In late 74 and early 75, I was sent to Phnom Penh airbase. We were assigned to rig equipment for shipment out of the country. The airport had 6 floors below ground and with each passing week I wondered if I would end up in there. It was probably in March and this C-130 landed and it had plate size holes in the wings and fuselage. I started laughing at the shape the plane was in. My CO said “I wouldn’t laugh, you might be flying out on that”. Two days later I was strapped facing the back, seating is opposite commercial planes, and when the pilot was airborne he went nearly 90 degrees straight up. My buddy said the Khmer Rouge were less than a mile from the airbase.
2 months later I was entering Cambodia on foot from Thailand due to the Mayaquez capture. That po’d me since the boat brought us milk, eggs and other food items. Eating C’s for 6 weeks sucked. Fortunately, the issue ended quickly although decent food didn’t. Ate from a lot of Thai food carts.
I think the age of land wars for us is over bc of the cost and plus countless soldiers being injured. It’s called beware of the military industrial complex where bc we have this great army and Tech , they tend to want us it to test it and give reasons for funding it which I agree we need to fund it but not use it on wasteful land wars when tactical airstrikes could be more efficient. When 911 happened, I thought we should have air struck whoever did it like when we hit bin laden vs going full blown into Iraq. Saddam wasn’t really behind the 911 attack. It was bin laden in a cave in afgananstan. We over reacted partly for show. Sadam actually keep Iran under control and now Iran is freer to torment us and region bc of no threat from Iraq.
Hats off to you for being in Vietnam. My uncle went and made it home.
Kudos and respect for all that went there. The movies gave me respect for the hell you and others went thru there. Heartbreak Ridge and Apocalypse Now.
Never happen. Battles and wars are won on the ground. The Vietnamese were bombed mercilessly, so were the Taliban. They adjusted to tunnels. The Japanese on the Pacific Islands withstood areal and naval bombardment to put up stiff resistance. You have to go in and dig them out.
That’s true where you have defined lines like WWII but Vietnam and afganistan had no defined lines of battle which we’re not good at fighting. One day a search and destroy mission would go out and find them then we’d leave and they would return again. Hamburger hill was taken by US troops a bunch of times then they returned. This was the folly of our admin in Vietnam. We should have marched thru each section taking land and staying there waiting for them bc Vietnam isn’t a huge country. We should have gone deeper into north Vietnam but politics and fear of the Chinese going to war made us timid and forced us to play into their hands of search and destroy then leave. One day your fighting them and the village has people on the other side that are friends in the day then enemies at night. We could have won Vietnam but politics stopped us. The islands we fought in WWII were smaller so we took ground inch at a time which is what we’re good at.
Was Afganistan like Vietnam with search and destroy and you didn’t know who the enemy really was? My guess is it was sorta like Vietnam but on dessert lands.
My '11 deployment was training ANA officers in Kabul with other NATO teams.
Most of these officers got less training then a NATO private. we spent 20 years training them to fight like a NATO force which they are not culturally able to do.
Even when we were inside the base training them my unit was required to be in full battle rattle, we treated the ANA like an enemy even as we were training them to fight alongside us. I am not surprised the ANA collapsed just how quickly and how few holdouts there were.
Hell my unit got shadow fired from our mission because our command staff couldn’t even work with NATO because they were too 'MERICA!
i never did combat patrols in AFG, but from 2nd hand experience my answer would be depends on the time. the Taliban wanted to control territory so they had actual offensives trying to take control of areas, the big issue was lack of uniforms, so the Rando you shook hands with on a meet and greet in the village might have been a Taliban fighter, or not.
Iraq for me and most people i knew was, drive around till you get blown up, rinse and repeat.
The other reason the Iraq and Afghanistan wars lasted so long was that there was no draft so they had the reg army and national guard which signed up before or during by their choice so there was less national crying about why or what we’re doing for 19 etc yrs in afganistan and Iraq for less. If we had a draft , it would have been more politicized like Vietnam. The senators don’t want to send their sons like the CCR song. If we had a draft then we’d have to pick the most efficient way to enter wars or conduct them bc then all have skin in the game. Our senators don’t mind sending others to die but ask them to send their sons then the game changes. It is why George bush called up the national guard to go fight in Iraq vs a draft. I remember being worried about a draft during Iraq bc the build up seemed like Iraq was formidable. It’s a good strategy to keep politics out of the wars but it’s not their sons. I’d go fight in WWII bc we knew there was a good reason and there are reasons to fight these regional wars but they need to be more efficient about it. Anyway , George Bush was brilliant at not calling a draft to out flank making the war political with protests which is why it lasted so long in irag and afganistan. I do respect all who fought and died in these recent wars. They should pay you more and take care of disabled vets.
A draft would be good and I’m for it as long as everyone signs up regardless of wealth, standing or if your in college then do the lottery and then we’d have quality wars that we deem necessary or at least we all share the burden and debate it. During Vietnam my uncle was drafted bc he wasn’t in college and my other hippie uncle didn’t go bc he was in college but if you failed out of college , you were sent to Vietnam to possibly die bc you weren’t smart enough so college campuses exploded with protests , otherwise the 60s would have tamer. So I’m for a draft if all go even senators sons bc it would strengthen our pride in the US and really help a lot of guys mature and be better men even when no wars are happening. Elvis could have opted out be he went and signed up and got his hair cut after bc he wanted to show he was one of us.
Because a draft actually makes it easier….to escalate an unpopular war by providing a continuous, large supply of fresh bodies.
A draft is the reason we had over 500K troops in Vietnam at peak strength, but barely ever more than 100K troops in Afghanistan.
If we had a draft, you might very well have seen a force in Afghanistan as large as that in Vietnam. Fortunately, no draft, and as such, a smaller war with far fewer casualties.
58K KIAs in Vietnam versus only a few thousand in Afghanistan.
The lesson from Korea and Vietnam isn’t that a draft either shortens or prevents war. The lesson is that it will simply make a contentious war bigger and easier to execute.
It will make the war opposition more militant, but it won’t prevent, shorten, or minimize war.
Not having a draft, beneficially, limits war and keeps it smaller. So screw a draft. As long as China doesn’t have one, I see no reason why we should.
Afghanistan vet here, so keep in mind I say this as someone who went there. My job was Civil Affairs, a job which allowed me to repair roads, build relationships with the local community, and give school supplies to little kids. I loved my job, and I was pretty good at it. We got in some scuffles, and I had some friends get hurt. I made it through with nothing worse than a severe case of diarrhea a couple times.
Afghanistan gave up. Their government quit, their military gave away Kabul in a matter of hours. The US bears no fault in this.
We spent 20 YEARS handing them everything they needed for success; We equipped them, paid them, trained them. On paper, the Afghan military had the edge on the Taliban in every category that mattered.
But they’re cowards. The people there are cowards. Brave enough to die trying to run away, clinging to a C17. If only that intestinal fortitude could have been applied to holding the line. Now, the country will begin it’s slide back in time socially and economically.
Many of the people complaining protested the war. Many are from countries who weren’t contributing. Most of whoever reads this never went. Frankly, your opinions are barely valid outside of a strictly academic standpoint.
Afghanistan was given a nation on a platter, and the people couldn’t be bothered. They earned their downfall, and people who won’t stand up for themselves when they have the ability deserve their fate.
