According to the Brave Rifles report, 2nd Squadron lost 8 men and 12 soldiers from other units who joined them in the fight. (p. 147). According to the Special Forces officer, however, losses actually included:
Approximately 250 Americans killed in action.
1 HH47 Chinook helicopter
4 Blackhawk helicopters
4 M1A2 Abrams Tanks
30 Bradley Fighting Vehicles
Heavy losses of 5-ton trucks and fuel tankers
This is total, anonymous source bull shit! Anyone who has ever spent more then an hour on active duty in any military knows you do not hide 250 Line Ones!
If someone cannot realize this for what it is, they should not be allowed out in traffic! When are we going to stop posting this “eat our young” crap!
#12. I agree with your assessment. During some of our worst weeks in Vietnam, we lost about 267 men during a week, which included action in some or all 44 provinces.
The casualties were listed in a weekly DoD/DDI handout on Thursdays. I used these to coordinate American casualties with the Hanoi Lobby protests in 1969/70. Thus I was able to keep a running tabulation on KIA/WIA/MIAs per week and match it against monthly or yearly summaries.
No way we lost 240 at Tal Afar, esp. 30 Bradley Fighting Vehicles (possibly included destroyed and damaged, but this isn’t stated as such).
However, McMaster is not coming off as a very competent field commander and that spells trouble for us right now.
Not listening to combat veterans in the field, like Mark Clark refused to listen to soldiers and journalists who drove basically all the way to Rome and told him the roads were open. He didn’t believe them, held up the advance, and then had to fight the reinforced Germans at a great cost up the Leg of Italy to Rome.