Trenton, New Jersey
It’s early morning as Carole and I sit quietly in her car at the Trenton train station. She’s my girlfriend for over a year now and I love her. We hold hands and kiss. “I’ll call you from Fort Bragg.” Carole drives away, and I step into the station. “Oh. . .” Don Hackett stands there, with his hands jammed in pockets. We know each other from high school, but not that well. “Induction?” “Yeah.” Don’s lanky, ...
By Brian Delate
The following quote comes from The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. I reflected on these words briefly for my friend Peter Meineck, PhD, professor of classics in the modern world at New York University. For SFTT I felt I had to expand it.
“Every man in the army was filled with tears and so disturbed that they found it hard to leave, even from enemy territory, where they had already experienced misery beyond tears, and considering what future pain ...
Continue Reading →It is easy to find fault with the Department of Veterans Affairs (“the VA”), particularly when it comes to Veterans with PTSD.
Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, tried to employ body count statistics to assess our progress in the war in Vietnam. Similarly, the VA has erected a statistical house-of-cards to deceive Veterans and their loved that the VA has the answers for Veterans coping with PTSD and ...
Continue Reading →Like many readers, I am of a certain “vintage” (sounds a hell of a lot better than “age”) that clearly recalls the war in Vietnam. The Ken Burns series on Vietnam has resurrected many of these memories and feelings of a war that was _____________________ (readers are invited to add their own phrase).
As a young 2LT in the Pentagon – about as rare as a tick on a spaceship – I “experienced” Vietnam from ...
Continue Reading →Found below are a few military news items that caught my attention this past week. I am hopeful that the titles and short commentary will encourage SFTT readers to click on the embedded links to read more on subjects that may be of interest to them.
If you have subjects of topical interest, please do not hesitate to reach out. Contact SFTT at info@sftt.org.
North Korea Reportedly Seeks Military “Equilibrium” with the U.S.
North Korea said on Saturday ...
In yet another grim reminder of the never-ending war in Afghanistan, a U.S. service member was killed in Helmand province this week after his patrol triggered a roadside bomb. The blast also wounded another American and six Afghan soldiers.
As reported in the Washington Post:
Continue Reading →According to a statement released by the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan, U.S. troops were accompanying their Afghan counterparts near the province’s capital of Lashkar Gah when their ...
Dr. Henry Grayson, one of SFTT’s distinguished members of its medical task force always points that there are no two identical cases of Post Traumatic Stress. In effect, each individual brings a set of prior conscious and unconscious experiences – dare I call it “baggage” – that is often triggered in totally unpredictable ways during periods of great stress. Many veterans have suffered traumatic events in combat and this battlefield stress is almost impossible to overcome when these brave warriors ...
Continue Reading →In his reflections on this battle along the north bank of the Cua Viet River when one Marine infantry battalion (2d Battalion, 4th Marines) went nose-to-nose with a North Vietnamese Army division, a Marine wrote today (May 3, 2013):
AN ENDURING RECOLLECTION WAS A SCENE AT THE MOST DISTANT POINT OF MARINE ADVANCE. AMONG THE NVA BODIES THERE LAY A SHORT LINE OF DEAD MARINES, LIKELY OF FOX COMPANY. ONE MARINE WAS SPRAWLED HEAD FIRST ACROSS ...
Continue Reading →I recently received the following letter from American Legion Post #184 which is quoted below in its entirety. I think it is fair to say that rarely a day goes by when those in SFTT to not think about Vietnam and the valiant warriors who sacrificed so much. We applaud your inspired effort to honor these heroes and hope that we as a society have the same resolute passion to honor those who serve in uniform today. Our ...
Continue Reading →As an Army 2nd Lt stationed at the Pentagon during the Viet Nam war, I still vividly recall the military brass scrambling to deal with one crisis after another while pretending that they were in control of a war that had already been largely lost. With Robert McNamara at the helm, competent military leaders were replaced by faceless bureaucrats who were more adept at tabulating body counts than combat itself. Working at the Pentagon during that period was a surreal ...
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