Vietnam

Loyalty and Risk-Taking

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In one of the old Neptunus Lex posts that Bill Brandt has been rerunning at The Lexicans, Lex wrote about the man who was CO of his FA-18 training squadron:

My student cohort held him in awe: We’d been told that he had received an Air Medal during the war for saving a squadron mate’s life, or his liberty anyway. The latter had come off target badly hit and managed to limp only as far as the harbor at Hai Phong before his machine came apart. The pilot had been forced to eject and was floating in his raft a mile or so off shore, when he saw an NVA patrol craft bounding out to seize him. The unlucky aviator was contemplating the austere amenities of the Hanoi Hilton when our CO roared overhead at 500 feet, firing a Shrike missile in boresight mode.

The Shrike is an anti-radiation missile, designed to home on enemy radar and destroy it.  The radar-following mechanism is its only guidance system; the only way to hit a target that is not emitting radar is to get very close to it before you fire the missile–thereby placing yourself at considerable additional risk  Lex’s CO had taken that risk, destroying the North Vietnamese patrol craft, and making it possible for the shot-down pilot to be rescued by helicopter..

Reading the story, I couldn’t help wondering:  which if any of our current crop of political candidates and leaders would–in the extremely unlikely event that they ever found themselves flying combat aircraft–have made the same decision?

Don’t you belong on a beach?

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In comment thread of another post, Grurray asked:

“I know the Marines are the best fighting force in the world, but haven’t you had enough of building nations in the middle of the desert? You’re called Marines for a reason. Shouldn’t the future should be closer to the shore?” (sic)

I’ll take the sentiment kindly. Marines usually do fine when compared to other forces. I hesitate to call ourselves the “best” or “finest.” But the Marines are probably as good as any force out there.

As for meat of the question: Marines are amphibious fighters, right? What are you doing in a landlocked country?

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Future History Friday — China’s “Days of Future Past” Come Closer

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Back on July 25, 2014 I posted a column here called “Future History Friday — China’s Coming “Days of Future Past” where I stated that China’s hyper-aggressiveness with its neighbors would make Japan act like a “normal nation,” increase its military defenses of the Southern Ryukyus and make military alliances with its neighbors to contain China. Today, a “flaming datum” of that prediction arrived. Japan has just announced steps to bring those “Days of Future Past” closer for China. The Japanese are moving to militarily garrison Miyako and Ishigaki with ground troops and mobile anti-ship missile batteries.

JGSDF Type88 Anti-ship cruise missile in truck mobile launcher. Batteries of which are to be deployed to the Southern Ryukyus islands.
JGSDF Type88 Anti-ship cruise missile in truck mobile launcher. Batteries of which are to be deployed to the Southern Ryukyus islands. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

See:

Japan prepares to deploy troops on Miyako and Ishigaki｜WantChinaTimes.com

Watch Out, China: Japan Deploys 600 Troops, Missiles near Disputed Islands | The National Interest Blog

The May-June 2015 Issue | The National Interest

Miyako and Ishigaki were air bases for Imperial Japanese Army and Navy Kamikaze planes based on Formosa — modern day Taiwan — during the March – June 1945 Battle for Okinawa. Today, they are being prepared to support any operations Japan’s Self-Defense Forces are ordered to do by the Japanese government…including communications to and air support of Taiwan in case of a Mainland Chinese Invasion.

A Google map of Miyako and Ishigaki islands, part of the Okinawa Prefecture. They are now to be the site of mobile anti-ship cruise missile batteries.as well as ground troops to secure them
A Google map of Miyako and Ishigaki islands, part of the Okinawa Prefecture. In March – June 1945 they were forward bases for Kamikazes attacking the US Navy. Today they are become the site of Japanese Self-Defense Force Type 88 Surface-to-Ship Missile Batteries, as well as Japanese ground troops to secure them.

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History Friday: A Vietnam Meditation

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(Posted a bit early, as I have been reminded of the anniversary of the fall of Saigon. I wrote a version of this early on at SSDB, around 2004.)

Never been there, never particularly wanted to: to someone of my age, it is Bad Place, a haunted place, where ugly things happened. It gave nightmares to friends, co-workers, and lovers for years after it dropped out of the headlines and the six-o-clock news. Today in light of the current war, it seems as far away in time and nearly as pointless as the Western Front. You look, and remember, and wonder, knowing that yes, it really happened, but really, what was the point of it all? Platoon seems as much of a relic as Journey’s End, the image of a helicopter hovering over jungle with “All Along the Watchtower” on the soundtrack an image as archaic as doughboys with puttees and soup-plate helmets, marching along and singing “Mademoiselle from Armentieres”.

But it was a beautiful place. My friends Xuan-An and Hai brought away pictures of where they lived in Dalat, in the highlands, where they married and lived with their three older children, snaps of cool, misty green pines and gardens of rhododendrons, and a horizon of mountains. Eventually, they had to flee Dalat for Saigon, where their youngest daughter was born, and Xuan-An’s mother came to live with them. Hai had left Hanoi as a teenager when the Communists took over there, his family being well to do, part Chinese, and immensely scholarly. He worked as a librarian for the USIS, and Xuan-An as a teacher of English and sciences, so they were on the Embassy list of Vietnamese citizens to be evacuated in the spring of 1975, with their four children, aged 12 to 2 years old. They were waiting at their home, for someone to come fetch them, on that last day. Perhaps someone from the Embassy might have come for them eventually, but Xuan-An’s brother who was the captain of a Vietnamese coastal patrol vessel came to their house after dark, instead. He had sent his crewmen all to fetch their families, they were going to make a run for safety out to sea, and he came to get his and Xuan-Ans’ mother. He was appalled to find his sister and brother-in-law and the children still there, and urged them to come with him straight away, and not wait any longer for rescue. They brought away no more luggage than what the adults could carry, in small packs the size of student’s book-bags, and the youngest daughter was a toddler and had to be carried herself. Xuan-An’s brother’s motor launch was a hundred feet long, and there were a hundred people crammed onto it, carrying them out to an American cargo ship, the Pioneer Contender, which waited with other American rescuers, just beyond the horizon.

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Ukraine’s Viking Revival

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When I wrote “The Ukraine Crisis — Some Background and Thoughts” back in February 28, 2014. I expected the Russian – Ukraine War in the Donbass to be headline news in the American media. It turned out…not so much. The NFL Patriot’s deflated footballs and bad mega-blizzard forecasts for the North East United States, among other headlines, seem far more important to the America’s media mandarin’s quest for advertising dollars.
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Part of this lack of coverage is laziness. American broadcast networks and cable news services just don’t cover foreign news much, as it is a lot of work for low ratings. And when it comes to things that reflect poorly on Pres. Obama, other than Fox News, they are all “UK Guardian reporting on the Labour Party” regards Obama Administration foreign policy failures. Which the war in the Ukraine definitely is. Meanwhile the Russophile “fanbois” are spam-commenting on the Mil-blogs and military-themed forums I follow to the point they are useless. I had given up hope of finding anything useful on the fighting there.
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Then I ran into the following video from a defense industry guy who is tracking the Donbass fighting…and then I snorted up my coffee…_Violently_.
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This Ukrainian propaganda video showed not only the fighting, but Ukraine’s Viking Revival spawned by the fighting in the Donbass.
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“100 BIYTSIV.” (100 Warriors) – New Ukrainian Propaganda Clip
(Lyrics Nehrebetskiy, Score Telezin, sung by Donchenko)
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This is a classic piece of war music in many ways reminiscent of WW2, and the video clip is designed to produce that martial effect. It is being propagated by the Right Sector militia via their Youtube portal. The video is a huge viral phenomena in Ukrainian social media, reflected by the fact that the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense placed it on their Facebook page despite very poor relations with the Right Sector.
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This emerging Ukrainian nationalist cultural revival has huge tactical, operational, and strategic military, plus grand strategic political, implications for the 21st Century. Implications I intend to explore in posts here on Chicago Boyz.
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If the song sounds familiar when you play the video — it’s why I breathed coffee — it should be. The tune of this song is based on SSgt Barry Sadler’s “The Ballad of the Green Berets” —
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See for background on Sadler:
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Sadler
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Too Sadler’s Green Berets tune, Nehrebetskiy placed the following lyrics for Ukraine’s Right Sector Militia media team:

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