chapter 144j1

11/30/2014

Jolly Green Giant

very special operations

My journey in retirement is to seek a better understanding of the world, which is also a journey of self discovery. No one cares about my journey, really. Everyone has his own journey and that's as it should be. But we all leave the safety of the mother ship at some point to explore the unknown, to seek out what we are looking for.

In the Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos secret war phase of the Vietnam War, the U.S. developed equipment and trained a variety of soldiers for specialty missions. Kind of interesting that it was the Russian immigrant Igor Sikorsky whose influence was so instrumental in America's first "Helicopter War" to stop the spread of Communism. But fear not, the "Domino Theory" is still alive and well in the guise of the "Terrorist Threat".

Going deep into enemy territory there had to have been an apprehension as to whether one would survive.

In basic training at Fort Dix my company of draftees sang songs to keep the cadence while marching. "I want to be an Airborne Ranger, I want to go to Vietnam, I want to kill some Vietcong." 10,000 miles away was the closest I came to this reality. But that doesn't begin to measure the difference between my stateside service and that of the Special Forces in the war theater. Note that you see no boots on the ground as we were only there in an advisory role.

Search and Rescue of downed pilots is one of the primary focal points of this chapter. It's a basic instinct that we are born with.

Link to a more extensive, detailed coverage version of this chapter.

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