The Marine's War in Afghanistan

[Bill Murray]

I think you lads and lassies will enjoy this story and at the same time perhaps feel the frustration I do in reading it.

General Dad, in his Oral History of his career provided to the USMC Historical Section, took Gen Westmoreland and SECDEF MacNamara apart for their dismantling of the Marine Corps "Pacified Hamlet" program as I think it was called and their insistence on the Marines fighting the VietNam war "The Army Way".

As many of you may know, the USMC developed a COIN strategy while Gen McChrystal was still in grade school. Said General is supposed to be the current Guru of this type of warfare but seemingly has forgotten all he has written as we are currently fighting a very traditional campaign over there.

I particularly like one passage in Dad's History where he described a series of encounters with Westmoreland relative to the building of MacNamara's Wall or Fence.

The Marines were pulled off of their pacification duties and told to build this idiotic barrier. They were ill equipped to do this sort of thing from a logistical point of view and they kept getting sniped at and Dad objected strongly to this use of USMC Forces. Westmoreland told him to build fortified bunkers to protect his Marines. Dad said Marines did not build bunkers, they attacked, pacified and held territory until the civilian authorities could take over.

Westmoreland sent him the Army TM on the building of fortified bunkers, an insult my Dad never forgot. It's uglier than this but I won't bore you with the whole story.

My only other comment deals with Close Air Support and the like which is commented on in the article. Marines take care of Marines and they were badly let down in WWII by the Navy and in Korea and VietNam by the Navy, the Army and the Air Force in this respect. Hence, they prefer an integrated force. I can remember in 1949 going on field problems with my Dad and getting a "Corsair Haircut" as it was called. Those fighters came in at not more than 3 feet higher than the cut of their props to ensure accurate delivery of fire or bombs. Awesome it was.

Based on history, I don't think it will happen, but I sure hope the Marines will be able to continue their well proven method of waging a Counter Insurgency type of campaign.
Edit: I just noticed I pasted page 3 of 3. You have to toggle back to page 1 to start the article.

Bill
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...T2010031302945

[JackM]

Hi Bill,

I wasn't a fan of the pacified hamlet programme. I read a book called "Once a Warrior King" by David Donovan a number of years ago and in it, Donovan talks of the iniquities of the Hamlet Evaluation Programme, which being a US Army programme, may be different to what you're describing.

It was a foolish attempt at the numbers game and proved a house of cards around Tet 1968

Donovan's book is a very good read from the viewpoint of a very isolated junior officer.


All the best


Jack