whose authority extends into every remote valley is an impossibility.

If, however, our goal is only to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a massive terrorist mother-ship, we can do that – and at a lower cost.

But we’d have to have the guts to choose sides among factions and stop pretending that we’re honest brokers.

The impending troop surge faces the danger of LBJ-era accounting: the recurring conclusion that just one more rise in troop levels will tip the scales. You wind up with half a million troops deployed and a local population that wants you gone yesterday.

Inherently, this one’s a special-operations war. A sounder long-term approach would be fewer troops on the ground – and far less reliance on vulnerable supply routes through Pakistan. Regular combat units have a role to play, but as punitive strike forces, not a vast neighborhood watch (this is not Iraq).

Ditch the claptrap that we can’t kill our way out of this: Well-focused killing, for decades, is our only chance – and Afghanistan’s. And dump the feel-good platitudes. In the real world off-campus, good marksmanship trumps good will.

Every conflict is different. A comparatively easy affair (which we made hard), Iraq was ripe for its surge. But in Afghanistan – as in Vietnam – a surge will bring us tactical wins, but not decisive progress (and toward what?).

Success in Afghanistan – or anywhere – demands a clear vision of an attainable end-state; a realistic approach to achieving it, and time.

If they don’t want it, we can’t get it. We can’t buy Afghan patriotism – at least not for more than five minutes.

Let’s not turn Kabul into a second-rate Saigon because we convinced ourselves that spending more money and sending more troops is a substitute for a strategy.