Quote Originally Posted by Meh View Post
Hack's one of my original heroes. What I specifically want to use him for is as an example of an excellent killer... He never really engaged in hearts and minds while in the conventional role (nor later on, if I recall from About Face). Hack was a red herring. His notion of "out-G-ing the G" worked excellently from a tactical point of view, but operated in a political vacuum. Men like him were needed for certain missions, but "hearts and minds" had to be carried out by someone else. [I'm not in the know to comment on the veracity of his public persona]
He and I were in the same Bde on our respective first tours in VN. As an Acting Recce Platoon leader, I was OpCon to him, an Acting Bn Cdr, for a three day mission. He told what what he wanted, how to do it in great detail and threatened emasculation and worse for failure to perform. I saluted, said "Yes, Sir" -- and went off; did it my way because his would have entailed friendly casualties. Came back, he was ticked I had not done it his way but was smart enough to say nothing as the job had been done to better standard than he had requested or expected and in less time. I was and am not a fan.
No tactical improvements could make up for the loss of political and public will...I'll raise it towards the end of the discussion to throw people a fast ball.
Good plan, 'cause it's important. Poor generalship (or operational execution) not only engenders unnecessary casualties and costs, it has knock on political effect that can be even more significant.
That dictum we get taught in training about "a good plan now is better than a perfect plan too late" seems to apply here.
Emphatically.
We may be heading down that way in Afghanistan.
If you figure out where we headed on that one, will you let me know???
I'm not sure whether we'll discuss CORDS in depth rather than mentioning it in passing. Even with CORDS, the U.S. as a whole got the timing wrong - so, now the COIN effort was going better, but the conventional effort that would have negated the NVA was being wound down.
Not really. But no matter, your class of course but the point to me on CORDS is that doing the right thing at the wrong time doesn't count -- it is imperative that a major power's military force be prepared for operations in diverse locales and in various scenarios and just as important that the rest of government be prepared to do their part. It is also important IMO, to point out that while the required degree of capability is exceedingly difficult to maintain in a democracy during a period of peace, failure to do so has a cost.
Anywho, the main reason we're not discussing Vietnam very much is because of the focus of the class. I tried to include everything last time and the price was paid elsewhere.
Understood -- it's a quagmire...
And don't worry, we'll differentiate between Malaya and Vietnam. In fact, the focus of that class' discussion will be on guiding the students towards figuring out the differences.
Definitely worthwhile...