Bohemian Conservative
Generations of Service
Mae's grandfather, New Zealand Army in WWI, 1916
My dad and I at his graduation from Marine Corps Boot Camp, Paris Island, SC, 1969
Yours truly, Mr. Bohemian, between night patrols, USMC, Somalia, 1993
posted by Mae at 11:37 PM
9 Comments:
Great pics. Thanks to all for their service
Thanks, Stan. I was feeling a bit nostalgic, and I was thinking how Mae's grandfather would have taken all this troop bashing going on now. So I put up some pics.
It's famlies like yours that have kept America Free.
In todays military though I worry for the young men and women. Not that they may have to fight a war but of the consequences if they fight to win. Our troops are having to fight a politically correct war with news reporters standing over their shoulders ready to film and report anything they preceive as wrong or abusive. The Penatagon is filled with REMF's and politically motivated officers waiting to prosecute our soldiers for doing their jobs. Recrutment in the Army and Marines is down...you can't blame the young people for not wanting to enlist. There not stupid and can see what is happening to soldiers and marines who fight to defend this nation at all costs.
Thanks to all of you for your kind words. My sacrifices were small compared to those of my predecessors. That pic of Mae's grandfather sits on the desk here and stares at me all day, reminding me, inspiring me, to do the right thing. All I can do is try to live up to the ideals of his generation.
Bob has a lot more stripes than I did; thank YOU!
The funny tihng is that when we were in Somalia, we were given a very restricitve set of rules of engagement. Most of us just nodded our heads, fully knowing that, when the shit hit the fan, we wouldn't give a rat's ass about those rules. We did what we had to do based on how we were trained, and we would worry about the consequences afterward. But we would make sure we were alive to do so.
Joe, you were in Somalia. The movie Black Hawk Down is suppose to be a factual based movie. If so, I
noticed something very interesting and shocking. During the time when US forces were being overwhelmed and the helecoptors were downed, the US Army needed reinforcements and the US Commander had to go to the United Nations Commander to get these reinforcements. The UN Commander ( Pakastain general) was upset he was not previously informed of the mission the US undertook. What I found interesting and shocking was that under the command of the United Nations was the 10th Mountain Division of the US Army. United States Army forces were under the command of a UN general and could not be called upon to reinforce US troops without the UN commanders approval. An American, US Army, general could not order United States Army troops into battle as they were not under his control but under control of a foreign, non-American, commander. That is the kind of command structure John Kerry and many liberal democrats wants for Amrican Troops.
Hi - I check into your blog on occasion through BMEWS.......I see that you were in Somalia......Do you recall the photograph that circulated throughout the world when the US Marines landed on the beach at Mogadishu in December of 1992? The press was awaiting the arrival of the Marines & in the picture is my brother, a TV new photographer, taking pictures of the Marines as they landed.........this landing by the Marines evidently one of the world's worst kept secrets.........
Hi, Dottie, thanks for stopping by. That televised beach landing happened about a week before my unit landed in country. I remember watching it in the barracks at Pendleton, and we were all laughing. It really wasn't much of a secret because it didn't need to be. There was no established government there nor any organized, unified resistance, so it was truly a media-driven non-event.
Bob, you're right about the command structure that Kerry and other internationalists would have our troops operating under:
“I’m an internationalist. I’d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.”
-- John Kerry, Feb. 18, 1970
I was there from Dec. 1992 - the end of April 1993. During our time there the multi-national coalition was under US control, but at the time we were being rotated out control was given to the UN. The Pakistanis were given charge of operations. And, yes, the US Army did not tell the Pakistani general about the Rangers' mission to get Aidid and two of his top commanders, for reasons I can only speculate on. I would venture to say that it probably was to minimize the chance for a leak. These guys hit hard and fast relying on the element of surprise, so the fewer who know about operations in advance the better.
These things usually go off without too many complications, but that day in Oct '93 wasn't one of them, although they did get the two top commanders I believe.
The problem I have is this: The Pakistanis were also to assume our role of providing air patrol and support over Mogadishu 24/7 by keeping two helos in the air 24/7 like we did, and they failed miserably in that duty. I know this because before our unit left several of us briefly inspected their Hueys enough to know that they were far from test-worthy let alone mission capable - the massive corrosion on the tail rotor control linkages and main rotor masts was all I needed to down them by NAMP/NAVAIR standards. As the movie notes, the Pakistanis were not already in the air, and communication problems hindered their efforts to find our guys. But I have a problem with that because Mogadishu is not a large city in square miles like Los Angeles, for example
The point is that had this operation gone off during our time there, whether we had any knowledge of the mission beforehand or not, we would have had our two birds in the air. When things went wrong on the ground for the Rangers, we could have been there in a matter of minutes and lit the place up and maybe reduced our casualty count, and certainly increased theirs.
When we left the country Mogadishu was fairly stable after 4 months, with Aidid and his goons on the run, hiding in the countryside. In the next 4 months under UN command and control, it ended up being worse than it was before we ever got there.
Note: As outnumbered as our Rangers were, they still achieved over a 10:1 kill ratio. They fought bravely to the end.
One incident there left me with a hopeless feeling that nothing will ever change in my lifetime in that region. One day I was having a smoke break near the fence to the compound when I saw a young Somali boy, maybe 10 years old, walking on the opposite side of the fence. I was not on patrol and my weapon was at sling arms, so I smiled and waved at him. He gave me the middle finger and yelled in English, "Fuck you, American." I noticed that he had a bottle of water he had gotten from the coalition relief effort. That was my first inkling that any effort at improving that region would be for nothing.
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