On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 18:09:46 GMT, Michael Wise wrote:

In article ,
Ed Rasimus wrote:

One interesting thing I've noted is that Vietnam vets who fought
hand-to-hand combat seem to overwhelmingly be far less retroactively
gung-ho on the war than those who flew fixed wing far above. Why do you
suppose that is?


There could be a number of reasons. First, the number who today claim
"hand-to-hand combat" seems unfortunately to be drastically inflated
by thousands of poseurs claiming to be something they were not. See
Burkitt's "Stolen Valor" for some astonishing tales.

I doubt any of us who are or have been on active duty have much trouble
spotting a poseur. I'm speaking based on conversations I had with people
who most definitely fought hand-to-hand, like the people I served with
who flew CSAR, some of the people I worked with at the VA, and more than
a handful of disabled vets who I assisted in getting their benefits.

Burkitt reserves a lot of space in his book to discuss the VA.

Why is it that most of those people are far less gung-ho about that
conflict than people such as yourself who flew high above the ground?
I'm not trying to denigrate any type of combat experience, but 24/7
dangers faced on the ground apparently fostered different impressions.

Indeed they do. The sustained combat experience on the ground is
decidedly different than an hour or two "across the fence." But there
is also the difference between several days of intense ground combat
(and let's acknowledge that SEA was considerably less intense than the
incredible duration of battle in WW II), and months of daily rising to
face the mission of the day. Consider the Luftwaffe who had no end of
tour, but simply flew until the war would be over or they would be
dead.

During Rolling Thunder, I got up each day and went to a briefing with
25 other guys. On average, each and every day for six months, one of
those 25 would be lost. Some days, none. Some days three or four.
Average, one a day. Keep going to the briefing and one day you will be
the one.


Of those who served on the ground, the proportion of career to draftee
and officer to lower-rank enlisted could change the perception of
events. Of ground vets from Vietnam, I have seldom encountered any
that went so far as John Kerry in their condemnation of their fellow
warriors.

Are you speak of encounters with them while the war was still going...or
years later?

I continue to encounter veterans from all services.

As for those who flew "far above", you might want to consider the
sustained loss rates of the Rolling Thunder participants in comparison
to those "hand-to-hand" combats. Or, maybe check the proportion of
POWs between the ground and air combatants.


Nobody questions the dangers faced by aircrews who flew missions in
Vietnam. However, in a fast-mover your odds of getting back to base
outside the country for a cold beer and a hot meal are much better than
the grunt in the jungles with an M-16 even surviving. I don't see how
that can be denied. It's one of the reasons I wasn't a grunt...even
though I knew the chances of surviving any more than a handful of
potential CSAR missions was not good.

The odds of completing a 100 mission NVN tour were poor. In '66 an
F-105 was lost every 65 missions over NVN. For every five that started
a tour, three of the five would be lost. 40% survival rate.

There are definitely ground units from the war that suffered similar
rates, but that is the exception.

Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8