Son Tay raid: stop or go? Vietnam

[JMA]

To you it is clear, others without your vast knowledge, experience and inside information do not know enough to make that call...

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

I say again Ken, explain the scenario to a random 15 year old and see what an epic fail the CJCS's action was. How he wasn't summarily dismissed (forced into retirement) remains totally amazing.

You may, however, make as many standing broad jumps at possibly wrong conclusions as you wish.

Ken, you can attempt to mock me as much as you like to entertain your like minded around here. (by now you should have realised that those tactics do not work on me)

I suspect that he did it like countless others around the world before and since -- by making more, mostly intelligent decisions involving far more persons while under stress than you or I ever had to do. Note also that we do not know that the decision was not intelligent, we only have your assumption based on limited information that it was unitelligent.

... but at the critical moment he failed. So (being thankful he killed no one in this case) you thank him for his service, give him a service medal and pack him off post haste into retirement.

Note also that you're basing your possibly fallacious assumption on one incident of which you are but partially aware and informed as opposed to possessing (or citing) more detailed knowledge of his over 40 years of service in which, among other things, he was both CinCPac and CinCLant, two major commands and something no one had ever done before (or since...).The 'how' is discussed above. You do not know that it was a simple decision, it merely suits your purposes to so assume.

... forget the history all it took was the man to fail at a critical moment... one mistake is all it takes. He failed. Probably a good case study for the Peter Principle.

Been my observation that 15 year olds make a lot of hasty --and bad -- decisions. Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs are like ordinary mortals, some are yes men, some are not.

I don't have anything to do with 15 year olds

The question is how they managed to claw their way up the promotion ladder. Officers of that rank (one would like to think) would be a cut above us mere mortals, yes?

All have far more military experience than you, most good, in more areas of the world and more varied circumstances.

So did Hannibal's elephants, but did that make them any more than mere elephants?

The simple difference Ken, is that I did not serve long enough to reach my own level of incompetence... obviously many of the guys you mention did.

Most also have more sense than to leap to judgement based on limited knowledge and most are concerned with far more than minor tactical problems.

Maybe most do. But then obviously some are so intellectually challenged that they allow an attack to go ahead on an empty camp 23 miles from Hanoi. The mind boggles.

Don't worry the Brit have there problems as well. Remember Arnhem?

On D-1 an Ultra decryption revealed the movement of 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions to Nijmegen and Arnhem. Also airphoto-reconnaissance and intel from the Dutch underground confirmed the panzer presence. Eisenhower was concerned, Montgomery laughed it off and Eisenhower did not have the balls to overrule Montgomery. (seems to be a problem at the top levels of the US military, yes?) The rest is history. Only 8,000 casualties, what the hell, hey Ken? (can't criticise the generals can we?).

They can be legitimately accused of being excessively cautious but it must be recalled that they are dual hatted as both the military adviser to the President (not Commanders, they command nothing) AND as guardians of the institutions that are the entire US Armed Forces with worldwide and not just current Theater (or current political administration) concerns. Those are somewhat conflicting roles and the balance is always uneasy.That too is an assumption and not necessarily correct.

Excuses, excuses Ken. This man blew it. He should have been fired if not worse.

However, you raise a good point. The Cabanatuan raid was ordered by the local commander using in-theater troops. There were some unheralded but deep and successful raids in Korea that met those same parameters. Son Tay, OTH was the harbinger of excessive control from Washington and of the use of out of theater forces. That raised those efforts from a military operation to a political action (please note and consider that FACT). As was / is the OBL effort. The OBL thing was a mixed bag, theater wise but was emphatically a Washington orchestration. I suspect little good will come from that trend...

Ken, with respect, you are now trying to pass the buck to Washington while there is growing evidence that after all is said and done maybe the US military does in fact need political micromanagement.

But the US did once have a man of honour. Remember Operation Eagle Claw? As a result of that cock-up Beckwith resigned.