Free Republic

I can remember Christmas, 1965, like it was yesterday. We had rotated from the field back to Da Nang air base and were "living large" in hardback tents near Gate Six at the south end of the field. My company was on bunker watch on the perimeter, and we were suffering another day of drizzling cold rain and wading in mud. Behind us about 50 yards was "Runway Road" thar ran around the base, and between our sandbag bunkers and the road were old steel French watch towers. In front about 30 yards was triple strand concertina, then a mine...

It appears to be a rule in "military history and lessons learned" that we don't remember the lessons. Below is an article by Vince Morris of the New York Post, who is probably too young to remember a little "conflict" called Vietnam. But I won't forget it, or the lessons we learned, since I was a young US Marine infantryman who did my share of rice paddy wading in I Corps in 1965-66. One of the lessons American fighting men learn in the first few days of war is that our rules don't count. We learn about the enemy,...