You must be mistaken. The US wouldn't do things like that.
You must be mistaken. The US wouldn't do things like that.
The incredible irony is that while Phoenix was condemned, after the fact, it was extremely effective, and so decimated the Viet Cong that they really forced them into the Tet Offensive, where they were effectively wiped out.
Today, W. Bush recreated Phoenix as the new SOCOM, at ten times the size, and they conducted their own WoT parallel to the conventional one. I remembered with some amusement reading how at a particular point they had reached a predicament: they were so good at gathering information that it was hard to exploit it.
Far too many targets, which is what happened to Warthog pilots in GWI, who were depleting their ammo so fast that they had their mechanics fab their guns for three round bursts instead of full auto.
One little known but highly effective Vietnam program I wish they would reactivate was called “Death Watch”, in which, due to a shortage of junior infantry officers who were really expert with calling in field artillery, that for a short time, field artillery enlisted troops were assigned to infantry units to do so.
Infantry casualties in units with such FA enlisted dropped to nothing other than accidents and disease. As soon as they spotted enemy, their FA guy would call in arty so accurately that the infantry never got close enough to fire their rifles. They were okay with this.
But officers were horrified that mere enlisted men could call in fires, so the program was killed dead.