Truth in Education and the Vietnam War

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Patrick Shrier

This post is a direct result of my frustration with the garbage spouted by history teachers in the modern education system. The subject is a photo taken during the Vietnam War and the lies that have grown up around the events leading to the picture. The Photo is named “The Terror of War” and it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 in the Spot News Photography category.

“The Terror of War” Pulitzer Prize winner 1973 – Spot News Photography

Along with the 1968 photo “Saigon Execution” (another post their as well), this is one of the most iconic images to come out of the Vietnam War. What started this is when my son came home from school and asked me about the photo. He was told by his history teacher that the Americans bombed the village and that the girl in the photo subsequently died. Naturally, I lost it. First, I was floored that such garbage was being taught, especially since the facts surrounding the picture are so well known. I told him his teacher was wrong and told him the facts. He then asked his teacher about it after class one day whereupon she told him that I was lying and she had seen an interview with the American pilot who dropped the bombs. She is no doubt referring to John Plummer, who asserted in a 1996 Canadian documentary that he ordered the bombing, a story later proved to be false.

Video of the airstrike on Trang Bang taken in 1972, the aircraft are clearly identifiable as Douglas A-1 Skyraiders, and aircraft only flown by the RVNAF in 1972.

The short version of the picture is this. The photo was taken on June 8, 1973 by Huynh Cong “Nick” Ut an Associated Press photographer after the village of Trang Bang was accidentally napalmed by A-1 Skyraiders from the 518th Fighter Squadron of the Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF). The girl in the picture is named Phan Thi Kim Phuc an she was nine years old in the photo. The two boys on the left in the picture are her brothers and the children on the right are her cousins.

The airstrike was ordered by the commander of the 25th Division from the ARVN and carried out by aircraft of the RVNAF 518th Fighter Squadron. At no point in the loop between requesting, authorizing, or executing the airstrikes were any Americans involved. It was a completely Vietnamese show. Even more back story is that the village of Trang Bang was under attack by North Vietnamese forces and that is why the 25th division was there in the first place. The airstrike hit the wrong target which resulted in injuries and death to civilians. Not to be flip, but these kinds of things happen in war. War is only clean in video games.

Kim Phuc survived the war and defected to Canada in 1992 where she currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with her husband and two sons. She also established the Kim Foundation, a charity dedicate to helping the child victims of war. Ironically enough, the website for her charity repeats the lie that an American adviser was responsible for calling in the airstrike.

References:

Horst Faas and Marianne Fulton The Survivor, http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0008/ng1.htm. accessed 8 Feb 2013
List of Pulitzer Prize winning Photos in the Spot News Category, http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Spot-News-Photography. accessed 8 Feb 2013
Timberlake, Ronald N. The Fraud Behind The Girl In The Photo: Hijacking the history of the Vietnam veteran 1999. http://www.ndqsa.com/myth.html accessed 8 Feb 2013
Zhang, Michael. www.petapixel.com Interview with Nick Ut. 19 Sep. 2012 http://www.petapixel.com/2012/09/19/interview-with-nick-ut-the-photojournalist-who-shot-the-iconic-photo-napalm-girl/ accessed 8 Feb 2013

Women in Combat Part 2

Aside

Pentagon announces decision to lift ban on women in combat roles: How prescient I now feel given that less than a week after I posted about this the Defense Secretary announces an end to the female combat exclusion. I wish I had been wrong.

A couple of examples of the reaction in the press (I will only note in passing that most of those praising this decision have never served in the military or if they have were not Combat Arms): Women in combat: Let’s get real, Women will add combat strength: editorial, Women in combat — the controversy that wasn’t, Editors’ Roundtable: Women in combat?, Women in combat a dangerous experiment, Our View: Women in combat, Women in combat - The generals defer to political fashion in the Age of Obama, Women Have No Business in Combat.

Finally, the transcript of the SecDef’s Press Briefing where he announced the policy change.

Image credit CNN.com

Women in Combat

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Patrick Shrier

The role of women in combat has been much in the military press and civilian papers recently because of a lawsuit filed by several women who claim the military’s ban on women in combat positions is discriminatory. There are folks who argue that women belong in combat although those arguments generally boil down to it ain’t fair and it it’s sexists that women cannot be in combat. The amount of intellectual dishonesty around this debate is amazing and should stun any thinking person.

A picture is worth a thousand words or 1,158 in this case.

I will take the above pro-women in combat piece and debunk it as it is full of the kind of drivel that gets tossed around by the post-modern set when this subject comes up. I take the most umbrage with the first point as the last two are simply liberal tropes that really don’t even merit a response though I will give them a short one. His points, and he numbered them, are:

1. They can’t handle the physical strain

This one is easy to refute as it is straight physiology. I don’t think anyone is arguing that women are not mentally as capable as men. A simple look at the physical standards that currently exist show up the differences in physical ability between men and women.

A little aside about military fitness standards though. I will only cite the army minimums here as they are what I am most familiar with and represent the minimum physical abilities the army feels a soldier needs to have based on differing physiology. I will not debate whether the standards measure true fitness and will concede that they do not measure fitness very well. As a Master Fitness Trainer for ten years I will say that the Army PT Test is seriously flawed and I am not convinced the new standards and test being considered for roll out this year is any better. They are what we have though and so I will use them.

The Army physical training standards are to be found in FM 7-22 Army Physical Readiness Training. The requirements to pass the Army PT test are thoughtfully put right on the back side of the scorecard DA Form 705. The current army PT test consists of three events, all are timed and performance standards are adjusted based on age. They are 2 minutes of push-ups, two minutes of sit-ups and a timed two mile run. A minimum score of 60 points on each event is required in order to pass the test. The requirements for what constitutes a push-up or sit-up are pretty detailed and the run course must be generally flat with a slope not to exceed three percent.The relevant standards (minimum and maximum) for 17-21 year olds are below and here is the form DA 705-2 :

The Minimums (minimum equals 60 points)
- Push-up minimums male – 71 repetitions; female – 42 repetitions
- Sit-up minimums male and female – 53 repetitions
- Two mile run min. male – 15:54; female – 18:54
The Maximums (max equals 100 points)
- Push-up maximums male – 42 repetitions; female – 17 repetitions
- Sit-up maximums male and female – 78 repetitions
- Two mile run max. male – 13:00 ; female – 15:36

I find it significant, and always have that the female max for push-ups is the male minimum and the female max is so close to the male minimum in running. The sit-up standards are the same but that change is only about 5-6 years old, they used to be different as well until research said they should change.

Can anyone really argue that women are as physically capable as men? I think not, and I further think that everyone’s personal experience bears out the fact that women are in general not as strong as men. Sure, there are women who are just as strong as most men but they are tiny minority of all women.

One of the sub-arguments made in the current lawsuit is that women are already doing combat tasks as part of Female Engagements Teams (FET). This is bullshit, as anyone who knows anything about what a FET does can tell you. FETs do not engage in traditional infantry combat, they accompany infantry squads to help the all-male infantry avoid offending the cultural sensibilities of local cultures. FETs are not engaged in kicking down doors and taking hills, they are helping search women and talking to local female tribal members. Female MPs are not kicking down doors either, they are doing traditional MP tasks, which do not include ground combat except peripherally.

During my time in the army I was a Cavalry Scout and spent most of my career on M3 Bradley’s. I challenge anyone to find a female who can do the same thing. Typical tasks include moving 70 lb ammo cans in cramped quarters, pulling the 90 lb gun for maintenance, and doing just about anything maintenance wise on the vehicle from throwing around 100lb track sections to replacing 100+ lb road wheels. The tasks on a tank and the parts on a tank are even heavier. When deployed my OTV weighed roughly 60-70 lbs depending on the particular equipment mix I chose for the assigned mission. I question whether any but the most fit female could do the same things.

Another issue is hygiene, and females have more stringent hygiene requirements than males do to ensure their health. I don’t know for certain but am pretty sure that a female could not live for a week or two out of her vehicle without a shower without experiencing hygiene related health issues. When I deployed to Bosnia in January 1996 my entire platoon did not get the chance to take a real shower for 7 weeks when we finally took the opportunity to go to Tuzla and use the facilities there. Furthermore, we lived in our vehicles until May when our tent camp was finally constructed.

I simply think that females are physically incapable of performing most combat tasks of the combat arms soldier. If, as rumor suggest, gender-neutral standards are being developed, I wonder what the price in reduced combat capability we will suffer in direct ground combat units.

2. Men can’t handle fighting alongside women:

Bullshit, this is typical feminist/liberal/post-modern garbage they spout to try and shame the segment of society unable or unwilling to engage in critical thought. More need not be said.

3. Women don’t really want to be in combat, really:

This may or may not be true. To my knowledge no comprehensive study has been done on this issue. I suspect that it is a true assertion but absent a real study or poll I hesitate to approve or condemn it.

The push to allow women into combat units has less to do with combat ability, the currency of war, than an effort to once again inflict some social engineering goal on our military. I have confidence that the military will adapt as we always have, I just worry what the combat and death toll consequences of such a development will be when we have to fight a conventional opponent and are not just chasing insurgents around in the mountains or deserts. Women may be able to handle the physical stresses of continuous combat. I doubt it, and do not want to see, our soldiers, male or female, pay the price for the imposition of the post-modern agenda on our military. The argument may also be that other countries are doing it. Every time I hear that I hear my mother in the back of head asking me “if all my friends stuck their head in an oven would I do it too.” Because somebody else is being stupid is not a very good justification for me doing the same.

I would love to hear any comments in agreement or disagreement from my readers.

Book Review: The Battlefields of the First World War: The Unseen Panoramas of the Western Front by Peter Barton

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Patrick Shrier

The Battlefields of the First World War: The Unseen Panoramas of the Western Front by Peter Barton is one of the most visually stunning books about WWI I have ever read. This work is more than just a history of British participation on the Western Front. It makes use of officially produced trench panoramas to illuminate conditions of trench warfare better than almost any other pictorial record of WWI I have run across.

The book itself is 358 pages in length with a bibliography, picture credits, list of further reading, and index. In addition, and one of the things that makes this book outstanding it includes two CD-ROMs that contain digital versions of all of the panoramas discussed in the book. The worst part is the prohibitive price of the book, anywhere from $369 to $900 on Amazon as of this writing, that means this book is only in reach of the wealthy or libraries. I got the copy I read from a library. All the panoramas used in the book and many additional ones are also available online at the Imperial War Museum First World War Panoramas Collection site. The photos included with the book are more easily searchable than those from the internet but the internet site is more accessible to the average person. The book is organized into eight geographically organized chapters that start at Ypres and work their way east to Cambrai, the furthest east extension of the British Sector of the front during the war. There are over 200 panoramas discussed in the book and each is numbered and available on the CDs.

One of the most interesting things about the photos used in the book is the amazing difference between the photos seen here and the typical image people have of the conditions of trench warfare. Most people, myself included prior to reading this, have an image of the Western Front fixed in their minds in which the battlefield is a barren wasteland full of corpses, shell holes, and mud, in which any greenery is absent. The photos here give the lie to that image. To be sure there are panoramas in which that stereotype is upheld, particularly those taken in Ypres sector during the great battles fought there. But even in those pictures, the band of destruction is relatively narrow and undamaged land can be seen just outside of the zone of fighting in almost every picture. What was most striking to me is how much greenery is to be seen in No Man’s Land in the photos and the sheer emptiness of the landscape. Besides some trenches, and the occasional helmet of a soldier poking above a trench there is no one to be seen.

The photos are illuminating for several reasons. One, many photos show exactly how close the opposing trenches really were to each other. It is one thing to read that No Man’s Land was only 30 yards across in places, it is something else to see that in pictures. Another thing illustrated by the photos quite well is how commanding German positions were across most of the front and how big a difference 90 feet in elevation can make. When I visited the Ypres battlefields in 2004 I was shocked by how far the view was from on top of the 95 foot height of Passchendaele Ridge. That is also illustrated in these panoramas.

The narrative text in the book puts each photo into perspective and places it within the the context of the war itself and the battles themselves. I have been to several of the battlefields in the book and the several photos from the same positions are included in the book. These then and now contrasts highlight how little the terrain has changed in the ensuing decades since the war ended.

The panoramas are the reason for this book and they make it worthwhile to read, even for those knowledgeable about WWI. Along with the narrative, they give the reader a whole new sense of the experience of life in the trenches. This is an outstanding book that I highly recommend. I just wish it was not so prohibitively expensive, which would make it available to a much wider audience.

Stormin’ Norman passes away.

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Patrick Shrier

The architect of the whirlwind coalition victory against Saddam Hussein in the 1990 Gulf War, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf has passed away from complications related to pneumonia at age 78. He will be remembered by military historians for the way in which he designed the air and ground campaign that resulted in what has come to be called the 100 Hour War. He also had some very memorable press conferences during the war.