It seems de rigueur for the writers of Vietnam Era literature to pepper their stories with technical jargon and acronyms. Chapter headings here read like military communiques. Having just read a Hamfist novel the contrast is striking. Whereas one is essentially an action adventure piece this book spices things up with the occasional bit of flight ops just to keep it interesting but is primarily concerned with ground-based operations, the men who make it happen, and the politics of war. The airforce jockeys want to believe they are fighting a winnable war, that their sacrifices and the deaths of their comrades count for something. The brass know that they are maintaining a holding pattern and that civilian political interference is making it impossible to pursue a winning strategy. They lack the cart blanche given a General Schwartzkoff years later to execute a ‘shock and awe campaign’. In other words the assertion is that America lost the war in Vietnam. There is no better summation of this than the following quote:
"Sir, respectfully, I must point out that as a target officer you are unschooled in basic Douhet principles; principles which clearly stipulate that piecemeal application of airpower is imprudent. Coupling that lack with the use of airpower which lacks mass, surprise, and consistency and you have a situation that wastes lives and money. This, in turn, fosters further contempt for this non-war in the opinion of the American people, and those of the rest of the world, while accomplishing exactly nothing."
Whether or not a Pentagon Official ever said this to his Commander-in-Chief the words pretty much sum up the “War in Vietnam”. After 37 years working for a Canadian Bureaucracy I have a saying of my own, “Why should reality interfere with policy.” It was similar control of the Grand Banks Fishery by politicians at 1500 miles remove that led to its collapse and a Newfoundland moratorium on fisheries.
Whether or not I believe America should have ever entered into a conflict in Indo-China by tying the hands of those in the field who knew better the politicians in Washington guaranteed that the effort would fail and thousands of lives were lost and forever maimed and damaged. Even more discouraging is the fact that we’re doing it all over again in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
As the book ends four returning vets are met by protesters shouting “Murders” who throw red dye at them. It is at this point that I learn there are four more books in the series. Don’t believe I’m ready for 1800 more pages of Vietnam though I believe the writer may have felt the need ot get it out of his system. The electronic copy of this book needs considerable editing to remove typos, missed words, and spelling errors.
"Sir, respectfully, I must point out that as a target officer you are unschooled in basic Douhet principles; principles which clearly stipulate that piecemeal application of airpower is imprudent. Coupling that lack with the use of airpower which lacks mass, surprise, and consistency and you have a situation that wastes lives and money. This, in turn, fosters further contempt for this non-war in the opinion of the American people, and those of the rest of the world, while accomplishing exactly nothing."
Whether or not a Pentagon Official ever said this to his Commander-in-Chief the words pretty much sum up the “War in Vietnam”. After 37 years working for a Canadian Bureaucracy I have a saying of my own, “Why should reality interfere with policy.” It was similar control of the Grand Banks Fishery by politicians at 1500 miles remove that led to its collapse and a Newfoundland moratorium on fisheries.
Whether or not I believe America should have ever entered into a conflict in Indo-China by tying the hands of those in the field who knew better the politicians in Washington guaranteed that the effort would fail and thousands of lives were lost and forever maimed and damaged. Even more discouraging is the fact that we’re doing it all over again in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
As the book ends four returning vets are met by protesters shouting “Murders” who throw red dye at them. It is at this point that I learn there are four more books in the series. Don’t believe I’m ready for 1800 more pages of Vietnam though I believe the writer may have felt the need ot get it out of his system. The electronic copy of this book needs considerable editing to remove typos, missed words, and spelling errors.
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