We were not in Laos

[727Sky]

Thunder cracks overhead as monsoon clouds swallow the North Vietnamese jungle, hiding entire columns of NVA troops as they drive supply trucks and artillery through the storm. The men march with confidence. No enemy could possibly spot them through the wall of wind and rain. Suddenly, a low roar cuts through the grey skies. Some swear they see a shadow flicker above. "Just more thunder!" a commander shouts, but before he is even done talking, the bomb hits. Trucks cartwheel through the air, crashing upside down in the mud. Troops can barely dive out of the way. Some men raise their rifles skyward, but can see nothing through the pouring rain. Then comes another strike. Entire gun crews are torn apart in seconds. As word reaches Hanoi, commanders demand to know how it is possible for the Americans to have found them in the middle of a monsoon. The strikes were too precise for luck. Somewhere in the mountains, the enemy must have a secret new weapon, one capable of finding the North Vietnamese even when flying blind. And whatever it is, it has to be destroyed.

• As images and footage of actual events are not always available, Dark Docs sometimes utilizes similar historical images and footage for dramatic effect. I do my best to keep it as visually accurate as possible. All content on Dark Docs is researched, produced, and presented in historical context for educational purposes. We are history enthusiasts and are not always experts in some areas, so please don't hesitate to reach out to us with corrections, additional information, or new ideas. -
  

[FCD]

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.

[Ninurta]

That's CIA ops for ya. Most of the time, you go in knowing that if the shit hits the fan, you're going to be left hanging out to dry. This instance doubly so - the guys were "separated" from the service so they could be "hired" by the CIA, and that just plain screams "plausible deniability".

There are still some guys alive today who are under 50 and 70 year gag orders not to speak of what they did or saw. Some times, that plausible deniability has a long, long reach.

What I don't understand is sending them in entirely unarmed. Even rinky-dink fly by night companies will usually send you into Indian country with SOME kind of personal defense weaponry. It might not be the best - it might be 60 years old and sourced from the cheapest seller. like M3 grease guns or Stens, often AK's because they are found everywhere, but usually SOMETHING.

And everyone knew the NVA wouldn't respect Laotian neutrality. They never had, and never would. The entire Ho Chi Minh trail ( not really "A" trail, but a network of trails and dirt roads) ran nearly the entire length of Laos. Stuff would get fed into it from North Vietnam, then filter down all the way through Laos and back into South Vietnam to the VC. So, they didn't respect Laotian neutrality, but they DID bank on the US respecting it and not hitting their supply lines because they were in Laos. I guess they lost that bet.

If one thinks it through, then he doesn't go into these sorts of schemes for recognition, glory, or medals. he goes in to get a job done, knowing that he'll never be lauded for it. That's just the way the die rolls if you're doing Secret Squirrel stuff. I'm surprised they ever got recognition. Someone must have lit a fire under someone's ass to get that. Most guys never, ever, see it, nor do their children or grandchildren.

That's just the way the pipe smokes.

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[F2d5thCav]

What Ninurta said about neutrality.

So let's pull apart this particular aspect of the Vietnam War Narrative, as gifted to the world by the American Left.

Neither Laos nor Cambodia were "neutral" countries in the sense of a country like Switzerland.  Both countries served as highways, depots, and staging areas for North Vietnamese forces, as well as their Chinese and Soviet advisors.

From the start, the U.S. government should have made this clear and told the American people and the rest of the world, those countries will be legitimate areas for U.S. / South Viet / etc. military operations.

Instead, they chose the "Switzerland myth" such that the *-wipes in American media were shocked and outraged when the U.S. "invaded" Cambodia.  Cambodia had already been invaded for many years, by Ho Chi Minh's forces.

It should not have been special ops or CIA or whatever in Laos, it should have been conventional forces pushing north and ultimately "turning right" and driving on Hanoi while amphibious landings seized Haiphong.  And then tell the Soviets and Chinese they could go to nuclear strike Hell if they didn't want to accept that.  The worst that would have happened is another Chinese intervention in the war like they did in North Korea.

Instead, all of former French Indochina was gifted to the communists while the American Left became insane with their success in mobilizing public opinion against the war and forcing Nixon to leave the presidency.

[727Sky]

Never let yourself be placed in a subordinate position to an IDIOT whether government or an individual...Old guys know that much better than young studs.

[Ninurta]

What Ninurta said about neutrality.

So let's pull apart this particular aspect of the Vietnam War Narrative, as gifted to the world by the American Left.

Neither Laos nor Cambodia were "neutral" countries in the sense of a country like Switzerland.  Both countries served as highways, depots, and staging areas for North Vietnamese forces, as well as their Chinese and Soviet advisors.

From the start, the U.S. government should have made this clear and told the American people and the rest of the world, those countries will be legitimate areas for U.S. / South Viet / etc. military operations.

Instead, they chose the "Switzerland myth" such that the *-wipes in American media were shocked and outraged when the U.S. "invaded" Cambodia.  Cambodia had already been invaded for many years, by Ho Chi Minh's forces.

It should not have been special ops or CIA or whatever in Laos, it should have been conventional forces pushing north and ultimately "turning right" and driving on Hanoi while amphibious landings seized Haiphong.  And then tell the Soviets and Chinese they could go to nuclear strike Hell if they didn't want to accept that.  The worst that would have happened is another Chinese intervention in the war like they did in North Korea.

Instead, all of former French Indochina was gifted to the communists while the American Left became insane with their success in mobilizing public opinion against the war and forcing Nixon to leave the presidency.

Not to mention they were both embroiled in their own little communist insurgencies - Laos with the Pathet Lao, and Cambodia with the Khmer Rouge... and both of those were on friendly terms with the VC and NVA because of shared ideologies. I believe the video mentioned that the attack was carried out by Pathet Lao guerrillas, so they apparently controlled that area anyhow, and ought, by rights, to have been wiped out with everything the Air Force could throw at them, rather than merely cutting, running, and torching our own base.

When the Pathet Lao took over Laos, we resettled a bunch of Laotian refugees in the small mountain town I lived in. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge gave us the horror show in Cambodia - they should have had more to worry about than just taking over a country... something like living to see the next sunrise.

Later on, the Lutherans and the Special Forces at Fort Bragg teamed up to resettle a bunch of Montagnards from Vietnam to just down the street from where I was living on the east side Greensboro, NC at the time. That got exciting upon occasion, as they brought along Montagnard traditions, and didn't take kindly to American culture until the next generation came up. One 'Yard I recall got arrested for dragging his wife behind his car "to teach her a lesson" - they were just as rough and ready here as they were in Vietnam.

I can recall standing guard at a bank on South Elm-Eugene Street in Greensboro, and this 'Yard family would come in and do their banking there. The Old Grandfather of the family never went inside the bank - he would sit out on the sidewalk with me, squatting there and smiling and nodding at me. He didn't have a word of English, and I had no Rhade or Hmong, so we couldn't communicate beyond smiling and nodding. One day his daughter came out of the bank, and I asked her why he would just squat there in his black pajamas and grin at me. She asked him, and he told her he was thanking me. I asked for what, and she said it was my uniform - he was recognizing the uniform, and recalling the help they were given in Vietnam by the SF, and the help they were given getting out of Vietnam.

At the time, my uniform consisted of black BDU's and a gun belt / gadget belt around my waist. Not really all that different from his own black pajamas - just more pockets and more doo-dads on the Bat Belt.

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[Ninurta]

Never let yourself be placed in a subordinate position to an IDIOT whether government or an individual...Old guys know that much better than young studs.

Now that's a fact. 

It's one of the reasons I didn't go to Baghdad for DynCorp right after the embassy was opened there. The honcho at the embassy was an idiot, but he was the idiot calling the shots, and I didn't care  to get thrown under his bus. 

As an example, the embassy had four (4) up-armored humvees just sitting there in the compound, collecting dust. He refused to let the security contractors for the embassy use them for things like trips into the Green Zone and/or PSD details. Up-armored humvees are nice things to have when you get to rolling through ambushes, but he wouldn't allow it. That placed the dignitaries in as much danger as the contractors providing their security, but he wasn't having any of that. He'd say that "the Green one is secure, you don't need them". My ass it was secure. There wasn't anywhere in Iraq OR Afghanistan that I'd consider "secure".

So the humvees just sat there gathering desert dust because he refused to let them be used. What a waste of taxpayer money! The armored SUV's he did allow the use of were just riolling microwave ovens if you got caught in an IED explosion, and you couldn't retrun fire from them for shit when the balloon went up - you just had to run like hell if you could, and hope an IED wasn't in your near future. The SUV's weren't set up for fighting back like the hummers were.

State Department has an overabundance of idiots like that in it''s ranks - I reckon that's how the likes of John Kerry and Killary Klinton got to run it for a while... they both are highly qualified as idiots.

Of the guys who did go on that contract, 9 returned within 2 months because of the Idiot In Charge. The contract was paying a quarter million a year (for supervisors - 150K for grunts), and that wasn't nearly enough to put up with his bullshit.

There ain't no percentages in letting an idiot tell you what to do and how to do it. Learning that is how young studs get old enough to be the old guys who know better.

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