Police Action

--Royal Marines in Helmand Province,
Andrew Miller 

Whenever I'm weary
From the battles that rage in my head
You make sense of madness
When my sanity hangs by a thread
--Now and Forever,
Richard Marx

Change your heart
Look around you
Change your heart
It will astound you
--Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime,
The Korgis  

___________________

The Department of Defense (DoD) Dictionary of Military and associated terms does not have a definition for "Police Action". Per our previous post, this is a significant omission.

This military non-thing nonetheless has various iterations. If you check online, you will find "kinetic police actions", "preemptive police actions", "unilateral police actions", etc.

The online Legal Dictionary of the Free Dictionary provides a very nice and lengthy disquisition on war and its "sort of war" variations. Wikipedia says "police action" is a euphemism for military action, sans a formal declaration of war.

Neither answers the question -- "What is a military police action?" -- though they are two of a scant number of entries that even attempt to do so.

The United Nations authorizes police actions under Article 42 (Global Actions) and Article 53 (Regional Actions.)

Early in the Korean War, President Harry Truman referred to that war as a "police action", perhaps one of the first institutional uses of the term. Korea, Vietnam and Grenada were all considered police actions.

Furthermore, is "peacekeeping" a police action? Since "police action" has been so cruelly intertwined with violent actions, perhaps we need a kinder and gentler term for the peacekeeping variety of such actions.

Ranger contends that words used incorrectly -- either intentionally obfuscated or vague simply due to lack of clarity in thought or action -- cause confusion in our political, military and personal lives. "Police action" is just such a word.

Let us take Korea as example. In that war, the United States used every weapon its defensive arsenal, except nuclear weapons. Does that sound like police work? The same occurred in Vietnam.

Admittedly, "Police Action Against Terrorism" doesn't quite have the ring, so we call that one a "war". Phony War, but war nonetheless. And of course, if it IS a war, why do we not declare it as such?

Ironically, the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) should rightly BE a police action, but it is hard to get people excited about such things these days. 

Perhaps what we need are some new acronyms -- the military can never have enough, can it? (WETSU, so to speak.)

If it is military action with no war, let's call it MOOTW: "Military Operations Other Than War". Phonetically it could be pronounced, "Mootwu"... kind of cute, like a Pikachu, and yet belying its moot-ness at the same time (kind of like a Pikachu).

Our words have become weaselly things, woody or tinny, alternately overwrought with emotion and obfuscation, so much so that it has become impossible to understand a Department of State, DoD or White House briefing.

If those first degree informational sessions are so confused, how poorer must be the information trickled down to the rest of us via our increasingly enfeebled and excitable media.

Why not define words clearly, and use them as defined?

He's Kinda Big in China

--The SOG Tactical Backpack,
$29.97  (retail), Walmart

 And what was all that shit about Vietnam?
What the FUCK, has anything got to do with Vietnam?  
--The Big Lebowski (1998) 

 I'm a fool to do your dirty work
Oh yeah
I don't wanna do your dirty work
No more
--Dirty Work, Steely Dan

I'm waking up to ash and dust
I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust
I'm breathing in the chemicals
(inhale) (exhale) 
--Radioactive, Imagine Dragons

____________________

Behold, the SOG Ninja Tactical Backpack, replete with MOLLE loops and the iconic SOG death's head crest -- yours for a mere $29.97, constructed by the peons of your faithful Chinese overlords, to be found at a Walmart SuperCenter near you.

In Ranger's war, "SOG" stood for Studies and Observations Group, a euphamistically-named highly-classified operation that operated in denied areas of Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia during that generation's most excellent adventure. Today, if you had more pressing things to do during Vietnam (like former VP Cheney claimed) or your main battle experience consists of marathon sessions at the computer screen playing World of Warcraft, not to worry. If you need to stow your gear in a quasi-hipster mode, the SOG Tac Backpack might be for you. 

America's conflicted relationship with the Vietnam veteran has played out daily since that event. A short piece in the 31 July 2006 New Yorker, "The Ambien Cookbook", gives a taste of the uncomfortably irreverent-and-disrespectful line that many Vietnam vet depictions walk:

 Nhi Ho Trang Phu

Ingredients:
1 package beef jerky
1 quart mango-flavored Gatorade
1 saucepan potable water
Salt to taste
5 mg. Ambien

Lay out beef jerky and Gatorade on nightstand, in anticipation of somnambulistic snack attack.

Take Ambien, fall asleep.

After 2-3 hours, awaken half-submerged in a rice paddy in the jungle lowlands just north of the Mekong Delta.

Back “in country.” You know you’re going to Heaven, ’cause you’ve spent your time in Hell. But here you are once again—back in the Shit. Stay still, stay quiet—as quiet as a mouse. You are asleep, but all of your senses are alert.

Spot V.C. sapper no more than one foot away, playing possum in spider hole beneath duvet-cover camouflage.

Silently stalk stationary V.C.; two can play this game, no? When you gain tactical advantage, corner V.C. and remove ear(s).

Go to kitchen, put ear(s) into pot of water on stove, tie on souvenir lobster bib from Cape Cod trip last summer, sit down at kitchen table with knife in one hand and fork in the other, saying “Fee, fi, fo, fum” over and over—until water boils, or you wake up in police custody despite now earless wife or girlfriend’s protestations of your innocence as delivered to police detective in emergency room, where she now is (whichever comes first).♦

The local Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts is currently hosting a "Vietnam Retrospective" display. The card for the exhibit says, "Veterans of the Vietnam War from throughout the region contributed their photos and memorabilia for this touching exhibit." The 10-piece installation of mostly generic material from the media was housed in a small room; included was a helmet and helmet cover from the 1980's.

When we inquired who curated the exhibit, we were told, "It was a labor of love," and the sponsors did not wish to have their contact info given out. The implication being that the installation hardly merited a vetting by the Military Sciences, History or Political Science Departments, a poor way to run what aspires to be a world-class college museum. 

We thought: if the curators had spent an hour in the waiting room of the local VA Outpatient clinic, they could have filled several exhibition rooms with personal memorabilia. The paucity of materials in the needlessly empty white space gave the impression that the veterans of that war no longer had much of a presence. 

The fact is quite to the contrary, especially if one takes a toll of the nation's psyche (to borrow a phrase from former President George W. Bush.)

--Walter Sobchek, fr. The Big Lebowski (1998)

Three gross views of the Vietnam veteran have emerged since that conflict.

First is the crazy and angry man, personified by the egomaniacal Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now andThe Big Lebowski's Walter Sobchek  (a man so annoying at times that even The Dude cannot abide him.) Next is the penitent, bearing the cross for a nation upon his aggrieved soul. Finally, the vet who resembles Us, tenuously existing somewhere in between -- not fully reintegrated into society, not quite trusted. He is the fallen angel, representing a cynical society which has lost faith with its leadership.

The Vietnam veteran was triply-betrayed. Sent to fight an unwinable war, he was not only abandoned by his civilian fellows (who claimed to protest for his safe return) but also by the institution he served. The severe military Reduction in Forces (RIF's) immediately following the cessation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam gave lie to the idea that we celebrate our soldier's sacrifices, as many careers were nipped in the bud.

A nation's naivete and disgust was projected upon him, an unspeakable and irremediable offense to a young mind. He was denied the accolades of his fathers and uncles not because he failed in his duty, but by dint of being born into a society undergoing a total involution. He ain't no fortunate son in so many senses of the phrase.

If our national spirit has waned in the intervening decades, it may be due in part to the presence of 100's of thousands of that conflict's walking wounded in body and mind in its midst. While cases of shell-shock and battle fatigue from former wars walk side by side with the VN veteran, they were the exception to the rule of their respective engagements.

The ebullient celebration with which the WWII vet was feted was absent from most VN homecomings. First came the brazen antagonism towards the "baby-killers", then the awkwardness and ennui when the damage and shame was recognized. The Vietnam vet found himself in a no-win, no-man's land in his home country.

The "Ambien" piece is an example of the shaky terrain in which we still place the Vietnam veteran. While he occupies the same physical zone as the rest of us, he is potentially combustible. In this case, the sleep drug Ambien awakens him to the technicolor madness of his long-recessed memories.

This is the representation of the zombie vet, revivified in his and our nightmares, exposed to toxins like Agent Orange -- a gift that keeps on giving. Every few years a new malady is adjudicated to be service-connected for VN vets exposed to the toxic defoliant.

So the tiny installation, not even correct -- the labor of love underwritten by a major university benefactor -- did not even have its own opening night ceremony. When asked, a museum representative said that we could attend the ceremony for the Renaissance bird exhibition in a concurrent display.  It would be almost the same thing. 

"Are you sure it's not $59.99?" Ranger asked hopefully.

"No. It's $29.97."

The price of heroism gets a little cheaper every day. 

--by Jim and Lisa

Rainy Day People

--Not your typical day at the beach,
soldiers playing volleyball at Camp Long Thanh

 Rainy day people always seem to know
when it's time to call
Rainy day people don't talk,
they just listen till they've heard it all 
--Rainy Day People, Gordon Lightfoot   

Stand aside, everyone. I take large steps 
--Beach Blanket Bingo (1965)

But when the thermometer goes way up
And the weather is sizzling hot
Mister God, for his squad
A marine for a queen 
A G.I. for his cutie pie, is not 
--It's Too Darn Hot, Cole Porter
 _______________________

Only mad dogs and U.S. soldiers would play volleyball in a monsoon. Englishmen, we're not. Sorting through photos recently, Ranger found a picture of him and his fellows not enjoying tea and crumpets.

In the left background just before the defensive berm are two tall telephone poles -- our shake-out area for cleaning and rigging our parachutes. They were placed off the flight line to keep helos from crashing into them. When gun ships were on-call they would park near the poles; when combat-loaded, they could barely clear those berms.

In the far left, back row in black T-shirt is my only photo of Captain Norm Dupuis (he of "the OER in the eye" fame.) The man with the volleyball is Master Sergeant Benny Dunakowski -- a World War II combat  Marine and hard as nails. (After retirement he worked as Service Officer for a fraternal organization. He died several years ago.)

We played volleyball and basketball daily as exercise; the Vietnam soldiers loved the sport, too. But lest you think it was all fun and games, this was not Gidget or Beach Blanket Bingo. This was rough sport. 

Sadly, the Olympics have never adopted Combat Volleyball or Combat Basketball -- a sport much-beloved by U.S. veterans of monsoon zones.

Xin Loi

--Iraq, Arend Van Dam

  Where's my $50? I for one am checking out
of this motel right now!
I'm not going to be two-timed by you
-- you parlor sheik! 
--Everybody's Crazy (1933) 

Those who don't know history
are doomed to repeat it
--Edmund Burke 

Is he still on about Vietnam?
--a local history student trying to board
the latest bandwagon
_____________________

The United State's military is loathe to admit failure, therefore it never dissects them. Therefore, it repeats them.

Let's walk a few steps back, in order that we might move forward.

Our previous failed Counterinsurgency (COIN) war was fought in Vietnam, a classic war of anti-Colonial proportions fought by a superpower backing up the residuals of the colonialist heyday, under the flimsy and faulty aegis of the Domino Theory. It was really the Second IndoChina war (following the First fought with the French. Just as with Algeria later, the French learned that they were unwilling and unable to pay the cost of maintaining their colonial outpost in Vietnam. We would learn their lesson later.)

It was a conventional military battle between the North Vietnamese and the surrogate South Vietnamese forces propped up by the U.S. But it was also a counterinsurgency of the National Liberation Front. Both were fought in the battlespace of the Republic of Vietnam (with safe havens in Laos and Cambodia.) This divided project violated one of the main Principles of War: Unity of Command.

Both conventional and NLF forces enjoyed the advantage of facing a riven adversary; ultimately, they won. This should have taught us a lesson, but it somehow went missing, namely: the U.S. can fight and win a conventional war in places like RVN, Afghanistan and Iraq, but it can't win the counterinsurgency, too.

No Army can win at both concurrently, as evidenced by the Axis efforts in World War II. The Japanese and Germans could fight conventionally or unconventionally with probabilities of success, but they could not do both. COIN has never been a U.S. battle, but rather a battle between the host nation proxies. We cannot win because they are not fighting us; they are fighting for something beyond our control.

The weak, corrupt and venal governments which are the U.S. proxies can never defeat a popular insurgent force because the former lack legitimacy. When the tanks rolled down Tu Do Street past the whorehouses and bars, past the opium and heroin dealers, achieving their objective of the National Assembly and the National palace, this was a moment of truth.

Were those dens of iniquity the deciding factor of Vietnam's fate, or was it whatever animated those soldiers in the North Vietnamese tanks?


Next: A conclusion, of sorts.

Vietnam Fell, and My Kooka Hurts

 ~What the hell do you know... 
~I know it's pretty damn weird to eat people
 --Sin City, Frank Miller

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn? 
--Where Have all the Flowers Gone,
Pete Seeger 

The biggest purveyors of hatred and violence
never wore combat boots or carried a rifle
--Ranger quote
_________________

Saigon fell to the Communists 39 years ago (30 May 1975), and we do not often discuss the legacy of that conflict in everyday terms.

We seldom discuss the exploitation today of the Vietnamese workers who labor in sweatshop conditions in a nation without human rights, a nation for which my fellow soldiers fought, and ultimately abandoned.

The military was amped up in its mission to squash the threat, and as a young man Ranger's world was surrounded by and dominated by hatred and violence. Most of his fellows were enthusiastic volunteers, certainly before the endgame emerged. But what did all of that ardor gain him, his little world, or his country?

With maturity came the insight that the world has enough hatred and violence without his adding to the mix. Hatred and violence backed by a Ranger or Special Forces tab is still anger and violence.

Mostly, our attention now is turned to the new thing, the Islamic Global Jihad, or whatever the term du jour is. Certainly Bernard Lewis's "Clash of Civilizations" is too brusque, too biblical. We do not want to play it too big, but neither diminish it to a graspable size.

The United States hated Communists then much as we hate terrorists today. We even called them Communist Terrorists (CT's), so threatening did they seem to our way of life. Yet today, the Communist nations that did not fall have integrated the most usurious parts of Capitalism into an odd griffon, and we are still fighting to "bring democracy" to fallow lands, forgetting that our democracy was never imposed upon us in the first place.


We speak occasionally with a polite and well-spoken Buddhist Vietnamese restaurateur about his country (to which he occasionally returns.) During our last talk he spoke of the Vietnamese labor protesters jailed late last year for speaking out against 12-hour days with no breaks; he said he had received a You Tube of the situation which the government had taken offline, but which a friend had copied and secreted out.

He said some advocates for the jailed protesters had been trying to present their plight to President Obama, but we could find no online sign of this. Groups like Human Rights Watch however have reported the move of various factories to Vietnam once they started getting flak for their sweatshops in South America.

The thread binding Capitalists and Communists is the goal of squeezing every drop of labor from the worker, sans protection or fair remuneration. Who could better produce the cheap underwear that we love than a Communist Capitalist? Costco and Vietnam exist, cheek-by-jowl, a world apart yet joined over the cheap XXXL sweatshirts we consume without conscience.

Lisa has even encountered people who should know better -- parvenue military history department grads who, when brought to the topic, actually have the temerity to say, "Is he still on that?" when the topic of Vietnam is broached. Maybe this is because we do not like sitting with their discomfort and ignorance.

But it does not matter if a thing is uncomfortable or simply an unknown to the listener -- the waves of the actions will continue to ripple out. Whether you are in the group who are blissfully unaware of the violence done in your name, atoning for or ruing your participation, insecure because you didn't participate, or still carrying the fight, war will not fail to impact you.

It is good that we can laugh when Snooki falls drunk off her bicycle and wonders if her kooka is hurt, right? That, too, is free market capitalism at work.

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster 
--One Art, Elizabeth Bishop

 Now is no time to think of
what you do not have.
Think of what you can do
with what there is
--Ernest Hemingway
_________________

Ranger and I were dining in a Central Florida Vietnamese restaurant this past week and were the recipients of some thought unbidden but valuable for all of us.

Over the years, we have chatted with the Vietnamese workers there, and one man who served in the Vietnamese Army and worked with U.S. Special Forces has been especially warm.  On this recent trip he brought us tea and a small dessert which we had not ordered, simply out of kindness.  Though it was humble, it was a grand gesture which said "we are family".

Notably, this was a bonding gesture not often seen in Ranger's neck of the woods, even among fellow long-time resident Anglos. Though Ranger has lived in his county over two decades and long ago left Cleveland, he is usually the outsider and has not often been the recipient of such bonhomie. Southerners often demonstrate a scarcity mentality (perhaps born of the Civil War and its aftermath?), and will only offer up pies and such upon someone's death or divorce, the latter is usually a gesture signalling an intent to move on the newly disburdened (a pecan pie awash in KARO syrup is a sure symbol.)

The restaurant worker shared that his father had worked in medicine, and sometimes given free medical care to those who could not afford to pay.  He shared other stories, all of which which demonstrated that the good we do comes back to help us. He said somberly, in making his point, "It is good to smile, and to be happy. Anger is no good for body." He continued in his thinking that sadness manifests in bodily maladies.

This man who had lost family members to the Communist regime, who himself went through years in "re-education" camps, was here to tell us, the only wholesome way forward is with happiness and generosity in spirit and deed. (The New York Times featured a piece this week on the same idea, from a more self-serving point of view -- "Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead".)

A good man bringing a vitally simple message.

Dreams of Frustration, Pt. II

Wherever I go, there you are 
--Chanel No. 5 advert, Brad Pitt 

How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart
and let me live again
--How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? 
The Bee Gees

Joey, Baby,
Don't get Crazy,
Detours, Fences,
I get Defensive 
--Joey, Concrete Blonde 

Military men are dumb, stupid animals
 to be used as pawns for foreign policy 
--Henry Kissinger

__________________

So, what is the effect of understanding that one has been used in the name of honor for a dishonorable action?  It is surreal when one understands that there are layers above (and below) one's execution which alter its effect, both in the mind of the executioner and the perception of those affected or those observing.

As with current wars, the strategic assumptions of the Vietnam War were faulty and not reality-based.  Success would be elusive and achievements overstated.  What is required for "success" in such a situation is the True Believer, the person who fills in all the ragged edges with the fluff of hope and all the other non-metrics which fuel the continuation of a failed endeavor.  Smugly, we dismiss the co-dependents among us who are in denial of their doomed D.O.A. relationships, but when this same magical thinking is applied to affairs of state, strong men are all on board.

So what happens to a soldier sent to fight a losing battle?  Does he engage in a repetition-compulsion in the local Veterans of Foreign War (VFW) Post, re-living the successes, real or hoped-for in the battles of his youth, the camaraderie of a long-ago time?  Or does he strike out in fury at the betrayal of his innocence, railing to all who will hear him that things are not as they would seem?  Or, if and when he leaves that world, does he close that door and live successfully in a new milieu, untainted by his formative sad realizations?

Pragmatism calls for the latter; surely the military would be most pleased with a workforce that just blended back into the woodwork, and society can ill-afford the damage wrought by broken warriors, however, people are not pragmatic mechanisms.  They break along unforeseen fault lines, and can be pre-stressed in ways unknown to the finest therapist.  But even for the most prime, most fit subject, what does war do to him, even a "Good War"?

The doctrine of Counterinsurgency (COIN) sounds like it could be a tonic for the soldier, after all, he is after hearts and minds and building communities, yet now even the United States Military Academy is questioning the validity of COIN and its applicability to U.S. doctrine.  General David Petraeus said the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) was now a multi-generational long war, but how, when and why did that transition occur?

As with the denial of a co-dependent, stretching a failing endeavor out past one lifetime does not morph it into a successful plan.  As with the sunk cost fallacy, this policy and doctrinal mutation arises from a nation itself divorced from reality.

Playing hokey-pokey with a failure is not a way to stumble upon success.  For all the field manuals and reputations on the line, sometimes the correct move is a retrograde.  COIN is a loser.

By teaching us to hang in there for the duration of a Long War, one in which our mission is to win hearts and minds and essentially change the destructive (as we see it) behavior of the locals, the military makes co-dependents of us all.

And codependency is not the route to either clarity or good health.

Youth in Asia

--Vietnamese street children,
fr. collection of RAW

The corruption of the people
is the key to the mastery of Rome
--Allen Bloom on Julius Ceaser

kid he says you have
seen better days i can
tell that from looking at you thanks
i said what you say is at
least half true i have never
seen any worse ones
--Why Mehitabel Jumped,
Don Marquis
__________________

Let us patrol some hostile terrain and discuss the wars of my lifetime, 1968 to present, using two simple photographs; both sum up the wars in a nutshell.

First look at the photo shot on a Saigon street in 1970, one which still haunts me. See the diseased bodies, filth and hopelessness of these children and ask yourself, "Does it mean a tinker's damn to these kids who controls Vietnam if they cannot get medical intervention? Ditto Detroit and Cleveland, today.

Now look at the cover shot of Noam Chomsky's "Power and Terror". Note the barefoot poverty of the Afghan children and the structure in which they are sheltered, which has a door but no roof, a perfect metaphor for our military efforts: We will kick in their doors, but fail to see the lack of a roof; what is the use in violating such a structure?

Contrast this lack with the combat dress of the U.S. soldier: He has more combat gear on his body, money-wise, than this Afghan family may see in a lifetime. He has knee pads, but they don't even have shoes. Do they care who controls their country?

The only way those kids will ever see that much money is if we kill their parents and then we buy them off with a cash pay out -- the Ghetto lottery, Aghan-style.

Contrast the female troop eating her ice cream bar with the Vietnam villager of today transporting her home on her back (thanks to reader Deryle). U.S. troops are often cosseted in comparison to the dismal reality of the villagers, regardless of intentions or outcome. The entire question of war is based in poverty, and one cannot fight poverty with a rifle and bayonet.

Imagine yourself an Afghan or Vietnamese parent, helpless in the face of this grinding poverty, looking at a U.S. soldier: What do you see?

It seems that for the last 50 years America has not asked the right questions or made the correct assumptions when conceptualizing the direction of its wars. As immigrants, we should remember that we all came to the U.S. to escape poverty of the body and spirit. When we fight impoverished people believing we are confronting an enemy that can kill our way of life, we are operating from an impoverishment of the spirit.

Operating from the most pragmatic position, we should ask, "What does fighting impoverished people accomplish? What can they gain, and what do we lose?"

A Good Day to Die

Hueys at Camp Lang Thanh (CLT)

Clockwise: Cpt. Jim Hruska (with sunglasses); SFC Corey (black hat);
Lt. Edwards (hands in pocket, back to camera);
SFC Johnnie K. Berry (squatting, back to camera);
SFC Brockelman (sitting in profile to camera);
SFC Kenneth Lovelace (standing in front of Hruska, hand on back of head)
photo taken between June and September 1970

His nature is too noble for the world:
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for ’s power to thunder
--Coriolanus (III, i), Shakespeare
______________________

Ranger looked at this photo for 40 years before realizing that Lovelace was in the frame. It is the only picture he has of him and a poor one at that, and an internet search revealed no more.

It was a beautiful day on 21 Jan 71, much as in this photo, on the day Lovelace died. Ranger wishes to remember his friend who was killed on that date, but first some background prompted by the photo.

We are here conducting an Airborne operation (note parachutes on ground). SFC Corey is wearing a CLT Vietnamese camp unit patch on his left pocket. Instructor S-3 section Lt. Edwards was not camp personnel, but he was present for training. Notice his cut-off sleeves and our lack of headgear; we did not always hew to standard uniform niceties.

SFC Berry was assigned to Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observations Group (MACVSOG) HQ at Pasteur Street, Saigon. SFC Brokelman was an instructor S-3 section in the Combat Reconnaissance Course, also called One-Zero School (see, Down in the Zeroes), along with SSG Lovelace.

We appear casual, but we were doing the job. I am reminded of our comfort with each other, and the lack of feeling crammed even when working in close proximity, which was often required. We appear to be problem solving in this photo. These men are mentoring me and are patient in so doing. It also shows the young bloods of that era, like myself and Edwards, integrating with more experienced members.

Lovelace, Corey and Brockelman were low-key professionals, confident but with no need for showboating. I remember marveling at SFC Corey's weathered 40-ish face, and remember telling him he looked like he got shot by the wrinkle gun. As a First Lt., Corey was my primary instructor in 1-0 School. Ranger was required to graduate in order to be assigned to staff functions at CLT/B53.

As mentioned yesterday, the 1-0 course was modeled on the Ft. Benning Pathfinder course, with the addition of in-country experience. Men like Lovelace, Corey and Brockelman were fine examples of the expertise and professionalism which brought this training to the next level.

Now to 21 Jan 70: As mentioned, it was a clear blue sky day, and the men had just returned following a successful mission; all was well in the world. We were happy to be there.

I don't know if Ken was talking to me man-to-man or soldier-to-soldier, but he mentioned he was short-timing and didn't like the idea of going to the the field before his Date Estimated Return Overseas (DEROS). I felt he had a foreshadowing of his death, which made his death all the more poignant.

The last time I saw him all that I would recognize was the tattoo on his arm.

Kenneth Lovelace was from Bellefontaine, Ohio. The only data given online differs somewhat from Ranger's recollection of the day, to include the date of death. There are no personal recollections of Lovelace on any of the military boards, only this:

KENNETH LOVELACE SSGT - E6 - Army - Regular Special Forces; tour began 27 Mar 70; Casualty was 22 Jan 71 In BIEN HOA, SOUTH VIETNAM. Age 27, DOB 21 Feb 43. He was married with children.

The 5th Special Forces Group left country five weeks later, and SOG remained operational for about another year. The deaths of four men on a lovely day in January 1971 are of little import to the planet's transit and were not the result of a great battle. They were in a desperate encounter ending in death, and such is the way most soldiers die. (As an aside, in WW II 15,000 airmen died in training in the U.S.).

Soldiers die daily and most of us fail to notice. More soldiers die in nasty little battles than are killed in the big named conflicts, especially in Low-Intensity Conflicts. Their deaths are the deaths of a 1,000 cuts, so inconsequential as to be unnoticed by a great nation.

Except ... every now and then, someone stops to think that all these deaths are too many to count.

Down in the Zeroes

Camp Long Thanh, B53, 5th Special Forces Group,
1970. The bottom shows our DZ for airborne training;
top shows the North Airfield; Main Gate is in the NW corner,
leading straight to Bearcat

Rappelling -- this shows the vulnerability of the
Huey when used as a rappelling platform

CLT team, in training with full equipment, helicopter
is operational. This is how the team looked 21 Jan 71
(all photos from Ranger's private collection)

All greatness, all power, all social order
depends upon the executioner;
he is the terror of human society
and the tie that holds it together;
Take away this incomprehensible force
from the world, and at that very moment
order is superseded by chaos, thrones fall,
society disappears
--Joseph de Maistre

"I wanted an ideal animal to hunt,"
explained the general.
"So I said: 'What are the attributes of an ideal quarry?'
And the answer was of course:
'It must have courage, cunning, and,
above all, it must be able to reason.'"
--The Most Dangerous Game,
Richard Connell
__________________

Ranger will discuss the One-Zero School of MACVSOG (Military Assistance Command Vietnam, Studies and Observations Group) in Vietnam as prelude to an upcoming piece.

May 1970 was when Ranger attended the officially-designated "Combat Reconnaissance Course", an innocuous-sounding DD-214 designator for a course which anything but. It was the only Army course ever conducted that had an actual combat mission as a graduation requirement; but that is not solely what distinguishes the 1-0 School.

One-Zero taught its students to perform and to survive while being hunted by superior enemy forces -- it taught its students how to be prey. This is a different thing from the aggressive can-do attitude associated with the combat arms. They were trained NOT to fight, unless running for their lives.

If memory serves, 14 SOG Reconnaissance Teams disappeared from the earth during that war. Teams disappeared because the enemy was so overwhelming while the teams were tight and compact, and not arrayed for action. Additionally, they operated in denied areas. One team member's loss jeopardized the entire group.

This behavior is counter to the civilian's perception of the Infantry, and is difficult even for most soldiers who were not in SOG to grasp. Many missions were doomed before they were launched. The North Vietnamese Army had trail watchers watching every LZ in the area, so many teams were compromised from the point of insertion. For this reason, Ranger believes that Lt. Murphy's Medal of Honor scenario in Afghanistan resembled the SOG template; it failed because the members of the team were compromised, as was often the case with SOG. They tried to fight when they should have run.

Knowing they would be hunted and trailed by trackers and hounds requires a great deal of reserve, courage and devotion to duty. Ranger has always thought that level of danger to which these teams were exposed unacceptable for a mission; fortunately he has never had to cross that border.


Tomorrow: A requiem for a One-Zero school friend

COIN is a CON

--Out of Vietnam, Rainer Hachfeld

Nothing is over until we decide it is!
Was it over when the Germans
bombed Pearl Harbor?
--Animal House (1978)

There's no there there
--Gertrude Stein
______________________

Counterinsurgency is a dupe's game; the players wrap themselves around the HOW's, but never the WHY's, and it is the latter realm in which COIN is lost before it's out of the gate.

U.S. COIN efforts always violate the concepts of legitimacy and sovereignty, making it a fail. So why do we fight COIN? Let's take the largest pre-PWOT (©) example, Vietnam.

We fought in the Republic of Vietnam as a bulwark against the Domino Theory of Communism. If so, the Vietnamese had no relevance save as proxy, which always struck Ranger as a chickenshit concept -- why hide behind proxies?

The Vietnamese people, both North and South, largely lived in abject poverty and neither side cared; the people were stuck in a conflict not of their making. One could say the U.S. still exploits the cheap labor pool of Southeast Asia today.

During the Second Indochina War neither side had legitimacy, but the North Vietnamese had the better claim than did the South. The U.S. efforts were seen as an extension of French colonialism, correctly or not. How could COIN policy have changed this perception?

The U.S. would have had to have emulated the Communist's prime agenda of the elimination of the hegemony of the South's corrupt absentee land owners and Francophile Catholic ruling class. Why did the U.S. ignore this overriding impulse?

There was simply no way for the U.S. to go from that reality to a democratic, capitalist nation. That postulated goal could not be carved with either the tools or the stone at hand, and this fact remains true in today's COIN policy. You can't get there from here; you've got to go somewhere else, first.

None of the entities we call countries possess the prerequisites for a democratic society, first and foremost being an educated middle class entity. We have installed Karzai, he of the silk cape and yak hat, but under that cape is a fine western suit, and that is not the uniform of his people.

We can chew our cud, but we don't seem able to digest it.