Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2020 i Vietnam

Mortorcyclists riding to honor veterans will be roaring through the nation’s capital this coming Memorial Day weekend, just as they have for more than 30 years. But in 2020 the run, for the first time, will not be propelled by Rolling Thunder, an organization formed by Vietnam veterans to draw attention to prisoners of war and missing in action who had not returned home and to put pressure on the government to account for them. Now the ride will be led by AMVETS, founded by World War II veterans in December 1944 and today open to all former and current veterans, including those in the National Guard and Reserves. The organization, based in the Washington suburb of Lanham, Maryland, is involved in a variety of veteran services programs and related…

On Jan. 31, 1968, the start of a cease-fire for the Lunar New Year celebration called Tet, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army launched large-scale assaults across South Vietnam. Even though the communists had conducted seven major attacks in the northern and central regions the previous day, most senior American and South Vietnamese political leaders and mid-to-senior level military officers were away for the holiday. Surprised and paralyzed, most South Vietnamese units responded slowly, enabling the Viet Cong to seize their initial objectives. The early successes of the communists’ Tet Offensive, intended to spark a national uprising that would overthrow the Saigon government, rudely shocked the American public and congressional leaders who had been treated to months of optimistic statements from President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration and military commanders.…

Colin Powell’s journey “from a working-class immigrant neighborhood in the South Bronx to the highest echelons of military, political, and diplomatic power was truly remarkable,” writes Jeffrey J. Matthews in Colin Powell: Imperfect Patriot. He says a crucial component of Powell’s rise—ultimately to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state—was his development as an “exemplary subordinate,” an extremely competent, hardworking, loyal assistant who in turn became an effective, inspirational leader. At times, however, superior “followership” led to failings in independent critical reasoning and errors in judgment, including in Vietnam, contends Matthews, who informed Powell “there would be sections of the book he would not like. To his credit, he encouraged me to ‘write what I think is right.’” Powell’s Army career began as an ROTC graduate…

On Feb. 14, 1968, in the midst of the communists’ countrywide Tet Offensive, my company, Alpha, in the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division, was tasked to be the security force for the headquarters of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, just outside of Saigon. While Alpha Company was performing what was considered “in-country R&R,” easy duty guarding the MACV compound and the U.S. Embassy, our battalion continued to operate in the dangerous Thu Duc area across the Saigon River, about 3-4 miles northeast of the city and just above the junction of highways 1 and 13. On Feb. 20, the battalion had a major daylong battle with a large North Vietnamese Army element, later determined to be parts of two NVA…

Feb. 13 Black Sabbath, with lead singer Ozzy Osbourne, releases its self-named debut album in Britain, followed by a U.S. release June 1. The band is considered one of the three major founders, along with England’s Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, of heavy metal rock. Feb. 14 Love Story is published. In Erich Segal’s novel, wealthy Oliver Barrett IV and baker’s daughter Jennifer Cavilleri fall in love in college, get married and learn she has a terminal illness. The book’s famous phrase: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Feb. 18 The Chicago Seven, indicted on charges related to rioting at the August 1968 Democratic National Convention, hear their verdicts in a trial that began Sept. 24, 1969. John Froines and Lee Weiner were acquitted. Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin,…

Beads of sweat streamed down the dirt-smeared face of Cpl. Tommy “Hatch” Hatcher of 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division. The hill he had just climbed was steep, and his company had ascended 1,800 feet of its nearly 2,000-foot height. Hatch’s 10-pound armor vest didn’t help, nor did the 45-pound M60 machine gun and a belt of ammo he lugged. About 50 yards from the top, Charlie Company Marines awaited orders from battalion commander Col. John “Blackie” Cahill, walking the hillside with them. The Marines were told a North Vietnamese Army squad, occupying a bunker complex on the ridgetop, had Alpha Company pinned down. Charlie would move to the eastern/southeastern ridge to relieve pressure on Alpha and allow it to withdraw its 10 dead…

Maxwell Taylor’s Cold War: From Berlin to Vietnam By Ingo Trauschweizer University Press of Kentucky, 2019 “I don’t like jumping out of airplanes,” famed World War II 101st Airborne Division commander Gen. Maxwell Taylor told the West Point Class of 1969. “I just like hanging out with guys that do.” With that, Taylor had every cadet in the audience firmly in the palm of his hand. The West Point speech encapsulates Maxwell Davenport Taylor’s careerlong appeal—he was extremely intelligent, always sharp, and had an instinctive grasp of what his audience expected him to say. Regardless of the subject under discussion, Max Taylor seemed the most knowledgeable person in the room. At least, that’s the image he projected throughout his military and political service from 1922 to 1970, the last two…

On June 3, 1963, the first four U.S. Army CH-37B Mojave helicopters arrived in Saigon, followed in September 1965 by a detachment of eight CH-37Bs that deployed to Monkey Mountain, near Da Nang. The Marine Corps also flew the CH-37 in Vietnam, its version designated the CH-37C Deuce. Designed to fly even with the loss of a rotor blade or one of its engines, the aircraft was a robust but complicated machine to operate. Aircraft-maker Sikorsky’s first twin-engine rotary wing craft, the CH-37 was proposed as a heavy assault helicopter for the Marines. It first flew in 1953 and was the Western world’s best heavy-lift copter until the introduction of the CH-47 Chinook in 1961. The CH-37’s engines were housed in external pods, or “nacelles,” to maximize cargo space. The…

When a soldier asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Dec. 8, 2004, why his unit had not deployed to Iraq with more armor, Rumsfeld replied: “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” The secretary’s response was characterized in the press as flippant and insensitive, but four decades earlier his comment would have been right on the mark as the first U.S. Army combat forces went into Vietnam during a massive American buildup in 1965, beginning with the March deployment of a Marine brigade. The Army’s follow-on wave of three brigades and the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) experienced serious personnel shortfalls, equipment shortages and training deficiencies. It was an army that neither policymakers nor…

I was 7 years old when the Vietnam War ended. I know about the war, as most my age do, from movies and documentaries. And most of what I encountered was about the ground troops, rarely about the pilots. So I jumped at the chance to attend a reunion in San Antonio for pilots who flew F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bombers on missions over North Vietnam during Operation Rolling Thunder, 1965-1968. These reunions are where the Thunderchief pilots have maintained their shared past and let each other into the lives they’ve lived in the years since. I set up my camera in a hotel room. As the veterans talked to each other and later told their stories in our interviews, the things they said were echoed in what I saw through my…