No Country for Old Hippies (Dan Carlin)

[Smitty-48]

Just for those following along at home; there were four Corps in Vietnam.

I Corps on the DMZ

II Corps Central Highlands.

III Corps Saigon and the Iron Triangle.

IV Corps Mekong Delta.

[DBTrek]

I'm satisfied that I did my part in the Cold War, even tho we were not fighting a shooting war.

I believe that we were a necessary component of staving off the Third World War by blocking the route to the Rhine through the Fulda Gap.

I thought it was pretty fuckin' cool actually.

Didn’t you do the whole Bosnia thing? Radovan Karadžić, Ratko Mladić, Slobodan Milošević, Rustem Mustafa ... there was some shooting going on.

By the way Bjorn, if you’re reading this, bang up job by the Danes at Dvor.
W.T.F.?

[Smitty-48]

I'm satisfied that I did my part in the Cold War, even tho we were not fighting a shooting war.

I believe that we were a necessary component of staving off the Third World War by blocking the route to the Rhine through the Fulda Gap.

I thought it was pretty fuckin' cool actually.

Didn’t you do the whole Bosnia thing? Radovan Karadžić, Ratko Mladić, Slobodan Milošević, Rustem Mustafa ... there was some shooting going on.

That was like our Vietnam. In NATO we actually kept the peace by preventing WWIII

With the UN we were like spectators filing reports about a war in progress.

But not actually doing anything about it.

[Smitty-48]

This is why it's frustrating that Canadians are so hopelessly in love with their Peacekeeping Myth.

It's a street without joy, made up nonsense from the Best & Brightest academics.

But actually causes more problems than it solves and gets more civilians killed not less.

[Smitty-48]

This is why I'm Smitty LeMay.

All attempts to make war less terrible are folly.

It simply prolongs the war making it exponentially more terrible in the end.

[Smitty-48]

It's like the whole stay in Afghanistan forever so girls can go to school paradigm.

That's the Canadian Peacekeeping Disease infecting America.

All you really needed was DEVGRU lying in wait for when the CIA found Bin Laden.

Other than that American forces should have stayed inside the wire.

[Smitty-48]

In fairness to the mission in Syria, that is what CENTCOM has shifted to doing now.

Small footprint on the ground, stay inside the perimeter, let the airpower do the work.

[Smitty-48]

In the case of both Vietnam and Islamonam, if they had just stayed inside the perimeter and let the airpower do the work, the American casualties are minimized, which means the effort is sustainable, which means you can wait them out.

[Smitty-48]

To wit, Search & Destroy to save the rice farmers from themselves, turned Vietnam into an Infantry War.

If America had fought it entirely as an Air War against the NVA, could have just waited them out.

[DBTrek]

Just for those following along at home; there were four Corps in Vietnam.

I Corps on the DMZ

II Corps Central Highlands.

III Corps Saigon and the Iron Triangle.

IV Corps Mekong Delta.

He was 3/5 (Dark Horse) which I think is 1st. Corps, though I’m not sure. Marine division naming always messes me up.