Comments on: Shameful honor or honorable shame?

By: trangbang68

trangbang68 — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:30:40 +0000

Jeyi,
My indictment of the Americal is strictly anecdotal from sources I’ve read( Keith William Nolan for one, a very astute Viet Nam battle historian)
My impression of the Division is based on the fact that they were largely pieced together in country. Other units sent troops, many of whom were problem children. Among incidents I’ve read of were one or two refusals to engage the enemy under direct orders; horrible tactical blunders (one unit set up in a vacant VC base camp for the night without putting out lps- they suffered 14 kias,) In 1971 Fire Base Mary Ann was overrun by NVA sappers because guys were smoking weed on the bunker line. They suffered over 80 casualties with 23 killed.
Calley’s unit patrolled the Batangan peninsula and suffered lots of boobie trap casualties. Unable to find the enemy they slaughtered non-combatants; a total breakdown in military discipline.
I admit their A.O. was alot more dangerous than mine(25th Division northwest of Saigon),but all in all our units kept their discipline even though much of our area was full of VC sympathizers. I never saw any atrocities in the field among our guys.
I went through basic training at Fort Dix with a guy named Rodney Bayliss who became the XO in Calley’s unit. He was a good guy and I always felt sorry for him that he ended up in that mess.

By: jeyi

jeyi — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:06:26 +0000

Hey Trangbang, how would you ever know that the Americal Division was “not only only the worst unit in VN but maybe the worst in US military history”? That’s quite an indictment.

First off, in 1968-69 the Americal’s area of operations was exactly where the Ho Chi Minh trail (actually a braided system of trails) first re-entered VN from Laos and where the mountainous back country –exceedingly rich in booby traps and ambushes– began only twenty km (or less) west of the S. China Sea coast. Not a fun place for a 19 y/o conscript.

Before the My Lai massacre became publicly known, but some months after it had actually happened, I personally encountered an entire Americal infantry battalion which had been recalled to Division HQ at Chu Lai: specifically, I was told by some GI, because there had been allegations of a rape and murder of several VC/NVA nurses (probably not related to My Lai, but maybe so). Somebody in the Americal’s chain of command was sufficiently outraged to pull 600+ combat soldiers out of the field at the very height of the ground war subjected to a full-scale investigation of the incident. I don’t know what came of all that and never saw any further reference to the case.

Reconnecting recently with some Americal vets (not from the My Lai company) in the lead-up to a reunion planned next month in Fairbanks, Alaska, I was stunned by how many more than I would have imagined, were genuinely whacked out by PTSD.

Mike Sylwester’s comments (and personal background) are certainly not run of the mill blogging junk.

Too bad that neither Calley nor Ayers are here to tell us what they think of each other. Now that would interesting!

Ayers reminds me of a posturing, rat-faced little shmuck I knew when I returned to my hippie college on the GI bill. He always wore a red beret and a lapel pin with a picture of an AK-47. The only person I ever really wanted to strangle.

By: Bob Murphy

Bob Murphy — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:20:09 +0000

And I am glad of that, of course.

By: Bob Murphy

Bob Murphy — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:19:06 +0000

Funny thing about Ayers, Dohrn, Patty Hearst et al is that they spent so much time thinking themselves into an ideological frenzy that they were ineffective at “terrorism”.
Those of us that have been trained for and are good at breaking things and killing people are amazed at how ineffective these middle class wankers were at breaking things. It’s not that hard. Just requires a little discipline, focus, and real world, honed instincts. And it can be fun in the right cause with the right team mates.
They were pikers. All show and no go.

By: Vengeance

Vengeance — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 02:03:02 +0000

–But he wasn’t . He was a brave leader of men and one of the best of his generation. Like I said Ayers is garbage, a lame clown who hates the land that allowed him to be a child of privilege. His name is worthy of nothing more than shame and disgrace. Screw him, Bernadine Dorhn, Mark Rudd and the rest of the little comic strip Marxists of that era.

Hand salute to you and your brave platoon sargeant. How sad that big money allows a sub-human, narcissist, domestic terrorist to continue to tear down what we hold dear.

By: Vengeance

Vengeance — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:57:28 +0000

–Ayers. He quit the Weather Underground in 1980 and has led a law-abiding life for the following 28 years until now and probably will continue to do so for the rest of his life.

If there is a just God, it will be a short one.

By: mark_b

mark_b — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:35:38 +0000

Major Mike Sylwester:

I began voting for Ronald Reagan in 1976. I always voted for him, and I always voted for the Bushes. I also voted for Clinton both times. In this election I voted for Fred Thompson in the primaries and intend to vote for McCain in the general election.
________________________________________________

Please select only one candidate per election cycle.

48th 1976 Jimmy Carter (Democrat) Gerald Ford (Republican)
49th 1980 Ronald Reagan (Republican) Jimmy Carter (Democrat)
John B. Anderson (none)
50th 1984 Ronald Reagan (Republican) Walter Mondale (Democrat)
51st 1988 George H. W. Bush (Republican) Michael Dukakis (Democrat)
52nd 1992* Bill Clinton* (Democrat) George H. W. Bush (Republican)
Ross Perot (none)
53rd 1996* Bill Clinton* (Democrat) Bob Dole (Republican)
Ross Perot (Reform)
54th 2000*† George W. Bush* (Republican) Al Gore† (Democrat)
Ralph Nader (Green)
55th 2004 George W. Bush (Republican) John Kerry (Democrat)
56th 2008 yet to be determined John McCain (Republican) (presumptive nominee)
Barack Obama (Democrat) (presumptive nominee)

Vote early, vote often.

By: raymondshaw

raymondshaw — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:53:50 +0000

Mike said at 5:49 AM:

‘I began voting for Ronald Reagan in 1976. I always voted for him, and I always voted for the Bushes. I also voted for Clinton both times.’

Did you vote for Ross Perot & Ralph Nader too?

Sorry, but I’m not buying any of it. Frankly, you write like a non-native english speaker. My .02 Ruble worth.

By: buddy larsen

buddy larsen — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:40:21 +0000

gumshoe –that’s a conundrum –’strong’ in the entrepreneurial sense, ‘weak’ in allowing the penetration of malignant grandiosity.

By: buddy larsen

buddy larsen — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:35:05 +0000

Simple, doug –he’s a Democrat, he votes more than once. Somebody oughtta ’splain tho, that the object is to vote for one guy twice, not for both guys once –as, well, you cancel yourself out, and if they find out you might have to give back the bottle of Ripple.