Re: 50 years ago today - 29 Sep 1950

[<Cfbernard@aol.com>]

Do read my conviction that Aderholt illustrates very well how we took the 
wrong lessons from Korea to Vietnam.

Best,

Carl


Warren Trest: AIR COMMANDO ONE, Heinie Aderholt and America's Secret Air 
Wars, Smithsonian Institution Press

This work is another of Smithsonian's unique services to the United States 
and should be recognized as such.  It is easily one of the most fluent, 
credible, and understandable indictments available that summarize credibly 
the Armed Services bureaucracies' actions to Americanize the Vietnam War.  It 
merits a close reading by all the nation's decision makers, particularly 
those wearing uniforms.

It is doubtful that either Aderholt or Trest had this objective in mind as 
they set about tracing the post-WWII life and career of Heinie himself.  He 
and I overlapped in our military work in  Korea, Laos, and Vietnam, a 
considerable part of the reason I've understood him so easily.  I am 
fascinated by how much his and my feelings about insurgencies, and the 
failing efforts our nation made to counter them, coincide.  It is no surprise 
to any of you that our own uniformed bureaucracies, and their dedication to 
"what they knew" were the major assets our enemies had in the "People's Wars" 
we fought.

Heinie came to our wars with his Air Force pilot's  intellectual baggage, 
which was much different than mine.  He was far more visible than me in his 
various early roles in Korea.  I knew a bit of his efforts there because of 
Joe Ulatoski, "the six-foot pole no one wanted to touch."  Joe ran the ranger 
efforts in the North based in part on the intelligence Heinie was acquiring 
from the Korean agents his outfit (often him) were preparing, and then 
dropping by parachute in critical areas.  70 percent of these people made it 
back.  Recall how many got back from similar drop missions in Vietnam.  Zero, 
hence a very different war as far too few of us knew.

His early career included command of a 500 man all black squadron at Maxwell 
AFB in 1946.  He describes this unit "… as the first and one of the best USAF 
units he ever commanded."  His appreciation of how to lead troops in unusual, 
stressful situations began then.

His side comments of the role of the C-130 gunships and what they 
accomplished on the Ho Chi Minh Trail were powerful.  He speaks to the Jet 
Fighter Plane Mafia folding the extraordinary number of trucks the C-130 
destroyed into their own records.  He said the same thing to his chain of 
command in 1969.  This made the hostility to him of that part of the USAF 
last forever.  This was not the only reason for some of its commanders to 
feel distress with him, of course.  In truth, he made many of them know that 
their focus on fighting the war they understood was irrelevant to Vietnam.

His conclusions about war began with the centrality of intelligence.  He 
understood that our first priority was acquiring information on, and then 
understanding what we knew of our enemies, our allies, and ourselves, a 
still-ignored responsibility.  His experience with the CIA is much different 
and more positive than that of most serving soldiers, probably because he 
brought to them experience and capabilities that were not anywhere in their 
inventories.

The chapter devoted to the Hmong mountain people is titled "The Secret War in 
Laos."  Heinie is particularly appreciative of General Vang Pao.  His 
discussion of how the Hmong fought our war makes our disgraceful abandoning 
of them even harder to stomach.  He describes this as "shameful," and making 
up for it with assistance to their survivors in Laos and in the United States 
"my last major project in this lifetime."

Heinie was also responsible for supporting our effort to use the Khamba 
tribesmen in Tibet to make the Chinese control of their recently captured 
country costly.  His description of our training Khamba quietly and illegally 
in Colorado, and then transporting them back to their country made me cringe 
as I recalled earlier stories of this.  The betrayals of both peoples was 
shameful.  Worse, this appears to be an enduring pattern, i.e., more recently 
the Kurds in the north of Iraq.

Briefly, I learned so much from Heinie's discussion of how he worked about 
and around disputing factions in the USAF, that my own experience in the Army 
is in a much better perspective.  Both of us noted that the death of  
President Kennedy allowed our four Armed Services to "Americanize" a war we 
did not understand and should never have been fighting.  The early boost made 
in helping our uniformed seniors understand The War of our Times, i.e., 
"countering insurgencies" had only been possible because of JFK's support and 
understanding.  All of Heinie's contemporaries would profit from reflecting 
on how he lived and served his country.  Their reactions to his sterling life 
would be received with gratitude by today's commanders and those charged with 
teaching responsibility and leadership to young officers and NCOs.

The important lessons from this account of Heinie's life need to be shared.  
One of these is that most of his knowledgeable contemporaries in both the 
USAF and the US Army, and enough of his chiefs in the USAF knew he was 
correct and worthy of support.  Seeing that his knowledge and courage were 
honored by so many, despite the annoyance of some of his chiefs, will help 
those who know of it follow his noble path.  His admirers need to share their 
appreciation of him in every venue.  Warren Trest's work makes this far 
easier for everyone of his readers and is a service for everyone in the 
nation, particularly for those who elect to spend their lives in a uniform.