3rd Brigade 82nd Airborne Division (Vietnam)

I would like to relay a great story from a senior leader currently deployed in Baghdad, Iraq. He describes the event much better than I can.

I was in line at our deli this week with a 21-year-old PFC from the 82nd. He was soaked in sweat and had an M4 slung over his back and a big grin on his face. I started talking to him and found out he was in here on a quick break to drop off something at the HQs/Palace while they patrolled Haifa Street just outside the embassy. They decided to grab lunch while they were here (good call). Haifa Street is one of the nastiest places on Earth. Al Qaeda considers the street its turf; the 82nd Airborne vigorously disputes the claim. This young Soldier was the most upbeat and enthusiastic person I have met since I have been here. After seven months of doing combat patrols, seeing his friends killed and getting shot at on a daily basis, he was not the least bit daunted or disillusioned. What he told me was, “This is a tough fight with bad people. They mean us harm. I am a paratrooper. I’m here to take care of it. There is plenty of work to do, but we are up for it.”

I was immediately reminded of a picture and quote taken during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944: Dec. 23, 1944 – “Battle of the Bulge” – An entire U.S. armored division was retreating from the Germans in the Ardennes forest when a sergeant in a tank destroyer spotted an American digging a foxhole. The GI, PFC Martin, 325th Glider Infantry Regiment, looked up and asked, “Are you looking for a safe place?” “Yeah,” answered the tanker. “Well, buddy,” he drawled, “just pull your vehicle behind me . . . I’m the 82nd Airborne, and this is as far as the bastards are going.”

That young Airborne PFC I met this week, once again, made me thank God for brave young paratroopers. I have no doubt that Haifa Street is as far as these bastards are going, too. We all need to pause and thank God that our Nation has been blessed, generation after generation, with young men and women like these two PFCs who, separated by 63 years and continents, are full of optimism and courage and do not take counsel of anyone’s fears.

The names and faces may change, but the spirit of our Soldiers remains. This is why we do what we do for a living. It’s all about Soldiers!

Thanks,

V/R,

George

COL George M. Bilafer
Deputy Commander
U.S Army Combat Readiness Center
Fort Rucker, AL 36362-5363

Thirty-nine years ago, half way through my second tour in Vietnam , the Tet Offensive was launched by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces, who were soundly defeated on the battlefield. Two measures of that battle — both relevant to the situation in Iraq today — stand out for me. The first relates to an important lesson U.S. forces had learned after three years of conflict: the vital role of “winning hearts and minds” of the local population. The second concerns the power of the press to affect our ability to sustain violent warfare.

Concerning the first of these, by early 1968 Marines had conceived a plan for building mutual trust and respect among villagers in Northern I Corps built around the deployment of platoon-sized units that lived and worked each day with local Vietnamese peasants with no greater mission than to “make life better.”

Each of these Combined Action Platoons (or CAPs as they were called) included a medic qualified to carry out “well checks” — including inoculations and treatment of minor maladies — as well as assistance with securing hospital care if needed for the families in each village. An engineer was also often sent along to organize repairs of fragile dwellings, drill wells, help organize perimeter fortifications, and to undertake a hundred other utilitarian tasks.

The results from launching the CAP program were enormous and measurable. Probably the most significant return from the good will earned by these enlisted Marines was the increasing yield in tactical intelligence. Specifically, throughout the week-long Tet offensive in early 1968 not one village in which a CAP was deployed fell to the enemy.

Yet the press — notwithstanding the defeat of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong on the battlefield and the complete failure of the enemy to provoke an uprising and rallying of southerners to their cause — portrayed U.S. forces as having been surprised, bloodied and having suffered a resounding defeat. That misrepresentation had a powerful effect in Washington and in our body politic. Support for the war, already declining, unraveled at an accelerating pace.

Though there are valid criticisms to be made of how our military leadership conducted the war for the first three years — blunders that were worsened by disingenuous or misleading briefings at headquarters in Saigon — there is no doubt that the military finally adopted effective counterinsurgency tactics and was turning the tide on the battlefield. By then however, the early mistakes and distortions of reality by both U.S. politicians and military commanders had so undermined their credibility with the press — a press that was only too willing to go with the flow of liberal sentiment here at home — as to make it all but impossible for the administration to secure funding for the war. Sound familiar?

There was another important and dispiriting loss in the segue from Vietnam to Iraq . Despite the obvious success of the counterinsurgency tactics adopted late in the war, when it was over that nascent doctrine was expunged from our field manuals and the leadership of our military re-oriented our focus toward grand-scale land warfare in Europe . As a result, there were precious few in the senior or enlisted ranks of the U.S. military capable of leading or carrying out a counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq .

Today, four years into the war in Iraq , we’ve come full circle to the point reached 40 years ago — unfortunately in both respects. On the one hand we’ve found military leaders — men such as Army Gen. David Petraeus and Marine Lt. Gen. Jim Mattis — with a solid grasp of what is needed to turn the military tide, and who are managing that task with early evidence of success. More money is going into winning hearts and minds. More resources are being devoted to quality of life fixes that are visible to Iraqis. Shuttered factories are being opened in a major new program launched by Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England and headed by his subordinate Paul Brinkley. A major agricultural program is about to be launched in Anbar province, again under Pentagon leadership.

The truly good news is that the results are being felt. Sheiks and tribal leaders watching the changes being made in Anbar are coming our way, and offering various kinds of support to help root out al Qaeda and deal with the insurgents. Yet news of these successes is very hard to find in our mainstream media. It’s February ‘68 redux — with far greater consequences I fear.

I don’t mean to imply that all is well in Iraq ; the political situation remains a shambles. It is imperative that we rally the leadership of each of the leading factions in Iraq and make two things clear. First, we intend to stand with them for as long as it takes if they demonstrate a sober willingness to reconcile their differences over time through formation of a functional coalition government devoted to a fair distribution of political and economic power within the country. Second, our ability to sustain support for them at home is tied to their performance. Although this prescription for winning the war is easy to describe it is hard to accomplish, especially the fostering of political reconciliation. Yet it must be done. The good news is that there are experienced veterans who possess the requisite skills for the job.

The question remains, however: Should the Iraqis succeed in this crucial endeavor, how will it be reported? For the press this is yet another moment of truth. Will it continue to publish a distorted picture of this war as it did in Vietnam , and share responsibility for the same result?

By Robert McFarlane

Mr. McFarlane, a former Marine officer, served as National Security Adviser to President Reagan.

Wall Street Journal
June 7, 2007

Dear Friends, 

I am sorry to say that our good friend and Golden Brigade supporter passed away on Friday, at the age of 77.  His last word was “Airborne”.  Please see below for info.  Our chapter will send flowers. Check www.nebfh.com for more info.

Col. John Guire Jameson Jr, 77, of Radcliff, KY, died Saturday, June 09, 2007 at North Hardin Health and Rehabilitation Center, Radcliff, KY.

Col. Jameson was a veteran of Vietnam, serving multiple tours with the 82nd and 101st Airborne. He is widely known in the Radcliff community for all of his work and dedication to the North Hardin High School Band Boosters and the Radcliff Optimist Club. He was also a member of the Golden Brigade, American Legion, V. F. W. and the Moose.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Joyce Emily Jameson; parents, John and Zenith Jameson; and his brother-in-law, Gene Cunningham.

He is survived by his daughter and son-in-law, Jill J. and Dennis Rayburn of Radcliff; two grandchildren, Aaron Rayburn of Nashville, TN and Alice Crawford of Ashville, NC; and his sister-in-law, Beverly Cunningham of Louisville, KY.

The funeral service will be held at 10:00 A. M. Thursday June, 14 at Nelson-Edelen-Bennett Funeral Home, Radcliff with Rev. Donald E. Overton officiating. Burial with military honors will be in the North Hardin Memorial Gardens in Radcliff, KY.
The visitation will be on Wednesday from 5:00 – 8:00 P. M. and after 9:00 A. M. Thursday at the funeral home. 

Rich

Dear Troopers,

I am very sorry to inform you that Col. John G. Jameson Jr, Battalion Commander, 1/505 during our deployment to Vietnam is in very serious condition and may not live through the weekend.  John is a tough customer and may surprise us all, strap on a T10 and make another jump but it doesn’t look like it.  He has been confined to a nursing home for some time and about 3 weeks ago a large mass was found in his head. He is too weak for surgery.

The Golden Brigade Chapter will be sending flowers – Red, White and Blue to be sure. Some are planning to attend the DROS ceremony when called to attention.  John was a very good friend and a true supporter of our Chapter and his beloved Division.  I’ll do my best to keep you posted. My phone numbers are below.

Rich

Airborne, All the Way and God Bless America!!!

Richard F. O’Hare, Treasurer
Golden Brigade Chapter, 82nd Airborne Division Assn., Inc.
4075 Old River Trail
Powhatan, VA 23139-4112
Home 804-598-4805/9996 FAX
Office 804-784-0394/0396 FAX
Cell 804-338-8222