Posted by
William D. Dannenmaier on Saturday, July 17, 2010 8:03:13 AM
Not counting Christmas morning, 1952, when I experienced my first enemy shell fire, I have six months of continuous combat experience, four of it as an infantry scout. In June, 1953, my squad was stationed on Outpost Howe on a mountain top immediately behind the front line and overlooking Outpost Harry, a hill which was in a position to control enemy movement on the eastern side of the ChorwonValley, which led directly to Seoul. Our job was to scout for Harry. It was an important hill in a now forgotten “police” action.
The timing was important. President Eisenhower’s political capital was based on the success of truce talks we were holding with the North Koreans and the Chinese. If the talks were successful, he would be praised: failure would result in condemnation. At the peace table his envoys had offered for both sides to maintain the positions they held at that time.
This provided a win/win situation for the enemy. With the exception of the 15th Infantry Regiment and elements of the 5th, there were no experienced infantry soldiers between them and Seoul. If they could break through the Fifteenth they would once again control most of Korea. On the other hand, if they failed, President Eisenhower had agreed to a truce at the present front.
They attacked on the night of the 10th of June. Orders sent to Colonel Akers of the Fifteenth were to “Hold at All Costs.” Those of us up front didn’t know that, we simply knew that all hell was breaking loose.
The 15th consisted of four battalions, three American, one Greek. A total of about four thousand soldiers. They were backed up by elements of the 5th Infantry Regiment. While two regiments may have had as many as eight thousand men, the total number of working, experienced, infantry soldiers was five or six thousand at most, the remainder being persons such as medics, mailmen, cooks, wiremen and other supporting soldiers. Against this group, the Chinese threw two divisions, about 20 thousand fighting men. The fight for Harry lasted eight days, including five nights of mass attacks. An estimated 7000 enemy soldiers were killed. We lost about 2300 men killed and wounded, but they did not die in vain. They held. South Korea remained free.
Consider it. Twenty thousand men, attacking for eight nights, could not take one small hill, never defended by more than a hundred men at any given time. That is what concerns me about Afghanistan.
When he was campaigning for office, President Obama said we were failing in Iraq, but that was unimportant, Afghanistan was important to American interests, not Iraq and its oil. If elected he would withdraw from Iraq and focus on Afghanistan. If I recall correctly, the general in charge of the Afghanistan campaign said he needed 60, 000 soldiers to pacify the warring tribes, President Bush’s initial foray having reduced the Taliban and the Al Queda. President Obama replaced that general. His new general was reported to have asked for eighty thousand soldiers initially, reducing this request to 40,000 following talks with the president. He was promised 20,000. A year later he was replaced as the situation, for Americans, grew steadily worse.
Compare the two examples above, twenty thousand experienced soldiers were unable to take one small hill from a combined force numbering about 5000 fighting men with no more than 100 on the hill at any one time, but President Obama expects to pacify an entire nation consisting of well armed tribes whose hatred of one another, historically, has been exceeded only by their hatred of outsiders, be they Alexander’s Persians 3,000 years ago, Russians twenty or thirty years ago, or, now, Americans. Twenty thousand are too few to win in Afghanistan, too few to even survive.
American military personnel being sent to Afghanistan are being sacrificed for political expediency by President Obama. He probably can’t think of a way to justify bringing the military home from a nation he said was important but neither is he willing to do as President Johnson became infamous for, sending in the quarter or half million soldiers necessary to win. While Obama dallies people are dying. His indecision is sacrificing our men and women.
I have a grandson, August, whom Sheila and I grew to love dearly during the summers he spent with us, who is in the Marines and is scheduled for duty in Afghanistan this fall. Sorry Mr. President, if something happens to August, I shall never forgive you for his needless death or injury. Not just relatives of those few serving in Afghanistan, but none of us should forgive you for the people you are currently, needlessly, mindlessly permitting to suffer and die for your own hoped for glory.