The ineptitude of the US Military sometimes just really shocks and disappoints me. It's like they went about this whole plan completely backwards, completely...backwards! Why didn't they formulate a plan ahead of time for:
A.) How they were going to defend such a site? And,
B.) Given the secrecy challenges, why didn't they have a realistic evacuation plan? They had no plan...at all!
Sure seems to me like these two things would have been a far higher priority than establishing the radar site and getting it operational. Yes, they would have had to use Hmong forces, armed with weapons which couldn't be easily traced directly back to US forces, but at least they would have been somewhat prepared for an almost certain attack like this! It was inevitable. I mean, it doesn't take a 'rocket surgeon' to be able to figure out that such a critically effective installation would result in an almost no holds barred onslaught by enemy forces at some point. Why? Because it worked! Because it was so damn effective.
Yes, they would have needed to be conscious of not having the defense forces presence discovered so as not to give away their plans for the site, but in retrospect they seemingly had no plan at all...other than to sacrifice all the men who had proven so critically valuable. I know it's flippant, but it's like the old Mickey Mouse gumball machine commercial from the same era..."Thanks for the gumball, Mickey!!" And then they were all but exterminated. I mean, surely they didn't believe that the Russian backed NVA and local allied forces were going to respect the neutrality of Laos, when the NVA had already proven over and over again that they didn't follow ANY stinking rules...did they??? And, they should have had even less of an expectation of this given the US too had breached that same neutrality in constructing the site in the first place; how could they possibly expect the NVA to behave differently?? Just makes no sense!
And how the US behaved afterwards is even more shameful. The greatest and most powerful country in the free world, America, just kept everything secret (until 2010) when US Special Operations forces and Air America have been widely known to have been operating in both Cambodia and Laos for more than 30 years! By their actions, it makes it look like the US government was shedding some of the blame for the incident off on the men who died on that hill, when all those men did was fight their hearts out, to the death, FOR America...the same America which failed to recognize them until 2010! Just shameful! The right thing to do would have been to acknowledge these men's heroic efforts long ago, to hell with the blowback on American politicians and policies! After all, it's not like this would have been the first such incident in Laos or Cambodia. I was reading entire Bestselling books written about this kind of stuff back in HS during the late 1970's! We all have! First-hand accounts like "LRRP's" and many more. It's just incomprehensible.
Yes, my views are hindsight, I realize this, but it doesn't change the facts. The secrecy until 2010 can have no explanation other than the US government simply covering their asses and saving face!
Anyway, great video, 727Sky.
A.) How they were going to defend such a site? And,
B.) Given the secrecy challenges, why didn't they have a realistic evacuation plan? They had no plan...at all!
Sure seems to me like these two things would have been a far higher priority than establishing the radar site and getting it operational. Yes, they would have had to use Hmong forces, armed with weapons which couldn't be easily traced directly back to US forces, but at least they would have been somewhat prepared for an almost certain attack like this! It was inevitable. I mean, it doesn't take a 'rocket surgeon' to be able to figure out that such a critically effective installation would result in an almost no holds barred onslaught by enemy forces at some point. Why? Because it worked! Because it was so damn effective.
Yes, they would have needed to be conscious of not having the defense forces presence discovered so as not to give away their plans for the site, but in retrospect they seemingly had no plan at all...other than to sacrifice all the men who had proven so critically valuable. I know it's flippant, but it's like the old Mickey Mouse gumball machine commercial from the same era..."Thanks for the gumball, Mickey!!" And then they were all but exterminated. I mean, surely they didn't believe that the Russian backed NVA and local allied forces were going to respect the neutrality of Laos, when the NVA had already proven over and over again that they didn't follow ANY stinking rules...did they??? And, they should have had even less of an expectation of this given the US too had breached that same neutrality in constructing the site in the first place; how could they possibly expect the NVA to behave differently?? Just makes no sense!
And how the US behaved afterwards is even more shameful. The greatest and most powerful country in the free world, America, just kept everything secret (until 2010) when US Special Operations forces and Air America have been widely known to have been operating in both Cambodia and Laos for more than 30 years! By their actions, it makes it look like the US government was shedding some of the blame for the incident off on the men who died on that hill, when all those men did was fight their hearts out, to the death, FOR America...the same America which failed to recognize them until 2010! Just shameful! The right thing to do would have been to acknowledge these men's heroic efforts long ago, to hell with the blowback on American politicians and policies! After all, it's not like this would have been the first such incident in Laos or Cambodia. I was reading entire Bestselling books written about this kind of stuff back in HS during the late 1970's! We all have! First-hand accounts like "LRRP's" and many more. It's just incomprehensible.
Yes, my views are hindsight, I realize this, but it doesn't change the facts. The secrecy until 2010 can have no explanation other than the US government simply covering their asses and saving face!
Anyway, great video, 727Sky.