When I became aware that I was not interested in finishing college in my sophomore year, I sought out the local Coast Guard recruiter, but they were not looking for entry-level recruits at that time. As my draft number was low and I was soon to be status 1A, Dad had served in the Navy in WWII, so I talked to the Navy recruiter and enlisted in December 1971.
The complexion of war has changed significantly through millennia of human conflict and continues to evolve with new technologies and lessons learned on the battlefield. But despite this changing environment, one constant does exist: effective logistics and supply chain integrity can change the tide of battle and determine outcomes. Until World War II, a historical reliance on fixed fortifications led to straightforward solutions for combat support; however, the global scale of conflict and new, unbridled mobility forever changed the face of military logistics. In fact, much of the war's best-known strategies were directed solely at disrupting enemy supply chains (Battle of the Atlantic, Operation Drumbeat, Battle of the Bulge, Island Hopping, and more). Surprisingly, by 1966 military logistics and combat supply tactics had not significantly advanced apart from the introduction of helicopters to the battlefield. So as the Vietnam War escalated, UN forces confronted novel threats...
My father, SF1 Roy D. Collins, was in the Navy from Feb. 1941 to 1961. As a consequence of that, I went to school in San Diego (Kindergarten), Seattle (first grade), Guam (second grade), Chi Chi Jima (no school), San Diego (4th & 5th grade), Hawaii (6th to half of the 8th grade) and back to San Diego for 8th to 12th grades). I graduated in June 1964.
LTC Darrell Elmore remembers, "In June 1964, I was part of an operation designed to intercept a VC propaganda team reported to be parading a small group of U.S. Prisoners of War along the border between Cambodia and Vietnam. The purpose was to show the locals and the VC units that the Americans were easily beaten in combat. In charge of this operation was Saigon based, Maj. LaMar and the 1st SFG A-Team at Trang Sup, a camp about 12 kilometers north of Tay Ninh. The Operational Plan LaMar Designed in Vietnam War The operational plan LaMar designed was to employ the classic military hammer and anvil tactics used successfully by Alexander the Great in his conquest of the known world. The first element of his plan was a superior infantry force setting up a blocking position. The second element was an airmobile cavalry using armed helicopters to drive the enemy out of hiding into a clearing into the waiting friendly infantry units ready to blow them away. Several American Special...
Presented with the Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama in 2014, Bennie Adkins distinguished himself as a war hero during three tours of duty between 1963 and 1971, later creating a charitable foundation to help returning veterans to attend further education and settle into civilian life. President Obama said at the time, 'to be honest, in a battle and daring escape that lasted four days, Bennie performed so many acts of bravery we actually don't have time to talk about all of them.' Unfortunately, the popular Vietnam veteran was unable to escape his final battle. Adkins was admitted to the East Alabama Medical Centre in Opelika, Alabama at the end of March 2020. When his condition deteriorated, he was moved to intensive care and put on a ventilator, but despite the best efforts of his medical team he sadly died on April 17th following complications caused by Covid-19, coronavirus. Bennie Adkins in the Vietnam War The veteran Soldier was reported to have killed and injured 135 to...
When Paul A. Yost Jr. assumed the position of Commandant of the United States Coast Guard in 1986, he approached the role with a powerful philosophy: "You have to lead the charge." At the time this was considered as an over-aggressive approach to leading what was viewed as more of a law enforcement agency than a military organization, but Admiral Yost had learned that lesson the hard way - in the jungles of Vietnam. Ever since they discovered a fishing vessel smuggling weapons into Vung Ro Bay in 1965, Coast Guard and Navy personnel had been conducting a joint operation known as 'Market Time.' The goal was to apprehend, attack, or interrupt any smuggling in South Vietnam, to stop the flow of supplies to the Viet Cong. In 1968 the Coast Guard Combat Commander attached to ‘Market Time' billet opened up to volunteers. Because no one came forward for the position, the command reached out to Commander Paul A. Yost Jr., then on board the cutter Resolute. However, Yost refused...
I became interested in aircraft at a very early age because of my dad’s interest and influence. He worked for the American Petroleum Company in Waterloo, Iowa, which contracted to provide aviation gas at the Waterloo, Iowa airport. He also smoked Wings cigarettes, which had a collector card of an airplane with every pack. My older brother and I would quiz each other on aircraft identification while viewing these cards.
John Plaster (The Ultimate Sniper), a retired Army major, served three tours with the secretive "Studies and Observation Group," aka SOG, during the Vietnam War-a background he has put to good use in this authoritative and insightful look at the now-defunct commando unit. Plaster does much to illuminate both this frequently misunderstood group and its extraordinary participants. Made up entirely of volunteers, SOG tackled a wide range of vital and dangerous duties, including missions deep into enemy territory and rescues of downed American pilots. Special Forces veterans, in particular, will delight in the descriptions of America's old tribal allies, the Montagnards of Vietnam. Specialists in poison-arrow warfare, the primitive "'Yards," Plaster explains, were both fierce fighters and a constant source of wonderment to the Americans. Plaster reveals the core of the relationship between 'Yards and Yanks in a telling anecdote in which two Green Berets win over a village chieftain with...
Steeped in secrecy and shaped by global Cold War tensions, the Vietnam War was, by all standards of measure, the most clandestine military campaign in US history. After World War II, democratic and communist nations were spoiling for a fight, testing one another, and positioning themselves to gain geographic and political advantage. However, with an indecisive outcome in Korea and escalating international anxiety, further activities became highly secretive on both sides, including CIA involvement in Vietnam beginning in 1953. Leading to covert 1961 combat operations in North Vietnam code-named Operation 34A, these highly classified and largely unsuccessful attacks reflected other events of that time, e.g., the Bay of Pigs (April 1961) and the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962). These CIA missions, comprised of air and naval infiltration, led to significant loss of life. To increase the chances of success, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam- Studies and Observations Group...
During the height of the Vietnam War, Da Nang Air Base was one of the busiest airports in the world, if not the busiest. As if the stress of being an air traffic controller wasn't enough, U.S. Air Force Air Traffic Controllers in Vietnam had to deal with the same levels of traffic found in places like Chicago O'Hare International Airport while under fire. Amazingly, these no doubt stressed-out airmen were able to do their jobs flawlessly, often living in wartime conditions in the middle of enemy attacks and other challenging scenarios. Keith Krejci was one of those airmen, and he chronicles the stories of his year in South Vietnam in "I Never Left Anybody Up There: A Year In The Life Of An Air Traffic Controller in Viet Nam." About the Author of I Never Left Anybody Up There Krejci would spend more than 30 years in the Air Force, retiring with the rank of Chief Master Sergeant (E-9) in 1997. In this time, he worked as a controller at ten control towers and eight radar facilities in...
My father and his two brothers were all WWII veterans, and my great grandfather was a Civil War vet for the Union Army. With the draft approaching in 1965, my dad suggested I start thinking about what I was going to do since I was out of college for a semester and had lost my student deferment.
It has been called the most daring raid of the Vietnam War; Operation Ivory Coast was an effort to rescue prisoners of war who had been held by North Vietnam for years. It did not rescue any of the prisoners, but it did change the way U.S. Special Operations planned and executed its missions. By 1970, the United States not only knew that hundreds of American POWs were being held by the communist North Vietnamese, but they also knew those prisoners were being subjected to torture and mistreatment - and many had been suffering for years on end. Special operations planners knew the location of where at least 61 of them were being held, a camp near the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi known as Son Tay. The United States designed a plan to rescue them right out from under the communists' noses. The mission would not be an easy one. At least six of the prisoners were believed to be near death, and the Son Tay prison was in an area where intelligence planners believed...
