Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO #50… PLAY IT AGAIN… but first…
Good Morning: Day FIFTY of a look back at a lesson or two that didn’t sink in…
21 APRIL 1966 (NYT)…FIFTY YEARS AGO… ON THE HOMEFRONT… Page 1: “McNamara Sees Harder Fighting in Vietnam Soon: Tells Senators Saigon Also Faces New Disorders As Part of Growing Pains.” In a televised appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the Secretary of Defense also countered a growing view that the war in Vietnam is a civil war that should not involve the United States. He also denied that there was a bomb shortage and declared that “no nation has been as well prepared to fight as this nation.” McNamara addressed the internal conflict in South Vietnam: “The country was close to revolution over the Buddhist–Catholic conflict, but it did not happen. Political instability is something that we should expect in South Vietnam. I expect more of it rather than less.”….Also on page 1: “Vietnamese Seize Six U.S. Pacifists And Expel Them.” The six pacifists were carried kicking and screaming to a Pan Am World Airways jet liner bound for San Francisco. They had come to Vietnam to complain about the war to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, but failed to get a minute of his time before Vietnamese Marines seized them… Page 1:…the air war…”U.S. Planes Bomb Outside Haiphong For a Third Day.” The Haiphong highway bridge was attacked by two strike groups of Ticonderoga A-4 Skyhawks and one span was dropped. the attackers were opposed by AAA that included two unsuccessful SAMs. One Navy A-1 was shot down near Vinh and the pilot is missing… Page 2: “U.S. Alters Bombing Plan.”… “Administration sources reported today that the United States has altered the pattern of bombing in North Vietnam in recent months to make the raids less predictable but not more menacing to civilian centers,” The column cited the attacks on SAM missile sites within 15 miles of Hanoi as an example of the new plan. Writer Max Frankel explained: “Most targets for the raids over North Vietnam almost daily are drawn from a master list screened by analysts and civilians as well as military officials here. The only exceptions are Soviet built anti-aircraft missile sites, which fliers may attack in self-defense or to clear a path for regularly assigned bombing missions…Until this pause in the bombing of north Vietnam, which began last Christmas (1965), virtually every week brought a more menacing bombing pattern with targets moved progressively closer to the major cities and selected to injure ever more important military and transportation targets,” Frankel observed that the targets would be more scattered “without enlarging the list of targets.” He cited a problem: the U.S. cannot keep the pattern of gradualism without eventually bombing centers of civilians…Page 3: LBJ awarded the Medal of Honor to PRIVATE FIRST CLASS MILTON B. OLIVE, JR (POSTHUMOUSLY) in a White House ceremony. PFC OLIVE’s award was received by his father. This was the sixth MOH awarded to a Negro in American history and first in the Vietnam war. Four were awarded after the Spanish American War and two awarded after Korea. (There were no MOH awarded to Blacks during World War II however after an extensive review 1992-1997 seven Blacks who served in WWII were awarded the MOH) PFC OLIVE saved fellow soldiers on 22 October 1965 by covering a grenade with his body…No greater love than a man lay down his life for his fellow man…
21 APRIL 1966… ROLLING THUNDER… An Air Force F-4C from 559TFS out of Cam Ranh Bay was lost on a Steel Tiger mission in Southern Laos. Pilots 1LT R.E. GOODENOUGH and 1LT P.A. BUSH were hit by ground fire and ejected in hostile territory. They were rescued by two Marine Corps UH-34s, one of which sustained battle damage and one of the helo pilots was wounded. Both F-4C pilots were safely returned to duty… An A-6A from VA-85 and USS Kitty Hawk Crewed by COMMANDER JACK ELMER KELLER and LCDR ELLIS EARNEST AUSTIN were Killed in Action while executing an attack on a North Vietnamese barracks and supply area “on the coast ten miles south of Vinh.” No further information on where these two warriors now rest… God bless them, and their families on this 50th anniversary of their death on the battlefield… The Marines in Danang lost an F-4B from the VFMA-542 squadron piloted by CAPTAIN F.A. HUEY and 2LT J.L. ARENDALE while conducting a night napalm attack on a truck park in Laos. The aircraft was hit by enemy ground fire and the crew ejected almost immediately. An Air Force rescue helicopter successfully extricated the two pilots, however 2LT ARENDALE was seriously wounded in the ejection…
RIPPLE SALVO…#50… NOW AIN’T THAT A COINCIDENCE… Quick review of NYT 21 April 1966: SecDef in front of the cameras saying…need to change the pattern of bombing… not involved in a civil war… no bomb shortage…bombing not more menacing to civilians… 50 years later, within a day or two, SecDef is in front of the cameras and in USA Today 19 April 2016…”The Pentagon has approved airstrikes that risk more civilian casualties in order to destroy Islamic State targets as part of its increasingly aggressive fight against the militant group in Iraq and Syria, according to interviews with military officials and data.” And this, referring to the loss of civilian life in the U.S. attacks: “… reflects the U.S. military’s commitment to protecting the innocents.”… One Defense Department official was quoted: “Video from drones and other aircraft track every bomb dropped,” …and…”…investigators assess whether strikes comply with the laws of war and that proper precautions were taken.”… concern about weapons inventories is unjustified… All of which leads the Dean of Defense Watchdogs, LGEN David Depula, USAF (retired), who heads up the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, to say: “The gradualistic, painfully slow, incremental efforts of the current administration undercut the principles of modern warfare, and harken back to the approach followed by the Johnson Administration.” Fifty years to figure out the use and limits of air power based on the lessons of Vietnam and it turns out we didn’t learn much about the employment of air power…I cite this conclusion from a CADRE Paper of October 1986 (30 years ago), by Col Dennis M Drew, USAF, Published by the Air Force University Press entitled “Rolling Thunder 1965: Anatomy of a Failure.”….. “The failure of the American military to develop an air power doctrine consistent with the constraints that cannot be avoided in wars fought for limited objectives precipitates the crippling clash between doctrine and perceptions. As a result, air power was unwillingly tasked to perform a mission which it was ill-equipped and doctrinally unprepared.” Deja vu…..
Lest we forget”” Bear ……………. –30– ……………..
