Advisorn infantry during the eastern offensive in vietnam. He has a ba in history from texas and them. An ma and phd from the university of kansas. On the command school, the command and general staff college, the department of since 1992. Tory he has chaired the department for 11 years and during that time it has come to be known as the internet as the intellectual center of the army. He quotes that at the bottom of his email signature. Its required. Hes the author of 14 books, including the book great commanders. He authored books on the offensive, etc. Es been an editorial advisor on the Editorial Board of armchair history. He now holds the highest arm highest honor a historian can have. Which is also the longest title you could hold as a historian. Over the last 15 months we have won 80 awards. Staff. A fabulous our first partner arrived 15 years ago at this Library Thanks to jim wilbanks, the cgs c. They are the best year after year, great thoughtful lectures from fine faculty. Men and womenof who have given Great Service to the country. Jim wilbanks. Thank you for that introduction. Usually does come ill take it this way. Electivel, i teach an and have done so for 1520 years. I taught a similar course for five or six years, havent done it in a while. The most popular part most with a fews exceptions these are the cast of the usual suspects here. Into a coughing fits and rollout in the hallway they will drive out, dont worry. The guy next are will tell his story. We were asked to talk about the experience of vietnam from a soldiers standpoint. The slight says september 1950 with the First Advisory group, the first u. S. Soldiers on the ground were actually during world war ii in 1946. After the beginning of the first end of china where we found ourselves assisting the front. And it would become our part to assist the vietnamese government. The first Ground Troops for their. One 73rd 170 third, first army unit paid the first the firstivision was full division. It was followed by the first brigades on 101st. 180,000 u. S. Troops there. These numbers ramped up. On april of 1969, 5 hundred 43,483 u. S. Personnel. American and from the beginning to its end. Capturing the vietnam experience is problematic. These experiences run the gamut and i cannot even list all of the experiences. The Truck Drivers to cooks to clerks, to people who flew aircraft of various types, to women who served advent positions and one of the angels of mercy. I would be remiss to fight if i didntmiss remark that the we like our folks. [applause] in a very real way, when you ask a vietnam veteran what was it where was he or she . When were they there and what were they doing . 1972 my best friend, we were physically located on the same map sheet. We were close enough between here and the legend as him the legend as the most. Even though we occupied the same map. Experiencesider the of the gentleman you see. You ae can do is give feel of our individual experiences. Do is let them introduce themselves in turn. We will start with the brigadier general. A Rutgers University graduate. Graduated and was commissioned second of armor. After airborne school, went to washington, had to do a year on the ground in the cavalry squadron. In december of 1966. You have the sign in here. Youre putting together a new assault helicopter company. We deployed from fort bragg North Carolina in may of 1967 and went to a place that happened to be stationed at a different time from when i was there. It was 15 to 20 kilometers northwest, which is northeast of saigon. It was the headquarters of the ninth infantry division. Companieshelicopter and the combat support in a knife division headquarters. Saigon. In the south of you can lose an engine and always have a place to land. You dont always have been the anroblem as aviators assault Helicopters Company mission is to pick up troops from their home away from home, load them up and you can get it you fly them from point a to point b, which is wherever they want to go. I happen to be an armed helicopter pilot and we flew in light fire teams. It was our mission to escort. We do not show them where to go but if they took any kind of fire, we were to protect the lift or transport helicopters. Most of the time, when we put troops into a landing zone, you did not go in. There may be a preparatory fire or the gunships also would prep based on the intelligence picture we had. From may until august, not much happened. I can remember the first time i got into that was the 10th of august because that was when my son was born. For the remainder of this summer, we had routine action and it did not heat up until december of that year. Early december, we had a couple of largescale fights they were not North Vietnamese troops cong whoere the viet were willing to stand and fight. We did not pick up the nuance that they were fighting and they were larger numbers of people. That was the forerunner of the tet offensive. I could tell something was wrong. Something was a little different. When we took off, the jungle that we thought and villages we thought were peaceful, there were hundreds of viet cong flags. As we turned to go south to our mission the crew chief called , me, and said, saigon is ablaze. They had jet planes dropping bombs on the outskirts. We knew something was wrong. We had a tough mission that day but that that was the beginning of tet. After tet, things kind of calm down and then they spiked again in early may. I left on the 17th to come home. That is what i did for my first year. I went back for a second tour later on. I will turn it over to bud, our resident marine. He will tell you about his tour. Thank you. I am the only guy who went to vietnam as an enlisted fellow. I always wanted to be a marine. As a child. Why, i dont know, but i did. On graduation day, 24th of may, 1965, in scottsdale arizona, we had graduation ceremonies. I marched down and signed up. The most honest man i ever met was my recruiter. He said where going to cut off we are going to cut off your hair and send you to vietnam. He did. Twice. My experience was completely different from anything any of these gentlemen saw. I was a Security Guard at the american embassy. As we were building the new embassy that was attacked in january, the first day of the tet in 1968 and our mission was the protection of classified and sensitive information. The second the mission was protection of life, etc. I will tell you the first year there was like a hollywood script. You knew you were in a war zone. The danger was more real than was apparent, if that makes sense. You could hear the war going on. You could hear the air policeman and the mps in particular. My life the first year was comfortable. We could see the influx of the war, the effects with more refugees coming into the city. As a general proposition, and until the tet offensive, life was not bad. Long hours but life was not bad. At 2 50 in the morning on 31 january, 1968, things change. Everything turned upside down. That was when the first rockets and the explosion blowing the hole in the wall outside the embassy occurs in the fight takes place. A lot of people reported the embassy was taken. Washington initially thought the embassy was taken. The embassy was never taken. The compound was but the embassy never was. That second year, i wind up having an unusual assignment. I was put on the personal Security Unit for an ambassador. In that capacity, it was the ultimate fly on the wall. A Young American g. I. In a combat zone, doing what his government said, but in an unusual situation. The frequent occurrences were daily meetings, Vice President chu and the president. The people you read about. As a youngster, i knew i was in the presence of something great that was going on in the world, if that makes sense. I left on the 24th of january, 1969, having served my 24 months. I look back on it now with much pride. Would i do it again . Yes i would. I have no reservations about signing up and going. I thought it was the right thing to do then and i think it is the right thing to do now. The world has changed and things have moved on. So have they and so have we. Sir . For those of you i have not met, my name is Dave Drummond. For those of you i have met, my name is Dave Drummond also. I was commissioned out of the United States military academy in west point in 1968. Back then, you were a Second Lieutenant for 12 months and you were a First Lieutenant for 12 months. You became a captain 24 months into your service. I was captain at 24 years old and if you look around at 24yearold kids today, i consider them kids, a lot of responsibility back then. I flew into not training nha trang. It seemed like such a nice place, i asked if i could stay there. Ps. As in the signal cor we provided communications. They said there is a signal battalion here so i went over and they said youre going up and land at the golf course. I said, maybe that is not so bad. I was only 23 then. I did not know. I will tell you another thing. Of those 48 months 24 months it took to become a captain, most of that i spent in airborne school, ranger school, signal school. I only spent six months with a stateside unit. At any rate, i went up to the Central Highlands. You have to realize that communications back then are different than now. Today, we pull out our cell phone. Then, it was line of sight communications. The company i commanded was called the 167 signal company. We were authorized 302 enlisted and six officers. That is pretty big for a company. Typical infantry was about 110120 people. We covered about the size of the state of connecticut, in terms of where we were. My headquarters were in one place but we were in others. A whole bunch of places. As a matter of fact, you did not want to drive around too much. Fortunately, i had my own twocopter and i had 19yearold pilots i would not let drive a jeep but they flew me around. We got shut down once that is isshot down once but that another story. Communications were different then. Typically, what you did, because it was line of sight, in other words two antennas had to see each other. You had to put your antennas on high ground. I used to call them aiming sticks because that is what they were. You could see them im a from a distance. Although we were not all offensive in nature, we did get hit a lot in terms of defense and we had to try to protect ourselves. It was an interesting year. I will be honest. We only looked at the 50 meter targets. I was not concerned what is going on in saigon. I was not concerned what was going on in my battalion. My commander was 130 miles away by helicopter. He did not get up to see us too often. If you think, 24 years old, i did not have adult supervision. We were fortunate. We did have a couple of People Killed and several injured. That happens in those wars. I closed out my unit in october of 70, they said youre going to shut down and by november 20, we had everything brought in from that terrain and had everything turned in. It was difficult because our people had to go through the area and turn in our equipment in a different place. All our beds, that was done in another place. We had to do it in specific timelines. Very challenging. I was fortunate when i left to europe for four and a half years. I was at nato. Then, i came to Fort Leavenworth and resigned my commission to stay at the faculty at the college. I spent four years at the faculty. I thoroughly enjoyed it and then and am glad to be here with you tonight. With that, i will turn it over to ron. For all the staff of the library, this has been an incredible series. Thank you for enlightening the kansas city area on all these and thank you for allowing me to participate tonight. I am rich kiper. I graduated from west point in 1967. 26 years in active duty. I was commissioned infantry. After commissioning, i went to the army ranger corps. Subsequently, the Freefall Parachutist course and the special forces qualification course. And at the ageny of 23 and as a First Lieutenant, i was commanding an airborne Infantry Company. This happened to be at the time when russia invaded czechoslovakia. We had excitement there. I left there and went to vietnam, where i commanded an infantry rivalry company. I was able to then transfer into when russia invaded being a plans officer at the special forces group in nha trang. If youre coming back to the after coming back to the states, i had a number of different assignments. Among them was teaching military history at west point and that and at the army command and general staff college. I then went to fort bragg and became the deputy chief g3 of the First Special operations command. Then, i went to the pentagon, where i served as a special forces force Development Officer developing future doctrine and materiel for special operations. I retired and went to ku and got a phd. In early 2002, i went to afghanistan as an Army Contract historian with the Army Special Operations command. I should mention about the time i became the g3, i had transferred to special forces because, until then, special forces had not been a branch. It was just a specialty. I took off my cross rifles as infantry and did that for the rest of my career. I went to afghanistan as a historian. After coming back, i worked four years at the Army Counterinsurgency center at Fort Leavenworth. The center was created by petraeus and mattis. That would be the current secretary of defense. I worked there until the Center Closed and then i retired. During my time in vietnam, as an Infantry Company commander, i had become a captain and was 24. Having commanded an Airborne Company in germany, i had a sense of what command was like. Commanding in a combat environment is entirely different. We were operating in three core. Our company was a straight leg Infantry Company. When you see the news reels of guys slogging through jungle, we were in the jungle area, not the rice patties or the mountains, it was jungle. Thick jungle. You could not see to the back row of what was in front of you. Our mission was the typical infantry mission. Close and kill the enemy. That is what we were to do. During that time, i made 33 combat assaults in helicopters. I hated people like general cherry, when he put me in your when he put me in. I loved people like him when he pulled me out. I loved his compatriots who had the huey gunships that brought rocket fire whenever we got into contact and we had quite a few. By this time, the war had changed substantially since tet, cong had been and they weretet starting to infiltrate into south vietnam. There were still units around, no question but i knew the day we killed a guy that was wearing a belt buckle, that we were in a different kind of war. It was jungle fighting. It was stumbling into bunker areas and you could not see before you got there. It was going out on platoon sized patrols, which at that time, the drawdown had begun. We were talking maybe 21 or 22 troops in a platoon. Those of you who have been in the military, always love it when your Company Commander wants to come down and sit with you for a while and go on operations with you and be there to boost you up. I always loved that. I made sure my three platoon leaders always had that joy. I would go with each one of the leaders and i would change out with them so i could give them the benefit of my 24yearold wisdom. It was a difficult time for the army. At one time, my platoon, my Company First sergeant was an e 7. One was a staff sergeant, who a shake and bake, meaning he had graduated honors. He and i are still in close contact and we are friends to this day. When i went to special forces, it was a different environment. Everybody was leaving vietnam. Special forces left on the third of march, 1971. My job, well, just because a bunch of guys wearing green berets and carrying a flag got on an airplane and flew back to fort bragg, did not mean that the missions left. Left behind were what we called residual missions. My job as a plans officer, was to develop the organization documents for the units that were taking over the special operations missions. The Overall Organization was called the special Mission Advisory group, although very few have heard of it. Under it, it had a number of different organizations, some of which were partnering with the studies and Observation Group to conduct crossborder kind of missions that had to be accomplished. I had several trips to talk with them about how we were going to take the green beret side and their side and put it into this group. Then, i left vietnam ended the vietnam and did the other things i talked about. After i retired, i wrote a couple of books on the civil war. I went on special operations in afghanistan during the first seven months of the war and win and went on the Armor Company in korea. I will be willing to sit by for any questions you might have. My name is tom. I sat out most of the heavy fighting in the war at the university of kentucky, where he where i majored in bourbon and whiskey. I was commissioned the week after the kent state shootings. An interesting time. I went to fort benning and did all of the merit badge courses that have been mentioned here. I was commissioned as an armor officer. I had gotten a private pilots license and was set to go to Flight School and the army said, you have to do six months. I said, ok and they sent me to the sixth armored cavalry , which was and armored guard regiment north of fort meade in washington, d. C. I had myself and 47 men in the platoon i was in charge of. Of those, one private and myself were not vietnam veterans. The rest had returned from overseas. Several had been shot up badly. Those of you who are old enough to remember those days, it was not happy times for the army. It was not happy times for the civilian world either. The principle of the mission was to Chase College students off the main thoroughfares in washington, d. C. When they determined it was time to shut down the government. I did that twice and decided i had had enough. I said i will take longterm hell or shortterm vietnam. Washington, d. C. When they whatever you have got. They did not have anything in hell so i went to vietnam. I was in the 11th armored cavalry regiment. They took a look at my ranger tab and said, we got that. I went up to a place where i was a platoon leader in a rivalry wein an air squadron, where repelled out of airplanes and when an airplane was shot down, we went out and got it. That unit stood down as the 101st airborne, which i was part of. I got sent down where the rump of the First Cavalry Division was separate. We had a mission to secure the northeast approaches and i ended up commanding a rifle platoon. As you heard, i had myself and 19 enlisted guys. My platoon sergeant was a rock sergeant was a buck sergeant. It was interesting. The field strength of my company was rarely above 85, which was authorized 150 people. They were good soldiers here it soldiers. I carried all the things you have seen. I carried my rucksack like everybody else. By the time id spent my year over there, convinced me i had picked the right branch and that a third class ride beats a firstclass walk every time. I was very happy when it was over to go back to armor. I look back affectionately on my service. I was proud of the soldiers i served with and i had some of them were numbered among the 400,000 with mcnamara. By and large, they were fine soldiers. They did what they were supposed to do. Rich mentioned, if you could see from here to the back wall, you had a longrange field of fire. Those kids conducted themselves well. In general, you had to prompt them. The biggest challenge i had was keeping soldiers disciplined. We did not see a lot of people. If we saw vc, it was in twos and threes. Jim can tell you a lot more about that. I never got into that fight. You had to keep your soldiers disciplined. The big threat was boobytraps, tripwires. When youre dealing with triple canopy jungle, when the trees are 150 feet high, they want to walk on trails. The enemy knows that. So, you do not let them walk on trails. Simple stuff. You carry those with you and you make people do things the hard way the first time. I kept that lesson with me the rest of the time i was in the army. We almost destroyed the noncommissioned officer corps. By the time i came in, by multiple tours and casualties in vietnam and people said, it is time to get out. If you think about what has been going on for the last 16 years, that is something we have to watch today. That is out of todays headlines. The ncos are the mortar that holds the military together. The officers may command it but it is them who make it work. I discovered what good ones were in vietnam and i discovered over that is out of todays headlines. The next 25 years of that my job as an officer, was to create good ncos. Hopefully, that had something to do with turning things around and we need to be worried about that now. I will leave it up to jim and jim can talk about bigger fights then i got into. My experience was different from any of these guys. I was out with a south vietnamese unit by myself or with one other person. I graduated from texas a m in 1969. The 60s and that free love, it went around. I missed it all. I went to fort benning and then they sent me to germany. At that time, the u. S. Army in 1970 was broken. It was in a sad state. The army was paying the bills for vietnam. As an infantry officer, i got promoted to captain. I thought my duty was in vietnam so i volunteered. That is a decision i revisited several times in the coming year. I went to an advisor Training Course at fort bragg. It is a special warfare center. Then to fort bliss texas to learn vietnamese because only the u. S. Army was send you to el paso, texas to learn vietnamese. My skills were rudimentary at best so once i got to vietnam, there was a sergeant who said, you are late. The army being as it is having , trained to be an advisor with the south vietnamese, they sent me to be an advisor with the thai army. Spoke zero thai they were in the process of going home as part of this downsizing. I only spent a couple of months with them and then i went to join the 18th Armored Division and the first couple of months were pretty much like tom and rich talked about. In the same area. Running around jungle, trying to keep the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong Main force off the towns and cities. , 1972, friday, 31 march that changed. I found myself on the border, up against the cambodian border, with about 4500 south vietnamese and about 1520 other advisors and we found ourselves surrounded by 35,000 North Vietnamese. There ensued a threemonth battle, in which we prevailed in the end, with a lot of desperate fighting. During the course of that, i was wounded twice. I came home. Then, when onto a full military career. I retired at Fort Leavenworth, after serving in japan and. I have been on the faculty ever since aaron i was an advisor on ken burns series and before you asked me, i will tell you, i think the history is right and if i have a problem, it is that like those people who went and did their job as best they could and came home proud of their service, i do not think that story was told. I have told them that. I have known him for about eight years. With that, we would like to open the floor to questions. I would ask you to raise your hand and i would ask you to wait until they give you a microphone. You can address it to either the whole panel or an individual. In front. I have a question about our initial involvement. There was a treaty that the South East Asia Treaty Organization and i am wondering, did we have to honor i believe it dealt with defense protection in southeast asia, to prevent communist overtaking it. What involvement did the Treaty Organization have . South vietnam was not a signatory. It was an associated member. It was used loosely in the beginning, but it was primarily the United States, australia, thailand, new zealand, and i think the philippines. Thank you. I wont ask them if they got nursing care and how good or bad it was. I will leave that alone. Im curious if any of you have been back, if you have a desire to go back, or if you dont want anything more to do with it . I have been back six times. The last time was in may. I dont think any of the others have. I have not been back but i teach in the history department. We are on our sixth vietnamese officer. I worked very closely with five of them and they have been delightful people. I would love to go back. At some point in time, i think i will if she whom must be obeyed, will let me. Upwards of 70 of the population was born after the war so there is not a corporate memory of the war there. If it is socialism, it is not the socialism ho chi minh had in mind. It is very capitalistic in the south but also be north. But also in the north. I have been top to bottom, east to west. On one of his trips, jim sent some pictures back to the rest of us. We can debate winners and losers but it appears to me that the south vietnamese people finally won. I think that is a good thing. Neon Something Like las vegas. I have been back four times and they have been very gracious. I would love to go back but they will not let me go where i was when i was there. Apparently, a problem with the indigenous population. Im not sure i would want to go where i was. There are periodically problems with the Central Highlands with uprisings against the government. I have been there when the highlands were completely closed off. Other times you could. It depends on what is going on. It is political. On the far side. Can we get a microphone . Here in front. I believe the gentleman in the green shirt. Right here. No, here. Yes. I want to thank this gentleman. He touched on my question. He mentioned he was involved in domestic work, domestic disturbance work. That brings me to my question. Did any of you, because while the vietnam war was on, there were a lot of federal troop deployments in the cities did any of you were you involved or deployed in the reserves for domestic disturbances . This gentleman was. Were any of the rest . I was not deployed but i was in the cavalry and it was put on alert for rights. Four riots. Rules of engagement issued, live ammunition, first assignment in the army, 27 years old. The thought of having to shoot in america i did not know how to cope with that. I was a leader of about 42 people. We did not go. We marshaled at the air base and we were ready. You sit there and wait for someone to decide if you are going. On all the different rules of engagement on what you could do and could not do. I was in over my head and i knew it. I was glad we were not deployed. I had a twomonth stint with the 82nd. The operation was called garden plot which was the breakup the riot code name. We would go out and practice how to do that, forming the wedge, doing the steps, how to hold your weapon with the bayonet up or out. During those two months, other than training, that was all i had to do with it. Next question. I should preface my question by pointing out that my son who is dressed as a ninja tonight trickortreating, wanted me to dress up. I am dressed as your average jewish american. With the deep experience of the panel, i wanted to ask about what i perceive as the key missing perspective and also, uphe treasonous lee covered piece of episode two in the vietnam war by ken burns, which is the constitutional protection ,f whistleblowing patriots people like a black Operations Commander and the liaison to the cia who was portrayed in jfk, the film, as mr. X. People should know that film was financed by highlevel israel he is Israeli Nuclear intelligence agents. You should figure out what is missing. Your perspective, the problem of treason as operational cues ups, as black operations domestically and the obvious clue that happened in 1963 when kennedy was privately turning trying to deescalate involvement in vietnam and submitted nsm 263 to deescalate by 1965 and was assassinated. Immediately, policy reversed. That coup has never been rooted out. It continues today. I would be interested in your perspective of how back then, did you know this kind of highlevel treason was going on . What is your awareness of september 11 treason . I would like to answer that. First of all, this is a panel about the experiences of the individuals you see sitting here who served in vietnam. I was 23 years old. I was not interested in what was going on at a strategic level. I was trying to stay alive for the next 24 hours. That was my emphasis then. Some of the charges you make are questionable at best and perhaps are better suited for another forum. Next question. Yes, sir. The difference between you had a special circumstance did you ever partner with the vietnamese, whether it was the regional forces, most of you served during the draw down and the signal Corps Officer talked about turning over the equipment. Was there any system to turn that over . We did not turn them over to the vietnamese forces. They may have eventually gotten there. I will tell you, my role as a Company Commander, and although we supported the Fourth Infantry Division and the airborne brigade, we did get involved with the local population. I learned not to ask what i was eating. That is another story. I will be honest, i thoroughly enjoyed my relationship with the local populace. As part of the program, there were a number of programs like that. The idea was they would pair up with u. S. Units and go on operations. It worked unevenly at best, depending on the personalities involved, both on the u. S. Side and on the vietnamese side. The navy had an interesting way. As the war was strong, they would take the biggest ships they had. They were cutters to me. They would take a crew and half of it would be south Vietnamese Navy and have u. S. Navy and they would go out and at some point, the u. S. Navy captain would say, i think you have it. They would sign for the ship and run the crew up to full drink full strength and go about their business. Closelyit partnered with a special security detail of the saigon police, their Public Safety division. They were very professional, very dedicated and coming to service with the ambassador and his staff. At times, when things were crazy in saigon. That was my experience. We were close to them. I learned a couple of years ago that all of them did get out of the country which is probably a good thing. Thank you for coming. That in vietnam, the marines had a little different approach from the army . The marines at being told a certain area or piece of ground where is of the army would go in . Nd try to clear and move on am i making sense . There was a program just south of the dmz. That never was big enough to make an impact and the other problem was the closeness to the north the enemies. North vietnamese. It is pretty difficult to be out there helping guys in the field prangedre getting about the head. Most of the argument with vietnam is it is not is a binary situation. Problem the crux of the for the length of the rest of the war. Deals with thect level of manpower. I think there was a slide up earlier. , as long ashe war the combined action platoon thing was in effect, manpower is always going to be a problem. Getting the right kind of person, not just any marine going to that unit. You had to have the right mindset, hopefully language skills, right attitude before they will put you into that environment. Manpower is an issue. Despite the large number of troops. Good evening. Im not going to make a speech. My question. Sk i have done a lot of reading on the war. , ive notus to know read anything about understanding the quality of the military campaign on behalf of the North Vietnam ease vietnamese. The quality of the officers and also the quality of the individual soldier in that campaign. . An you comment about that we get a lot of view from our side but what is your view of their side . I think the North Vietnamese was extremely well trained and well motivated, among the best light infantry in the world at day,ime and still, to the in the region. I thought some of their tactics were ignorant and wasted soldiers because there was a continual press, in many cases, past the point of success that resulted in high body counts is. The tet offensive was a disaster. Somewhere between 40,00050,000 other were lost by the side. Even though there were people in the ranks, saying this is not a good idea. Were going to get hammered. You are being reactionary. Get on board. This is going to happen. They pressed the attack during the offensive in many places beyond the point of diminishing returns. I thought, in that sense, they are considered a military genius and perhaps if you are in one of the units, you might have a different view. Orps at that time, there was a lot of egg unit war. A lot of the unit war. I came across one story where my company was in a fight and this acount said we were fighting vc company. I had no idea how big their company was at the time but when you get in these bites like that these fights like that, the quality of the North Vietnamese soldier was hoping he was not very good. There is a lot of incoming fire. Changed from what happened in tet. As we would get into close combat fire, generally speaking, ofre would be a short period massive fire on both sides and at that time, i would be deploying the company to get three platoons online to get as much as going out as i possibly could. Sometimes, the enemy force would stay there and pop off rounds. Sometimes, they would withdraw because they had done their ink. Their thing. They would fight another day. That was more the kind of fight we thought. Indicates quality of troop or a drastic change in tactics, i do not know. I do know anytime summit he with an ak47 or a launcher was , i figureduff at me he had some idea of what he was doing because the rounds were coming close to me. That is all i can say. Part of the problem is it depends where your talking about. If youre talking about lowlevel, that is someone who farms during the day and grabs a rifle at night. If youre talking about the surgeon the sergeant who has been training for months, that is a different person. They had abandoned the insurgency because they had lost their best troops. , they are attacked with 80,000 troops. That looked more like world war one then guys in black pajamas. The war changes over time. It changes about three times. We had interesting tactical engagements that they were all small level. I had a company walk into an ambush. I was on the periphery. Had one man killed and 11 wounded in the first 30 seconds. Is dont get your soldiers in a position where they are shooting at them and even after several years of combat, i may still hold the worlds record for taxpayer dollars spent on artillery shells because if i thought i was going to get into it, the biggest weapon we had was artillery. Never in danger your soldiers if there is a chance you can shoot artillery and get them out of that. The downside is we trained the vietnamese to do that. 1975, we had trained them to fight like we did and then, we left them hanging, no supplies. If there is some dishonor in that situation, you might not be able to see it, but i can. We trained them to fight the wrong war and then we left them alone to do it. To follow up on the observation, this may be in the realm of speculation, i would had a large still ground offensive there in 1972, i wonder if they would still want the same large assault. Perhaps the aggressiveness has something to do with how many of us were still there. The me lei incident, how did your training and tactics change . My tactics did not change at all. I think bill kelly was an aberration and the unit he was assigned to was undisciplined. If you read the story, the soldiers had bad experiences leading up to that. Are working around civilians and your commanding soldiers, the people are on a pretty short lease. That is about supervision. Imprint treehe when kelly was being tried. We knew what was going on. There was never any training that i can recall. The only time i heard the name was we had just made an aerial assault and we were consolidating the area and the sloan helicopter comes in and it is our commander and he is bringing a pow with him. I go up to meet the commander. He said, this guy knows where and iswo rice caches going to lead you to them. He looked me in the eye and said, remember me lei. I had eyes on that guy and eyes on my troops the whole time youre in the whole time. We found one of the caches and the other one had already been found. That is the only mention i ever heard when i was in vietnam. In the Aviation Company i was a cw2 who we built the platoon around. He had been a crew chief. Fly a helicopter as well as some of the instructor pilots. He was about 30 years old. Most of the pilots out of the betweenne 91st were 1921. , that you heard tom say he would not let them alone in a jeep, but they could fly that helicopter during a lot of bravado. In your the mainstay platoon, the reaction is to want to shoot anything that moves. You have to get the young ends iher and i have been had been the platoon leader for less than a week. I sat him down and explained to him this was between missions we hear a lot of from links about this. We do not do that. We are the American Army and we do not operate that way. To have a threat there. If you do that, youre committing a felony. It is constantly having to tell folks that the other side plays dirty but we are the American Army. We do not do that. Takes thee and it leadership if you look at the leadership going on there, there is a question whether or not that fellow should have been running a platoon. It is like when you play football the blood gets up and you want to knock that guy that is bigger and you almost lose control. That is good if you can control aggression but when you are 19 and you have a whole bunch of 19yearolds, that is dicey. It takes constantly reminding people this is the American Army and we do not do things like that. There is nothing more dangerous than a 19yearold american with an m16. What keeps that under wraps is leadership. We do not do that. If you do that, it will not be tolerated and you will be punished. We have time for one more question. Naval aviator. R stand up,tant to since i am surrounded by the army and marines. As you should be. We walk on the water. I dont know about these guys. I spent the better part of three years flying recon and probably lose support for some of the missions youre talking about. Here is my question. It is interesting your backgrounds and your teaching experience. This question is directed at either the whole panel or whoever wants to answer. What is your one take weight from your experience your one takeaway from your experience . Think i found out when i went to the 50th reunion of the 191st. The bond of the people you are in combat with you cannot buy it and that is something you cannot take away from. I went and an Infantry Battalion and i went there and it does not make any difference whether your aviators or special forces or whatever. It is tightness you get with people you are been in combat with. Whether or not they were there when you were there. That is the one thing i will never forget. Have two points. One, the nobility of the mission and two, the magnificence of the American People. Some of the vietnam ease the enemies are at vietnamese. I mentioned this today when i was talking on the radio. One of the things that strikes me later is the traitorous was the commander of the was the commander of the 101st. He is issuing instructions. He turns to a New York Times reporter and says, tell me how this ends. Think about that. You have the guy who is commanding the division and turns to a newspaper reporter and says tell me how this ends. If your politician cannot tell you how this ends and your policymakers have not formulated a complete answer to that question, i submit you do not have any business putting soldiers in that mission. That is decades later, five decades later eric five decades later. They have all said exactly what i think. In different terms. Watcher years of counterinsurgency, in which i traveled to italy. I was constantly reading and writing and analyzing documents on counterinsurgency. Around the first a clearlywar defined obtainable role. Obtainable goal. It is pretty clearly is it obtainable . When you talk obtainable, you are talking about ends, ways and means. Ends is the objective. How do we go about doing this . What are the means we are willing to commit to reach this objective, time being one of them . How long are we as a nation willing to continue this endeavor . Swirling around that is culture. Mcnamara of all people wrote about how we can not try to make mirror images of another culture based on the way ours is. So when we find ourselves in these situations like iran and iraq, where you are fighting an ideology, what are the means, what are the ways that you can make the objective obtainable . I think that is where we have fallen short. And the way we fell short of that in vietnam was because we did not understand the enemy, that the North Vietnamese were not going to quit. There was no crossover point for kill ratio. There was no reduction of supplies coming down. There were hordes coming down until you have the situation jim faced. They were not going to quit, they would fight to the last man. We would not, but the people of the south vietnamese government wouldnt. You have to know what kind of war you are getting into. What you have to do to get out of it, and what the American People are willing to stand for. That is my big take away. That is the lens i have viewed my analysis about iran and iraq. On a more personal note, the takeaway for me, i took 30 years. We started getting back together, my unit and i. We have had 19 reunions over the last 19 years. Yeah, we sit around and drink beer and tell lies to each other, but it is very helpful to all of us. Thanks very much for your attention. We appreciate you coming out tonight. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] this weekend on American History tv, today at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on the civil war, generals we love to hate with author craig simons on confederate general joseph johnston. Johnstons critics argue his timidity with the enemy and his combativeness with the confederate government in richmond so undermined the war effort as to make in a contributing factor in confederate defeat. Johnston wasics, the real mcclellan of the west. [laughter] and man who lacked the moral will to commit troops to battle unless he could be absolutely certain of victory. Since those circumstances never obtained, he seldom if ever saw battle at all. Sunday at 4 00 on real america, the white house naval photographic units report on lyndon johnson. Two days after his return from new york, the president oldest daughter became the bride of captain charles roth of the United States marine corps. Historically it was the First White House wedding in 53 years. At 6 00 on american artifacts, the 200 year history of the Willard Hotel and washington, d. C. ,s guests included abraham lincoln, world war ii soldiers, and the first japanese delegation to the United States in 1860. Lincoln conducted quite a bit of business. He stayed for 10 days. The First White House levy was held at the hotel. When he introduced himself and his wife, it was quite a bit he said i want to introduce you to the long and short of the new presidency. All weekend only on cspan3. Presidency,n the Daniel Feller visits Andrew Jacksons bancorp of the 1830s, a struggle that challenged and crippled the powerful bank of the United States, the young countrys only financial institution. He teaches at the university of tennessee and, and directs the papers of Andrew Jackson project. The White House Historical project hosted this hourlong event. Everybody,to delighted to have you here. I am dr. Curtis sanborn, the director of the David Rubenstein National Center for white house history. I have this long title. I am concurrently the Association Senior Vice President for educational resources
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