Bear Taylor 
Good Morning: Day TEN of our long look back to Operation Thunder… Fifty Years Ago…
10 MARCH 1966 (NYT) … ON THE HOMEFRONT… The sun was shining in New York and the NYT lead article was a Seymour Topping report on the Communist leaders meeting in Peking. The headline: “China War Risk Fading.” Chinese conclusions from the meeting: (1) The world situation is temporarily unfavorable for a military advance by Peking, (2) The United States does not intend to step up the war in Vietnam to the point at which Communist China might become directly involved, and (3) Public opinion in the United States will not force the Johnson Administration to withdraw American forces from Vietnam soon, and the war there will be prolonged… Page 4: A Jack Raymond “Negro Death Ratio in Vietnam” story that at the end of 1965 14.8% of the troops in Vietnam were Negro and the death rate for Negroes in the first five years of the war (1961-65) was 18.8%. The Pentagon suggested that the gap was not due to discrimination or increased exposure to combat, but due to the more valorous performance in combat by Negroes. The reenlistment rate for Negroes was 49.3% and Whites 18.5%. Senator Richard Russell had raised the issue that Negroes were being assigned in disproportionate numbers in the most dangerous areas in Vietnam. Total combat deaths in ground fighting in the five year period were: Army-1078; Marines-346; Navy-1; and Air Force- 0. The force level in-country at the beginning of 1965 was 25,000… In a page 5 story McNamara reported “progress” in the war stating that 8000 enemy were killed so far in 1966, with 1600 in the last week. Number of U.S. killed in the same period was not mentioned…Meanwhile, over at the U.N., U Thant (Burmese diplomat and the third secretary-general of the United Nations from 1961 to 1971), was “distressed” that the Vietnam war was escalating, bombing had been resumed, and casualties were increasing.
10 MARCH 1966…ROLLING THUNDER… All the action was in the South… and it was a day to remember. It was Bernie Fisher Day…“On the second day of the siege of the Special Forces Camp in the A Shau Valley the situation became ever more desperate with the few remaining defenders being driven into a single bunker. Following a slight improvement in the weather as the cloud base lifted to 800-feet, Skyraiders from the 602nd ACS arrived overhead and proceeded to strafe the enemy troops who were on the very perimeter of the camp…” (Hobson). Check Wikipedia for the story if you haven’t read /heard it… MAJOR BERNARD F. FISHER, USAF, is awarded the Medal of Honor for his daring and courage. His MOH was the first awarded to an Air Force officer in the war. MAJ FISHER was awarded his MOH in the White House by President Johnson in January 1967… There were no losses in limited ops in the North…Oh, Happy Day…
Ripple Salvo: ……….BERNIE FISHER=COURAGE… Medal of Honor…10 March 1966 and forever…
Some quotes attributed to a personal hero of mine…..LGEN George S. Patton…
(1) “You make wars with men not machines.”
(2) “The real hero is the man who fights even though he’s scared.”
(3) “All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty.”
(4) “Battles are won by a few brave men who refuse to fear and push on.”
(5) “Courage is largely habit and self-confidence.”
Remembering Rolling Thunder is to remember the incredible, sustained courage of a cadre of aviators who were an elite force of courageous, skilled, disciplined and loyal fighters imbued with the spirit of attack borne in exceedingly brave hearts…
Winston Churchill said: “Courage is the finest of human qualities.” Bernie Fisher: a man of uncommon human qualities. And so was Admiral Jim Stockdale, who as an O-5 Commander, Carrier Air Wing 19, embarked in U.S.S. Oriskany, told the men of his air wing prior to the first Navy strikes on North Vietnam in 1965….
“If any of you guys are saving yourselves for a big war—don’t. This is it. Limited war means to us our target has limits; our rules of engagement have limits. But that doesn’t mean there is anything limited about our personal obligations as fighting men to carry out assigned missions with all we’ve got. Don’t ask for Hollywood answers to ‘What are we fighting for?’ We’re here to fight because it is in the interest of the United States that we do so, which may not be the most dramatic way to explain it, but it has the advantage of being absolutely correct.”
Admiral James Stockdale and his wife Sybil… National Hero and Heroine..
Courage. Commitment. Greater love…. Sacrifice beyond the limits of human understanding… That’s what I remember about Rolling Thunder…
Lest we forget…Bear
