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Post by fred on Jan 10, 2011 19:46:00 GMT -6
My issue is not with Jessica Lynch; my issue is with the army. And "montrose" is absolutely correct: there are things such as "political" medals.
They, however, cheapen the overall value of the award, and I, quite frankly, detest both the idea and the circumstances. We have a medal for dying and for being injured due to or in combat. It's called a Purple Heart and it is the oldest medal in the American award chest, though its usage has changed over the years.
The army-- and I assume this is the entire military, in general-- has seen fit to award itself innumerable trophies to pin on the chests of its officers and men, so that by just enlisting a guy walks in with two rows of ribbons. It is patently ridiculous and the uniform today, especially now that the army is switching back to blue and ruining its beautiful dress uniform, looks like something out of a carnival side-show, almost Russian-like. Pretty soon they will do away with "oak leaf clusters" and tell you to wear multiple copies of a multiply-awarded ribbon. The damn things will reach the blouses' skirt. They now have multiple rows on the blouse's right side! God!
As for the MOH in the 19th century, you are both generally correct, especially with that bum, Goldin, though there are also some stunningly brave actions that just went unnoticed or rewarded with a non-functioning rank.
As for Lynch and Tillman, Lynch has handled her situation like a lady, and as I said, my issue is not with her... except with the running part. Pat Tillman-- God rest his soul-- no more deserved a Bronze Star for getting killed than I did for not being there. Sorry, but that's the way it is. He was a hell of a man and a marvelous hero for doing what he did, turning down a lucrative contract to serve his country, but there is no medal for that and certainly none for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he deserved a Bronze Star for getting killed by friendly fire, then what do these guys who get killed by enemy action deserve? Politics be damned.
Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by montrose on Jan 10, 2011 21:48:07 GMT -6
PVT Lynch told her story honestly and showed respect for her fallen comrades. I wish her well.
During the ambush of the 507th Maint Co, one soldier was abandoned as the convoy fell apart. The Iraqis report a soldier fighting bravely and desperately until he was killed. This is most likely SGT Walters, who no one has ever heard of.
The Tillman story is an old bleeding wound. The public affairs officer who misinformed the SOF generals had been a former SF officer. He had been recommended for relief twice in the SFQC and was a failure as a team leader and company commander. He was forced out of SF and ended up in public affairs. His last name is same as the former president.
A national disgrace followed, that ended the careers of several SOF generals. In the middle of two counter insugencies, we lost several good leaders. The nickname of this public affairs clown was "pretty boy". (Also buttworm). I think he is still out there.
After the Tillman shooting, the Ranger Regiment arranged for the 4 shooters to be sent to Special Forces. This was a big issue for SF, especially since all of them lied to Tillman's brother, Tillman's family and to repeated investigators. They got through SFAS and were weeded out in the SFQC. Peer pressure played an enormous role in their failing SFQC.
Bad things happen in war. The issue was not that they were in a friendly fire incident. The issue is they lied about it.
Now back to Lynch. Rangers and CAG involved in the rescue got recommended for a ton of ribbon. I know one officer and I were in Hooters when I joked about it. He went off the the deep end. Too bad, since the waitress was throwing herself at him.
Luckily, I was later able to help restore harmony with the local civilian populace.
So next time you take a drink, salute the forgotten SGT Walters.
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Post by fred on Jan 11, 2011 8:21:17 GMT -6
PVT Lynch told her story honestly... I will take your word for that. Absolutely! Exactly my point. Very best wishes, Fred.
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Post by markland on Jan 11, 2011 15:28:26 GMT -6
Fred, Will, Steve. Did either of you notice Clair advocating that officer could omit facts and still be telling the truth? The very thing he castigates Benteen for somewhere in the Dawdling thread.
Hypocrite.
Be good,
Billy
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Post by fred on Jan 11, 2011 17:17:45 GMT -6
Billy,
I honestly cannot deal with it any more. I have had enough of him and others over there. It is the same old crap, the same nonsense, the same stupidity... and it never changes. It goes from one imbecilic theory to another. Now they have this clown, "rosebud," who pontificates as though he were there. Between him and "keogh's" condescension, I just shake my head. They all bloviate about "time," yet not a one has a solitary clue. It's amazing to me.
And maybe Clair's attitude is what got him out of the army, I don't know. It's depressing, however. I do not know when lying, in any form, has ever helped. It is that whole attitude that permeates this country and its corollary is to push all blame on someone else. Enough.
Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by markland on Jan 12, 2011 16:56:24 GMT -6
Billy, I honestly cannot deal with it any more. I have had enough of him and others over there. It is the same old crap, the same nonsense, the same stupidity... and it never changes. It goes from one imbecilic theory to another. Now they have this clown, "rosebud," who pontificates as though he were there. Between him and "keogh's" condescension, I just shake my head. They all bloviate about "time," yet not a one has a solitary clue. It's amazing to me. And maybe Clair's attitude is what got him out of the army, I don't know. It's depressing, however. I do not know when lying, in any form, has ever helped. It is that whole attitude that permeates this country and its corollary is to push all blame on someone else. Enough. Best wishes, Fred. The latest over there is that Bill is commenting on the "hubris" of some who do timelines. I wonder of whom he might be speaking Remember what I told you he was several months ago? Ergo sum, etc, etc. Billy
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Post by fred on Jan 12, 2011 20:27:02 GMT -6
Billy,
Yeah, I saw that just now. That's his way of excusing his incompetence. "General terms" is a euphemism for, I have none because I haven't done the work and have no clue. It echoes Jack Pennington who wrote something to the effect that one could not pinpoint times and needed to work within these time frames. Again, it is their inability to think, reason, compare. What kills me is that whatever one may think of John Gray's accuracy, he is the one with the book; he is the one studied; he is the one quoted. I have not noticed any other times over there, at least none with any sort of back-up or support. As for conflicting sources... well, they too can be reconciled... at least most of them.
So to me, it is a matter of put up or shut up.
Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by zekesgirl on Jan 13, 2011 16:01:46 GMT -6
Sandbox soldier, wasn't that what you called Keogh, Billy? Bevoboy (sorry to steal your words DC) has insulted real soldiers for the last time as far as I'm concerned.
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Post by fred on Jan 13, 2011 16:52:38 GMT -6
Sandbox soldier, wasn't that what you called Keogh, Billy? Bevoboy (sorry to steal your words DC) has insulted real soldiers for the last time as far as I'm concerned. Terry, If I am not mistaken, it is reversed. Now you know part of the reason I have been so silent lately over there. It is no longer a debate; it is stupidity, cloaked in condescension, and shrouded in arrogance. Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jan 13, 2011 17:44:02 GMT -6
The really good day continues.
Just read sfchemist's takedown of keogh regarding Costume Boy's opinion that those who aren't cavalry don't understand cavalry and yada yada.
Politely unmentioned is the fact that nobody here - nobody - has horse cavalry experience.
Cavalry in that mode means units - and large units - of horsemen were trained to perform military actions as a unit. I realize that many units called cavalry were mounted infantry in actuality. keogh, who like myself never served at all, precludes himself from discussing it by such idiotic announcements, much less dissing others for doing so. He's wearing a costume, not a uniform. He seems to think of himself as a soldier, but he ain't.
To clarify, Costume Boy is not to be confused with Bevo Boy conz. conz served, unbelievably attended West Point, but never served in a horse cavalry unit because we have none outside of parade units. Nobody has been in action with a horse cavalry unit. And conz admitted he'd never been in any action. Bevo was a WWI near beer that those who hung around the canteen and stateside staff work got described as: Bevo officers. Near beer, near soldiers. But, you know and it's important to know, not soldiers to those in the trenches.
AZ is the one person closest to knowing of what that must have been like. He uses horse and gun for his 9-5 and has for centuries (his back would attest to that....) and has combat experience and live ammo experience as a peace officer.
Indians were not cavalry either; they were excellent individual horsemen and mounted warriors, but they did not perform actions as units except coincidently. Cavalry are disciplined military units, and that ain't the Sioux, Cheyenne, or any tribe. They fought, whether they knew it or not, to preclude themselves from becoming that.
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Post by markland on Jan 13, 2011 18:31:27 GMT -6
Sandbox soldier, wasn't that what you called Keogh, Billy? Bevoboy (sorry to steal your words DC) has insulted real soldiers for the last time as far as I'm concerned. Terry (sorry to be so familiar since we haven't formally met), my description of sandbox soldier was for Conz. I called Keogh other truthful terms which can be found at various spots on this and the other board. Despite being banned over there, I can at least understand Rinni's hero worship but Conz, a one-time officer seems to be working at some level I can't comprehend. Perhaps I am just giving him too much credit and he actually is the cretin his various posts portray him to be. Alas. after this post, my remaining ID over there will likely be banned. Be good and a Happy New Year to you & your family! Billy
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Post by montrose on Jan 14, 2011 10:04:47 GMT -6
In 1923 W.A. Graham wrote:
"Was the Battle of the Little Big Horn only a startling example of fatal division of forces in the face of the enemy, with consequent defeat in detail? Was it a blind, impetuous, dashing attack without thought of consequence, or even of the possibility of defeat? Or was it a well planned fight, which failed for lack of cooperation and communication?"
I find these questions as relevant now as they were at the time of writing.
For the rest of this post, I am addressing the second question.
Risk. Custer is said to be a risk taker. Custer's defenders say with great power comes great responsibility. Oops, that is for Spiderman defenders. For Custer, with great risk comes greater opportunity of success.
Yet, Custer's behavior at LBH shows a consistent pattern of risk aversion. He was like a moth around a flame. He would take an action, back off, take another action, and back off again.
BLUF. I believe Custer was eager for action and could not sit still. So his compromises were an effort to do something productive while he waited for the Regiment (-) to reach him.
1. 3411. After he saw the village, enemy and Reno Custer made a significant compromise decision. He split his force sending one Battalion to Nye/Cartwright Ridge, and taking the other to Ford B area.
A risk taker would have taken the entire force.
2. Ford B/MTC area. The ford B action was a reconnaissance, in my opinion. It appears a bold move. Throwing a small force that close to the village will bring a massive enemy reaction.
a. Risk assessment means balancing the gains of an action against consequences. Whatever knowledge gained from a close look at Ford B is not matched by the loss of surprise and enemy counteraction. Custer's mobility is a function of whether he or Reno is regarded as the primary threat to the village.
Since he likely did not know that Reno had recrossed the river, a better option for Custer would be to stay away from the village, on the east side of battle ridge. This is a risky move, you assume risk at Ford B, to buy time to develop another course of action.
b. Attack. The largest risk he could take was an attack with 5 companies. If was truly the gambler the risk taker school says he was, he should have gone all in.
Custer's actions show that after he got a close look, he backed off. It could be he saw that an attack would not succeed, which is quite rational. It is more likely he saw he was at the middle of the village, and decided to try to attack the north end, with Reno blocking the south.
A north attack is certainly high risk. The challenge is how to move 9 companies and a mule train from Weir Peaks to Ford D. He was moving in open terrain in plain sight of the village.
It is not possible to see how a force could move across the front of the Indians, without Indian reaction. In risk assessment you do not assume away your opponents most probable reaction
3. Calhoun Hill. Custer made another compromise decision. He left Keough Bn to hold Calhoun Hill. He took Yates BN to Ford D. Clearly, the greater risk is Keough. Keough has to hold off the village. Even assuming 700 stay on Reno, he will face 1,000 plus at Calhoun.
So Custer took a risk by going to Ford D. But this was a lesser risk than the others available to him. Defending the hill would be a greater risk. Attacking the Indians would be still a greater risk.
The move to Ford D is dawdling. He is just wasting time. If his force had stayed out of sight of the village, the ford D excursion would be a justifiable risk. A stealthy recon would not generate a strong counteraction.
Going to ford D after the ford B recon will bring a strong counteraction, centered on Calhoun Hill. So Custer's move to Ford D is lowering the risk to his element.
I regard the ford D recon as risk aversion. He had to do something out of haste, but he was not willing to risk a direct battle with the Indians to his front.
4. Overall, I do not see Custer's actions as bold and decisive. His decisions show compromise and timidity.
This is not an attack on Custer. He was badly outnumbered. I assume his desire for battle was wrestling with common sense.
It is like playing for the Broncos against the Patriots. You know things are not going to go well. And in this case, the winning team gets to scalp the losers. His Hoodiness could give Brady a new hairpiece without the plugs.
Respectfully,
William
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jan 15, 2011 0:36:41 GMT -6
There are issues here, some picky, some not.
"...Custer's behavior at LBH shows...." Well, like the Sioux, we're identifying his unit's actions with him, which may not be the case, and we don't actually know know what he did. Just saying. If Custer is still in command, there are other explanations for what you call "a consistent pattern of risk aversion." The easy one is that his actions were not proactive.
If Custer had sent Martin from the point where he ordered Reno in, it would change how we choose to look at these actions, and Custer himself. Since he did not send anyone to bring up Benteen and the train when he first ordered contact, he clearly saw no flaw in proceding without them, and had no plan requiring Benteen beyond puttering in when he got there.
1. It is hypothesis only that Custer split his force. The last dubious account we have of him is of Curley saying they stopped - all of them - to tighten saddles before heading down Cedar/MTC towards the village. Look at the photo of somewhat fewer mounted men on page 115 of WCF. Now imagine them puttering down a variable gully, strung out as they would be. A lot of MTC eaten up by those 210 men and mounts. There's no rationale for dividing his command in the face of the enemy. It can be argued he started out with everyone, was blunted, and Keogh exited because he didn't want to be standing in a ditch.
2. OF COURSE any action at MTCF would "bring a massive enemy reaction." And if he had done that he would have, at that point, have already planned to go on the defensive, having sent too few to attack and doomed those set in a firing line, since he had nothing to stop a 'massive enemy reaction.' Further, he would have apparently decided to lose the battle.
3. It's TOO LATE to run recon and risk assessment once Reno is committed.
a. It Custer wanted to buy time to unite the remaining 9 companies, he'd wait where he could be seen at distance or, here's a thought, send a messenger with specific orders to Benteen including those wordy sentences identifying where he is, what Reno is doing, and what Benteen might do. If you are buying time, you don't alert the enemy to spend it with you before necessary, do you?
b. It's logical he DID attack down MTC, since an effort to encourage early contact with a superior force before the second part of the plan - exposing themselves without cover on high ground - was not yet in place.
Custer's actions MIGHT show that after he got a close look he backed off, but really the size of the village could be told from the size of what everyone agrees was an enormous pony herd. If he believed they would run, what would not be achieved by hitting them soonest with the mostest he had at hand utilizing this handy path.
A north attack makes no sense at all compared with a solid charge into the village. There is cognitive dissonance between contending he thought they would run when hit and then contending he chickened out.
3. Why in the world would he encourage an attack which would force him on the defensive, and do this with divided command, and half sent a mile to the east?
How in the world is going to Ford D with his weakest unit, guaranteed to be met by the visually adept enemy wherever he headed for the river, his LEAST risky alternative? What great advantage would running north give him? Did he think they had ADD and would lose interest? Why do you only allow defending the hill (which, now?) and attacking as greater risks? Didnt' he think they'd run?
There's really no evidence he went to a Ford D, and if he had it would be better described as suicidal rather than dawdling. What evidence accounts suggest might have been a soldier movement is covered later by an alternative action of Sioux and Cheyenne that is KNOWN to have happened.
If his force had stayed out of sight of the village, he'd have had to have approached by Tullochs, probably on Saturday. Instead, after Crow's Nest fires, bugles, cheers, and the Windsor Wave and Manly Waving of the Hat at Reno, increased knowledge of his presence to the Indians could only be achieved by bulk buy of radio time or by riding along high ground visible to the village with guidons held even higher, and thank god he didn't.......oh, wait. In any case, the boat containing any chance of any action dependent upon surprise had already sailed by the time he stopped at whatever hill to view his upcoming fiasco, and by the time he got to Weir Point had rounded the Horn and was taking on serious water off Coronel.
He wasn't ready to risk a direct battle with Indians across his front, but by a pointless Yoo-Hoo! to the Sioux WAS willing to risk necessary retreat with doomed sequential firing lines till his command reached the worst ground possible for defense?
4. I don't see these actions as his. I think command structure crumbled when the move down MTC foundered and they were driven. I think that because it made no military sense to end up where he did.
Coach Opie is gone, the Broncos have selected the coach of the only team worse than themselves this year, and Pat Bowlen is going for the Lifetime Al Davis Dementia award for Owners Living In the Past. Elway was a great quarterback, none better, but I fear now he'll be remembered for what might be some terrible years of Denver football. If I followed it, or cared, I might be upset. But football takes place during Curling Season and Contract Bridge Tournaments and Tasmanian Breath Holding Finals in November (History Channel, after Alien Ghost Abductions In Repetitive Badly Acted Scenes) so I don't notice.
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Post by Melani on Jan 16, 2011 18:37:09 GMT -6
Alas. after this post, my remaining ID over there will likely be banned. Billy, perhaps I just can't see it, but I don't notice any sign of you having been banned over there. I'm sure you could delete your membership if you were so inclined.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jan 18, 2011 11:17:03 GMT -6
On the other board, yet again they're tabulating those Reno 'left' in the timber. This to revisit the endlessly annoying question of whether Reno was a coward, harump.
BC clogs it up:
"....However the rub is why did Reno think he had to escape rather than stand and fight? Was it him losing it after BK's brains were blown all over him, number of casualties, NA infiltration into the timber, horses threatened, NAs cutting off an avenue of escape, or all of the above?
I think he could have gotten out of any predicament using proper organized military tactics either right then or later."
All of the above. It's been a common contention that in observation of Custer's vanishing and non-support during the time window when it would be rather appreciated and meaningful, Reno's duty was to his men and overall mission, which requires life. The longer he stayed, the more wounded in men AND HORSES which would at some rapidly arriving point render the argument moot, since they could not move at that time. Nobody would want to be there at night at the window of a huge village. It's now or never.
I'll just ignore the implication that there was a "proper organized military" tactic that would get him out of anything then or later. First, that would require training the 7th may not have received, whatever it is, an omission ever so common at this point. Don't say there was something he could have, should have done without announcing what it was. Show it, or shut up about it. He was there, you weren't.
And, I'd like to ask combat vets who served with radios and all sorts of procedures and equipment - atop far better training than the 7th got - just how rare was it for exhausted men were left behind or got confused and froze to the place they felt safe at the moment? How alien is it to imagine people adhering to the scouts or just not getting the message or, somehow, not noticing over a hundred men and horses forming up really close by.
In other words, just how rare is this sort of issue in combat through the years? My impression from reading and listening to vets of many wars is not so rare. It strikes me that vectoring in on what are normal occurences of combat but choosing to view them as ominous and unique to the LBH, which they are not, distorts the battle narrative.
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