In 1968 the Australian warship HMAS Hobart came under sustained attack from American 7th Airforce jets. The Hobart was a Charles F. Adams class guided missile destroyer built in the United States. The North Vietnamese navy had never possessed a vessel remotely the size of this destroyer - at that point the Chinese navy didn't have anything remotely like it.
The simple reality is that the American military has always been populated by more than it's share of cowboys who aren't competent soldiers but whose arrogance makes it impossible for the competent troops of other governments to operate with them. This has been the constant experience of Australian troops for decades - particularly in Vietnam.
Unfortunately this incompetence is only newsworthy in America when it involved Americans getting killed. The attack on the Hobart was so bone-head stupid the responsible pilot should have been court-martialed. But guess what happened in response to a moronic act resulting in the deaths of friendly Australian troops...
30
So many versions of friendly fire losses, large and small. A guy in our basic training company couldn't wait to get to VN; he was a not-real-intelligent son of a very dominating military father and had lots of emotional issues, the "prove to my dad" type. We shipped out and I next saw him when we got back to San Francisco at tour's end; a complete wreck who, in his zeal had shot and killed at least two guys in his platoon. A totally shattered person at 20 years old. I hope his father suffered.
16
I hope younger Americans understand that what we were fighting over was an economic system. I find this rarely if ever mentioned, I think right now Donald Trump wishes the Chinese were still communists.
14
"At 18:58 one of the worst friendly fire incidents of the Vietnam War occurred when a Marine Corps A-4 Skyhawk fighter-bomber, flown by LTC Richard Taber, the Commanding Officer of a Marine Air Group from Chu Lai Air Base, dropped two 500-pound Mark 81 Snakeye bombs into 2/503rd's perimeter. One of the bombs exploded, a tree burst above the center of the position, where the combined command groups, the wounded, and the medics were all located. It killed 42 men outright and wounded 45 more, including the overall on-scene commander, Captain Harold Kaufman. 1Lt. Bartholomew O'Leary, Company D Commander, was seriously wounded. (Company A's commander had been killed in the retreat up the slope). Chaplain (Major) Charles J. Watters, was killed in the blast while ministering to the wounded. For his gallantry in repeatedly exposing himself to enemy fire to retrieve the wounded on Hill 875, he was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor.[13]"
The horror of Hill 875 is well known and well documented. It was never a secret. There was chaos on the ground and in the air. This was a tragic, bloody, bombing that may have been prevented but then again so was most of the Vietnam War. It was all unnecessary. More than 58,000 thousand Americans died in Vietnam. For what? We never should have been there. But let's stop blaming our soldiers and airmen for every tragic death. The politicians at home deserve equal blame. So do some general officers and the White House of that era.
31
Such a tragic story.
And reading the comments, I'm brought to tears - the trauma of Vietnam remains close by for so many.
Such a pointless war. And yet we learnt nothing. I imagine we will be reading similar stories about Iraq in years to come.
15
Very thoughtful and well written article. Thank you!
9
End all us imperial wars. This is the norm, Innocents killed, not an anomaly.
10
The bravery and common sense of men like then Capt. Dick Goetze, to refuse to leave the area, and instead circle around to make sure B52s did not also bomb our troops, is the strength one loves to see in our soldiers.
And it is an honor to him and the Air Force, that he rose to two star general.
Without the Goetze's of the world, there would be many many more horrible tragedies like Dak To.
That the Tabers of the world so often get off with no punishment or a light slap on wrist, only adds to the tragedy. May God give us more Goetzs and Cooks and fewer Tabers.
31
The difference between a jet pilot and a platoon leader is the pilot can retreat at 600 miles an hour.
I was in Vietnam. It was dangerous.
Typical shoddy coverup investigation.
The air force learned nothing from the slaughter. Did nothing to improve or reduce risk.
They don't call it a cockpit for nothing.
Vietnam Vet
20
This is why war should condemned, universally renounced, and made a crime.
7
There is nothing friendly about any of it. Soldiers put in harms way to kill Vietnamese. To be killed themselves. Lifelong trauma for those that survive. A decimated country. Friendly fire, collateral damage. Why does the Times to this day so casually and comfortably use the dehumanizing language of the military. No wonder it has such has such a sordid history of falling in line.
12
Even with GPS there is no assurance bombs will not land on our own forces. On June 9, 2014 in Afghanistan a B-1B bomber dropped two 2,000 lb GPS-guided bombs on five US soldiers and one Afghan soldier.
B-1Bs were not designed for Close Air Support, but the Air Force wanted to eliminate A-10s. So they tasked B-1Bs and added an external Sniper pod imaging system.
However, when mounted on the B-1B the Sniper pod cannot visualize IR (infrared) strobes that are worn on the helmets of ground troops to locate and avoid bombing them - literally the people they're supposed to be supporting.
When the ground controller, as a safety check, inquired if the B-1B could see any friendly strobes the air crew reported, "Negative IR strobes." Neither the aircrew nor the ground personnel were aware that the B-1B Sniper pod did not have the capacity to detect and display IR strobes.
One of those killed completed AIT with my son, who was also in country at the time but attached to a different division. Since they both served outside the wire in similar roles it could have been my son.
You may have seen this story on 60 Minutes a couple years ago. I knew about in June 2014. Has the Air Force remedied the root cause of this problem or continued to ignore it?
https://www.militarytimes.com/2014/09/05/report-b-1b-bombs-killed-u-s-soldiers-after-location-mix-up/
26
This is a story of one bomb that killed Americans. Imagine what all the other bombs did to the Vietnamese.
19
In related news, American airstrikes gone "right" resulted in the deaths of millions of Vietnamese. Reparations for American war crimes are long overdue.
13
I have no use for this sort of myopic review of what was a huge war crime on the part of the US that killed a million Vietnamese and 2 million in Laos in Cambodia.
It is like the self serving distraction yap about the poor upset vets who signed on to kill them-thar tear-ists, but were shocked into reality by an IED during the Iraq quagmire, when in fact GW Bush belongs on trial for the whole of the miserable criminal mistake, if not in the Hague then in the court of public opinion that is this paper.
Every time you look past the forest to inspect a tree in one of our grand national mistakes, it just helps Americans practice the art of selective memory that is our national pastime with respect to how we kill people overseas.
17
FACT CHECK"
At 18:58 one of the worst friendly fire incidents of the Vietnam War occurred when a Marine Corps A-4 Skyhawk fighter-bomber, flown by LTC Richard Taber, the Commanding Officer of a Marine Air Group from Chu Lai Air Base, dropped two 500-pound Mark 81 Snakeye bombs into 2/503rd's perimeter. One of the bombs exploded, a tree burst above the center of the position, where the combined command groups, the wounded, and the medics were all located. It killed 42 men outright and wounded 45 more, including the overall on-scene commander, Captain Harold Kaufman. 1Lt. Bartholomew O'Leary, Company D Commander, was seriously wounded. (Company A's commander had been killed in the retreat up the slope). Chaplain (Major) Charles J. Watters, was killed in the blast while ministering to the wounded.
See: "Battle of Dak To"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dak_To
See: "Dak To: America's Sky Soldiers in South Vietnam's Central Highlands" by Edward Murphy (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Dak-Americas-Soldiers-Vietnams-Highlands/dp/0891419101
12
What a terrible tragedy all the way around. Sometimes such stories prompt us to draw political lessons, sometimes they just cause us to admire the courage and mourn the sacrifices.
11
"Friendly fire incidents" (surely one of the worst military terms ever) occur in every war, and they're always tragic, and they're likely covered up. WWII, the "good war," had many.
15
@Umberto Friendly Fire : Like Extrajudicial Executions of Unarmed Black Youth in USA?
4
2-3 million vietnamese- most of them civilians - suffered the same, and worse. The fact is the American command cared not a wit about innocent life in Vietnam. They cared only a bit more for American life. They sent young men into a meat grinder of a war that they had already admitted among themselves could never be won. They dropped napalm on their own troops and then disavowed any responsibility for the diseases that came after. Friendly fire, like in this case, was accepted as a necessary consequence of killing as many Vietnamese as possible.
47
@EME
FACT CHECK:
This is what Rummel says regarding Table 6.1A for the period 1960-1975
Total Civilian War Dead (Line 193)
Low 486,000
Midcase 663,000
High 840,000
These would include many civilians killed by the communist
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP6.HTM
“Finally I can calculate an overall war-dead total. I list related estimates and their consolidations for civilians (lines 188 to 193), military (lines 196 to 199), and combined (lines 202 to 206), and then check the latter by two sums. One is that of the separate civilian and military consolidations (line 207); the other is of the preliminary North Vietnam/Viet Cong, South Vietnam, United States, and other third party sub-totals (line 208). The three mid-values (lines 206 to 208) are relatively close, while one low is about a third lower than the others. Consistent with my approach, I take this low and the highest high to establish the final range. Its mid-value is the average of the three alternative mid-values (line 209). Subtracting foreign dead from this (line 210) gives a likely Vietnam War, war-dead total of 1,719,000 people (line 211). Since this is not the figure to which the preliminary North Vietnamese/Viet Cong and South Vietnamese war-dead figures summed, they must be adjusted such that they add up to this total. Proportionally adjusting them gives the final ranges and mid-values shown (lines 212 and 214)”
3
So many stories and so many more we will never know. I hope they all found and will find what they need to pass in peace.
7
No one responsible - How military. Insufficient evidence. All that courage. The truthfulness imbued at the academies. Oh that the underclasses would understand the importance of taking responsibility for their errors!
17
If I had lost a loved one to "friendly fire" in any way, I would not want to know that. I would far prefer to think my loved one died in combat and was killed by the enemy.
I'm sure there are military who are careless and callous. There are such people in ALL professions, fortunately pretty rarely. Most do try their best and surely anyone can see that was is not a neat, clean video game, but full of noise, total lack of visibility and utter chaos. That most of the time, such things actually go right, is a miracle.
Articles such as this serve no useful purpose. But they can cause lots and lots of pain for many, including Lt Col Taber. He's an old man in assisted living. Let him live in peace.
7
@India
india...look up 'sunk cost'. it doesn't matter to the dead guy who killed him- why should it matter to anyone else?
if you lost somebody in that war-crime venue, well..you need to ask yourself what the hell he was doing there to begin with. an illegitimate invasion of a foreign country is a crime- those who participated are criminals. if you are part of a bank-robbery crew, whether you're blown away by a bank-guard (nva) or, the get-away-driver (us) makes no difference- you're a crook (dead).
i write this as a draftee-crook: usmc, 1969, 1st Div, golf 2/7.
direct your anger towards our...best and brightest- who spend freely other kids' blood
7
@India We are obliged to learn from the past
6
@India totally agree: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Like mingus said, "Oh, lord, don't let them drop that atom bomb on me."
1
I had the responsibility of directing air and guns (onshore and Naval) during two and one-half years I served in I Corps with the 1st Marine Division. I'm not sure but I think I probably ran about forty missions of fixed air, sixty of rotary and seventy-five to ninety gun mission. Out of nearly two-hundred times I called in support for my Grunts I remember three "short rounds." One was an A-4 that had to drop danger close and I caused it to hit five Grunts who were pinned down in front of me about 50 meters. The others were guns and bothersome but no casualties. The point is that everything in Vietnam was done to avoid hitting ourselves but jets flying 160kts under and in rain storms, maps that had mistakes we were unaware of, and inability to talk to the guys needing help and having to go anyway all makes up what the folks call "the fog of war." I have lived with the consequences of those mistakes and of incinerating and vaporizing so many of my fellow human beings for almost fifty years now. You never forget. Never.
81
At least you are honest with yourself about it.
10
Does it really matter who dropped the bomb?
The harsh reality of war is that friendly fire accidents happen much more frequently than are generally believed.
In the first Gulf War there were 192 American deaths, fifty percent (145) were due to friendly fire and accidents. There is probably no reason to believe that the ratio of accidental deaths to combat deaths in that conflict was significantly different from that of any other conflict.
18
Dear Author John Ismay:
Can you post a Copy of the Air Force Report?
Thanks,
John
11
I wish the author of this article had left Lt. Col Tabor alone in his North Carolina retirement home. Condemning him for his official statement at the time serves no useful purpose. It brings life to this piece of reporting but at what cost?
19
@Wexwax1
The price of the truth in wartime is always paid in blood and lies.
24
It's instructive to see how people deal with the truth.
11
Two sad notes to add to the Vietnam War.
Ho Chi Minh helped the US fight the Japanese in WWII. Afterwards, he asked the US to help gain their freedom from being a French Colony. We chose the French who some years later abandoned Vietnam and left it to the US.
In 1968, Johnson was negotiating a peace treaty with the North Vietnamese. Nixon interfered through back channels saying they would get a better deal if Nixon got elected. The war then went on for 5 more years with 22,000 deaths of the total of 58,000 deaths. A terrible sin and much worse than Watergate.
134
@Independent
Thank you.
4
@Independent
Nixon's interference was treason. So many died, its heart breaking. A terrible sin indeed.
17
@Independent This is absolutely a truth. My undergrad BA is in SE Asian history. Thanks, Independent.
8
As a retired USAF fighter pilot, a couple of comments: CAS, close air support, at night is extremely difficult, when in doubt you don't drop ordnance, risky business at best for both the fighter pilot and the guys on the ground. Thank goodness the AC-47 refused to leave the area. An Arc Light strike by B-52's could have taken out everyone. I flew Wild Weasel support for Arc Light strikes and it was not the aircraft to use in a CAS mission. I have personally observed their bombs strike thousands of feet from their intended target. A dumb bomb dropped from 39,000 feet is not the way to do CAS.
71
And yet here we have the military and civilian thinkers wanting to be rid of the A-10 and other close support aircraft.
Have they forgotten the pains we went through to get the FAC positions and aircraft like the OV-1, OV-10 and a better slow/fast flier close air support?
We will always need them to minimize friendly fire casualties.
Some colonels and generals need to get in the mud with the troops to see the light.
Yes, I'm dreaming. Sigh.
49
Proves the worth of transparency. The cost of war is always higher than any one person can comprehend. Bring the data, however horrifying. It's another step towards stopping the agony: past, present, and future. May they all rest in peace, and may we all go forward in peace.
42
@Thankful
You make very good points, but this story and the report it refers to aren't "data" as the contemporary cult of technological futurism would call it. That terms has been used to justify just about anything.
4
pointless endless war that kills and maims and makes new generations of martyrs and enemies
support the troops -- end the pointless endless wars
keep the military as a jobs program and the military contractors as economic stimulus and assign them to projects that deliver goods and value, not death
57
@true patriot
I have always felt the same way.
Have them give training and discipline to poor inner city and poor rural communities.
9
Compared with the men in this story, we had an easier tour. We were shelled twice by our own artillery and endured instances where men went crazy and one instance when, as sergeant of the guard, I had to talk men down from a racial standoff in the middle of the night.
35
@Moxnix67:
I salute you Sergeant. Wish you guys had ran that war instead of the desk jockeys.
9
@Wilder
Because moxnix was under fire you wish he was running the war?
Do people ever think before they post?
Walt and Westmorland and all the other senior leaders were combat vets of WW 2 and Korea. Often both.
7
My guess is those A-4's flew out of Chu Lai and probably Marine Air Group 12 my old unit. Absolutely terrible but remember the same thing has happen with the new wiz bang smart bombs. Fog of war
24
Thank you for this…the reality of war. This was a horrible event for all involved - dead or alive. And I am sorry for them.
It also made me imagine the destruction wrought by years of US airstrikes on the North Vietnamese soldiers. We bombed hundreds of thousands of them into oblivion. They experienced the horrific scene described here every day.
31
I’m the x-wife of an infantryman who had his leg blown off in 1968 by “friendly fire”, as in this story. The results of war go on and on and on, and into the next generation. Physical and psychological “remains” never end. Every night at our dinner table the meal usually ended with tears…even 20+ years after the war was over. PTSD, as well as physical pain and suffering cannot be forgotten and is given as a “gift" to our child. I was not in Vietnam, but it’s been the signature event of my life.
161
@Sara whoa...heavy..so sorry
16
I was an Order of Battle advisor at MAC-V Team 75 from August 1967 to January 1969, which was assigned to the 7th ARVN Division in the Mekong Delta. Part of my job was to assist in drawing the target boxes for Arc Lights.
I remember an incident where a lone Huey, that was serving as a reference point for an Arc Light mission, suddenly disappeared and the Arc Light was aborted. This was as much as I was told.
Many years later, I had a securities broker-dealer case. My expert witness was a retired Smith Barney Branch Manager who had a prior career as an officer in the Air Force. In preparation for trial, I learned that he had flown as a navigator on a B-52 and that he flew Arc Light missions over Vietnam at the same time I was there. He explained that his job as a navigator was to follow the plane in front of his plane and that the lead navigator would plot the course the entire flight would take with reference to an electronic signal from a fixed point on the ground. In explaining how it all worked, he told me of a mission where the lead navigator had mistakenly plotted the source of the electronic signal as the beginning point of the bombing run, instead of plotting an angle and distance to it. When the first bombs were released, the electronic signal stopped and the mission was aborted.
My immediate thought was, so that’s happened to that Huey! The crew of the chopper never knew what hit them. I’ll bet the families don’t know either.
64
@John F. Head
I don't know if it was a miscue on the part of the B-52s, but in the weeks before the big battle in this story, I was flying a Huey, low level when the jungles erupted in explosions. I knew exactly what it was--3 B-52s. I just waited to be obliterated. As I watched the explosions and shock waves move forward of my flight path, I knew that this was not the day I would die.
41
@John F. Head
Aug 6, 1973, Neak Luong Cambodia. B-52s using the main street of the town we were "defending" as an offset aiming point obliterated most of the town when the offset switch turned out to be disabled. We do not know how many were killed and plowed under by the mile-long devastation. many hundreds of wounded turned up at hospitals miles away. See the NYT article from the next day.
7
On april 1969 I was with kilo 3/7 first Marines, deep in the jungle. A couple of phantoms came in for air support and dropped two five hundred lb bombs on top of us. Wiped out half of my company. I can find no record of this anywhere but the friends of mine who were there still remember. I still hear the screams of my wounded brothers in my nightmares.
Gee, I wonder why there is no record of the incident on file. Amazing ain't it.
102
@bruce kube Thanks for your service! 3/7 has a great tradition to this day. What company was it, if you don’t mind me asking? I served in 2/5, but when I was in Ramadi years ago, 3/7 was our adjacent unit and I had some friends there. I will try to do some digging and see if I can find anything about it. Very sorry to hear this tragic story.
12
The USMC does probably the best job of any of the services in keeping unit histories. The USMC archives at Quantico might be able to help you find info.
https://grc-usmcu.libguides.com/marine-corps-archives/main
7
@bruce kube, I’m so very sorry about what happened. Thank you for your service.
1
«The Secret History of a Vietnam War Airstrike Gone Terribly Wrong» What went terribly wrong in Vietnam was US intervention when it became obvious after battle of Điện Biên Phủ that the Vietnamese were going to succeed in overthrowing the French colonialist yoke. Not one US servicemans needed to die there, whether from «friendly» or «unfriendly» fire....
Henri
89
@mhenriday
Vietnam War Facts
- The war in Vietnam (right or wrong) was constitutional
- The North Vietnamese were actively trying to take over the South (a free and independent nation) and created the Viet Cong for their purposes. It was less a civil war (although obviously fought within one culturally homogenous group of people) than a hostile war between two states, with the North the aggressor. The Viet Cong was not a homegrown freedom movement but an instrument of the North for invasion.
- The North was a fervent communist society and was expansionist, it was not just adopting communism as a matter of convenience nor was it merely seeking final freedom from outside occupation. (Both countries achieved this with the withdrawal of the French after Dien Bien Phu.)
5
@Kurt VanderKoi
The US Constitution has no bearing or relevance to another country. How amazingly jingoistic and self-centered to think so. As regards the war itself, the US failed to honor the provisions of the 1954 Geneva conference to require an election. This was rejected by the US because it was clear the vote would have gone to Ho Chi Minh. The US never had an effective government in the South a problem it now sees in Afghanistan and Iraq. Millions dead backing up a morally bankrupt and incompetent American intervention. I am no fan of the man but I actually agree with Trump that we should stay out of such situations.
15
So, you’re attempting to defend just why the US was involved in this disastrous war?
5
Such a spectacular waste of human life.
20
I wasn’t in RVN but from what I’ve read from first person accounts, “friendly fire” and “fratricide” were more common than not.
13
From the ground, it might seem simple to drop a bomb on a nearby target close to the grunts fighting Charlie or the NVA but from the air, it's another matter altogether. There is ground cover, hillsides, cloud cover and many other kinds of aircraft flying over the area of operations, from areoscouts, support helicopters and assault gun ships, medevac helicopters, and a Command & Control helicopter flying a commander over the battlefield. These aircraft are flying at extremely different airspeeds, from 60 knots to supersonic speeds. The jet jockeys must come in at treetop level, drop their bombs, and pull G's at extremely high angles to barely escape the detonating bombs they have just dropped. Huge balls of red flames shoot hundreds of feet into the sky almost engulfing the fighter-bomber. White plumes of smoke erupt skyward then fall back to the earth, resembling white flowers of burning phosphorous. Under these very difficult conditions, something can go wrong quite easily. I was always amazed that the Marine jet pilots could pull off these bomb runs so well and get away with their lives and their aircraft in one piece. From a few hundred feet above the ground, my Huey pilots hovered over the battles, watched the air attacks, and then departed to our next sortie. To attempt to blame any pilot of wrongdoing in these circumstances is just plain ignorance of modern warfare tactics.
28
@David Cockrill
War is a terrible thing, with powerful weapons, tragic mistakes happen. Wielding such awesome power requires a commensurate level of vigilance. The hundreds of other sorties in this battle got it right. Unfortunately, this one Marine Aviator did not. He made an awful mistake and there is no excuse, only remorse.
20
@David Cockrill thank you for sharing. It may well be that all wars are an act of ignorance.
7
@David Cockrill : As a Vietnam Vet also, are You suggesting that all "friendly fire" incidents are blameless ?
I dont believe that for one minute
11
So-called smart munitions notwithstanding, one shudders to think how many of our friendly-fire casualties from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and perhaps elsewhere won't be revealed for what they actually were until a half-century from now.
Compliments to The Times for its unceasing determination not to allow the government to sweep even long-ago tragedies under the rug. All too often, redactions to protect "national security" are just a way to cover up embarrassment and avoid accountability.
This article serves as an important reminder that no statute of limitations should ever be imposed on uncovering the truth. Thank you, Mr. Ismay.
38
Mr. Ismay, thank you for researching this news story. One month after Cambodia, at 25th Infantry HQ Personnel office, Cu Chi, I saw an attorney over a minor Will & Trust issue. I asked the officer about the stories of misplaced air strikes on Vietnamese civilians, stories that were affecting the public mood at home. He replied saying “we have researched this ourselves”, and said that misplaced strikes were very, very rare. He also said that the Division killed more Vietnamese civilians “each month in road accidents than we have ever killed in a misplaced air or artillery strike” since the Division operated in-country.
Because feelings are raw even after so much time has passed, I would ask NYT to research & report on this issue.
16
@Jim, there are many accounts of loss of life from the Vietnamese perspective; millions of lives.
7
@Jim
some truth, but then look at what the Americal division did and the concept of body counts using civilians.....just one part of the truth
3
The pain expressed by each and everyone involved is all they can do to repair too much that has been broken. Front line confession to the media is not the right place for such pain. The military personnel trained to protect everyone involved do not seem exist. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines need enlightened and trained healers.
5
Great to read that Major Waters was awarded the Medal of Honor. Likely many more heroic soldiers that day, too.
Tragic series of events no easier to digest decades later.
13
Fog of War doesn't come close to capturing the many ways mistakes can result in friendly fire. My job was radio intercept of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese from Air Force EC-47s using direction finders. One of our planes once intercepted radio messages thought to be enemy which resulted in an artillery barrage on the location.
It wasn't enemy, according the the army colonel who punched our unit commander.
41
@ExitAisle
So much more common than has been reported
5
‘Oops, we just got the friendlies.’
The euphemism is a "short round." It's the kind of stuff that is unavoidable in battle but all too often happens.
Whenever you hear someone talking about "surgical airstrikes," know that the person talking doesn't have any experience on the ground using tactical airstrikes in support of combat units. Even though this story is about an event that happened 51 years ago, it ought to remind everyone that, while technology has changed the nature of warfare to some degree, the infantryman is central to the mission of taking and holding ground. The more recent battles in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria are further evidence that this hasn't changed. And with the increased lethality of weapons, the consequences of mistakes are even more devastating.
Of course, now that the armed forces are entirely made up of "volunteers," there's nothing for the 98% to be concerned about. It's after all, as Trump said, "they knew what they were signing up for."
51
I served in the 1st Ranger Battalion in the early '80's when many of the senior NCO's were 173rd vets. They were rightfully nervous about air support. During my time at the Ranger Bn, I was accidentally strafed by an USAF A-10, and luckily I was behind cover (a rockpile in Arizona). Another time, an A-7 nearly fired on us, and still another time our Air Force ALO had to call abort on an A-10 that mistook us for the target. I quickly made it a requirement that we dig foxholes if we were going to be working with close air support. The one USAF asset that was always on target was the AC-130, god bless them.
34
My father was a helicopter pilot for the 173rd at this time. He mentioned to our mother that he had flown in that event. Although he didn’t survive his tour in Vietnam, he did speak of the bravery of those young soldiers on the ground and in the air.
74
@Andrew Kidd
I flew with your dad and know your brother and his wife and son very well.
37
During the DMZ Operations Hastings and Prairie in 1966 our artillery unit (3/12 - USMC) was bombed at our position near the Rockpile and later rocketed at nearby Cam Lo. No casualties. I think those kind of incidents were more common than civilians 'back in the world' were informed about. North Vienamese did pretty well without "Air Power" and the Taliban seems to have had the same success.
48
@John B As a two time Afghan combat vet who’s job it was to direct close air support, I can honestly tell you that if it wasn’t for CAS, I’m certain our casualties there would be double. And I would have been one of them. Of course, technology has changed/reduced much of the risk of blue on blue. When PGMs can be guided to a 10 digit grid, really the only way this happens is by people not correctly passing and repeating the target location and location of friendlies. Having said that, a tip of the hat to you gents who didn’t have the luxury of complete air space domination. My job would’ve been much more difficult if I had to worry about Taliban helicopters popping up over the ridge!
22
As part of my job I would receive weekly copies of the division’s casualty report.
It would have name, rank, description of the wound and medical treatment.
One might say “fragmentation wound to shoulder, evavuated to Da Nang” or more serious injuries could indicate “evacuated to Japan.” Once in a while the description of the wound would say “blown apart.”
30
@John Taylor I've read that the term "Traumatic amputation" was used. The Brits in WWI called it "Knocked to spots."
11