The "Soul Brothers" Handshake

     Sometimes, the smallest things can throw the best laid plans into a tailspin.  It is surprising how people who are accustomed to handling all sorts of important, world changing, substantive matters, can go into a tizzy over a very small, insignificant thing.  Such was the case in the early September of 1980 when Ambassador Mansfield's Office in Embassy Tokyo received a call from the Foreign Ministry, from Foreign Minister Ito's Office.
     According to Ito's assistant, the Foreign Minister had injured his right index finger playing golf!  The finger was dislocated and the Foreign Minister could not bend it or apply any pressure on it.  In a few days there was going to be a treaty signing ceremony at the Foreign Ministry.  Ambassador Mansfield and Foreign Minister Ito were to sign the U.S. /Japan Bilateral Security Agreement.  It was a renewal of the agreement which had been drafted and agreed upon months earlier.  The ceremony, of course, would conclude with the Ambassador and Foreign Minister Ito shaking hands.  The handshaking was an important gesture to signify that the two countries were in agreement, and it provided the photo ops for all the major press representatives at the ceremony.
     Ito's assistant was very concerned, how were the two going to shake hands?  The Foreign Minister could not shake hands in a conventional manner, since that would apply pressure on the index finger.  Did the American Embassy have any suggestions?
     At the time I was working in the Political/Military Affairs and was scheduled to accompany Ambassador Mansfield, along with the Political Counselor, to the treaty signing ceremony.  Everyone involved were stumped briefly.  Then one of my friends in the Political Section jokingly suggested that the Ambassador and the Foreign Minister shake hands like "soul brothers."
     Back in the day, it may be hard to believe for the younger generation today, but people shook hands in a conventional manner when they greeted or parted.  "Fist bumping" and "high fiving" did not exist!  The only ones who used to "high five" were professional athletes, namely NBA players.  Even the NFL players did not "high five" yet.  "Fist bumping" along with the more unconventional handshakes, did not exist at all in the general society. It was practiced in prisons among cons and among some of the younger blacks in the inner cities.  The clasping of hands like arm wrestlers was referred to as the "soul brothers" handshake because it was practiced in the black community.  This form of handshaking had been practiced for a number of years in some of the African societies and it migrated to the American shores to the black community.  In the American society in general, it was not practiced, although some of the more "hip" and younger urban non-black Americans, particularly musicians and others in entertainment, started to use this form of handshake.
     When the word reached Ambassador Mansfield that Foreign Minister Ito had an injured right index finger and couldn't shake hands in a conventional manner, he became thoughtful and puffed on his pipe.  Taking my friend's suggestion (although it was made in jest), I said to Ambassador Mansfield that perhaps he and the Foreign Minister could shake hands in an unconventional manner, like "soul brothers."  Ambassador Mansfield looked puzzled at the suggestion, so I explained that it was clasping of hands like in arm wrestling.  The Ambassador brightened up at my explanation and said, after puffing a few more times on his pipe, "So it is, and so it will be.  We will shake hands like "soul brothers."
     I called the Foreign Minister's assistant and told him about the solution to the problem.  At first he didn't understand what I meant by "soul brother" or "soru burada" handshake.  I asked him if he had seen any of the Shaft movies which were popular in Japan, mainly because of its theme song!  He said he had.  I then told him if he ever noticed how the black people shook hands, and at that point my man understood and chuckled and said, yes, he knew, and he would pass it on to the Foreign Minister.
     On September 16, 1980, Ambassador Mansfield, accompanied by the Political Counselor Robert Immerman and the Political/Military Affairs Officer (me), went over to the Gaimusho (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and met with Foreign Minister Ito and his contingent.  After the usual pleasantries, the treaty was signed and the handshaking took place with all the flashes from press cameras.  The handshaking was done in the "soul brothers" manner as can be seen in the photo that I posted on my FB wall.  It looks almost as if Ito is pointing a finger at Mansfield!  Some of the Japanese press was a bit confused by the handshake while others caught on immediately!  Everything went off without a hitch!

Emperors I Have Met...sort of!

     Well, actually I only met one, Emperor Hirohito of Japan.  At the same time I did meet Crown Prince Akihito, who is now the Emperor of Japan, but back then, he was the Crown Prince, not the Emperor that he is today.  But, I can fudge a bit and say I met two Emperors of Japan.
      In the Spring of 1980, the American Embassy, as well as other embassies in Tokyo, received an invitation from the Japanese Foreign Ministry (Gaimusho) to attend the annual Emperor's Cherry Blossom Viewing.  Those embassy employees who were on the "blue list" (the diplomatic list) were invited and each embassy was to submit a list of names of proposed attendees.  The viewing was to take place that year at Akasaka Palace Grounds.  The festivities would involve not only viewing of the spectacular cherry blossom display, but sumptuous delicacies and refreshments served on the grounds.  The highlight of the of this occasion was the formal reception line and the greeting and meeting of the Emperor and the Empress, the Crown Prince and Princess, and the rest of the Imperial Household of Japan.
     This was indeed an unusual and an exciting opportunity for those fortunate enough to be invited, not only to participate in a spectacular gala, but actually meet the Emperor and Empress of Japan.  Both Jo and I had been in Japan before I was assigned to the embassy.  In fact, I had lived in Japan as a kid for several years.  But neither one of us had an opportunity to meet the Emperor and the Empress before, so we were pretty excited.
     The American Embassy contingent was taken to the Akasaka Palace Grounds in shuttle vans and went through the rigid security checks before the Palace Gate.  We were on the grounds only for a short period, meeting other embassy guests when an announcement was made that we were to head for a designated area where the Imperial Reception Line was formed.  Japanese being sticklers for "proper" organization, we were told to line up in the order that we were instructed.  Pretty soon the line started to move, with each embassy grouped together.  As we neared the Emperor and the Empress, we could see that the Imperial Household was quite large.  Next to the Emperor and the Empress stood the Crown Prince and the Princess, followed by other Princes and Princesses, Dukes and Duchesses.  As Jo and I came up to face Emperor Hirohito, I noticed that there was a member of the Imperial Staff standing slightly to the rear and off to the side of Emperor Hirohito.  The man held a list and he read off our names and positions in the embassy!
     I was struck by the fact that Emperor Hirohito was a very small, slight man.  He must have stood all of about 5 feet 2 or 3 inches at most!  I was surprised that he spoke English as he said "I am very pleased to meet you," and shook my hand.  He then turned his attention to Jo and shook her hand and said something similar.  Next we shook the hand of the Empress, who only smiled and did not say anything in English.  The Crown Prince Akihito, the current Emperor, who stood next to his mother the Empress, was even shorter than his father, the Emperor.  Crown Prince Akihito, now Emperor Akihito, must be around 5 feet 1 or 2 inches tall, about an inch less than his father.  The Crown Prince also greeted in English as he shook hands, as did the Princess.  All of the Royal family apparently spoke some English, at least enough to say proper greetings.
     It was certainly interesting and exciting to meet and shake the hand of the Emperor of Japan and his family.  After the reception line, everyone not only viewed the spectacular cherry blossoms that were in full bloom, but enjoyed the wonderful food and refreshments.  The best sake, made especially for the occasion was served out of huge wooden casks and guests could take the special wooden cups as mementos after taking a drink.  It was truly a wonderful and spectacular event, and meeting the Emperor was the highlight.
     The Emperor's Cherry Blossom Viewing is an annual event, but not all years the Emperor appears to greet the guests.  The following year, Spring of 1981, the Emperor's Cherry Blossom Viewing was held at Meiji Park, but the Emperor and his family did not hold a reception line.  So, Jo and I were fortunate to have gotten an invitation to a cherry blossom viewing when the Emperor did appear to greet guests.
     Emperor Hirohito and Crown Prince Akihito were the only true Royalty that I had chance to meet in my life.  Later, when I was in Cairo, I met a number of diplomats from the Arabian Peninsula who had royal titles.  But, as someone once said, every desert nomad in the Arabian Peninsula who has more than one wife and a pair of goats is called a "Prince," and Muslims are legally allowed three wives!  It may be an exaggeration, but you get the picture.  I did not feel like I was meeting true Royalty when I met those diplomats, but meeting Emperor Hirohito and Crown Prince Akihito, I did feel as if I was meeting someone special!
    

U.S. Presidents I Have Met.....by Chance! Part 3

     JFK gave me the impression that he was a dynamic, young, take charge type of a president, and Jimmy Carter seemed too plain and folksy.  George H.W. Bush presented a very different picture.  He may not have had the presence like JFK, but neither did he appear to be just a "good old boy" like Jimmy Carter.  George Bush 41 (he was our 41st President)  had the unmistakable bearing of a statesman.  He was not stuffy or formal, on the contrary, he was plain!  Yet, there was definitely an aura of importance about him.  He just seemed very "presidential," although at the time I met him he was the Vice President, not the President.
     In August of 1984 I had been in Guayaquil, Ecuador with the U.S. Consulate General for about nine months.  That year, Ecuador elected a new president, Leon Febres-Cordero, a good friend of the U.S., and a personal friend of the U.S. Vice President George Bush.  In August the inauguration ceremony took place in Quito, Ecuador's capital, and various dignitaries were invited to attend, among them, George Bush.
     Ecuador, as lovely as it is, is basically a backwater country where few if any VIPs ever visit our diplomatic posts.  Having served in Tokyo and Athens prior to Guayaquil, it was refreshing to be at a place where we were not constantly besieged with VIPs, CODELs (Congressional Delegations) and such and we could concentrate on doing our jobs, rather than babysitting and playing tour guides.  Hardly anyone ever came to the Embassy in Quito, so Guayaquil, a constituent post, almost never got VIP visitors.
     As the inauguration ceremony unfolded on television, we watched it with some amusement.  It seems that, smaller the country, the greater the pomp and formality in their ceremonies.  You would have thought it was the crowning of the Emperor of the Roman Empire or something, not just an inauguration of the president of Ecuador!  We were also relieved that we didn't have to worry about any VIP visits!  But we were wrong!  No sooner the TV was turned off when we received a call that Air Force Two with the Vice President of the United States would be stopping in Guayaquil in a few hours for refueling!
     Well, we hardly ever had anyone of high rank visiting Guayaquil.  The last "important" figure to appear in Guayaquil was CIA's Director of Latin American Affairs.  He came on an unofficial visit to meet with one of his old friends, a former Ecuadorian politician.  But that was it, mostly we had visitors from the State Department who were of Brigadier or Major General level in civilian rank.  So, a visit from a Vice President was not only totally unexpected, but something that we were completely unaccustomed to having at post.  At the time, the Consul General was absent from post, so I was temporarily the acting principal officer.  So, Del Junker, the Admin Officer and I made the best arrangements that we could, contacted the Ecuadorian officials and had the VIP room at the airport reserved and prepared.
     A small three person delegation from Guayaquil's Consulate General rushed out to the airport, myself, Del Junker, and his assistant the General Services Officer.  It was a hot, humid and windy evening when the Air Force Two landed and taxied close to the terminal and the VIP room.  We walked over to the planeside and I met George Bush 41, welcoming him to Guayaquil.  Bush appeared genuinely surprised that we came out to meet him!  He apologized for causing inconvenience for us!  His apology took me completely by surprise, so much so that for a second I didn't know how to respond.  I ended up by saying something to the effect that "it was not a problem," or something equally inane as I shook his hand!  The photograph that I posted on FB was taken at the moment when I was responding to his apology!  If I look somewhat flustered in the photo, you know why!
     We, together with Secret Service and other members of Bush's staff walked over to the VIP room to wait while Air Force Two was being refueled.  Inside, George Bush 41 once more apologized for disrupting our normal routines.  He pointed out that he had been a head of mission and knew full well what a pain it was to have VIPs pop in.  Bush was our first head of mission to China after we normalized relations with PRC, so he indeed knew very well how disrupting the visitors can be to a post!
     It was interesting that all his staff members, especially the Secret Service, absolutely loved him.  The head of his Secret Service detail told me that Bush 41 was the nicest person he knew, always concerned about the welfare of those who worked for him, always trying not to impose on his staff!  Quite a difference from what I heard of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter's behavior with their staff!
     By the way, Air Force Two is the very same plane that is called Air Force One when the President is flying in it.  When the Vice President uses the plane, it becomes Air Force Two.  When the Secretary of State or Defense use the plane, it drops the "Air Force" moniker all together. That's what I was told then, it may be different now.
     Four years after our meeting in Guayaquil, George H.W. Bush was elected the 41st President of the United States.  I was in Paraguay at the time, but I was very happy to see him reach the Presidency.  Bush 41 struck me as being a very decent man.  I know he was surrounded by controversy in some cases, but like all presidents, he did not know everything that was going on during his presidency. The American public seems to think that because the president is in charge, he should know everything that is going on.  That is impossible, especially given the size of our government!
     As I said earlier, he had an aura of a statesman about him.  It gave you confidence, made you think that he would always try to do the right thing.  Indeed he did try to do the right thing during his presidency.  It was partly because of his refusal to get involved in mud slinging during his reelection campaign that he did not get reelected.  Perhaps he would not have won anyway, but it certainly would have increased his chances.  But he refused to stoop to that level. That was how he was and how he was described by everyone who knew him.

U.S. Presidents I Have Met....by Chance! Part 2

     Although my meeting or encounter with JFK was very brief, about 30 seconds, I was very much impressed with him.  Of course, he was the very first true VIP that I had ever met in my young life at that time.  Still, he struck me as being a very confident person, extremely sharp, and with a very domineering and commanding presence about him.  He was, well... for lack of better words, very "presidential."  There was no doubt as to who was in charge!  Jackie struck me as being not only very beautiful, but very much a "First Lady."  She too had great presence about her. The next President and the First Lady that I met gave a totally different impression.
     In May of 1979 I arrived at our Embassy in Tokyo as a Foreign Service Officer (FSO).  Shortly after my arrival, that summer, President Jimmy Carter, First Lady Rosalynn, and their youngest child Amy arrived in Tokyo.
     Most people can't imagine what a strain on resources it is for an embassy to have to host a visiting VIP.  At posts such as Tokyo, a very popular place for "boondoggles" by congressmen and other VIPs, there is a constant stream of visitors.  It is a tremendous expense on the taxpayers dollar!  Instead of doing normal work, the embassy staff has to drop everything and "babysit" and cater to the wishes of the visiting VIP or VIPs.  You can well imagine what a presidential visit would do!  Being at some backwater post, you don't have to face such nonsense, but at popular places like Tokyo, Paris, London, Rome, Hong Kong, Athens, Cairo, etc., there is a constant stream of visitors!
     Upon their arrival, Jimmy Carter announced that he and Rosalynn always wanted to see a traditional Japanese Kabuki play.  But, and it was big "but," they didn't want to sit through a normal 3 or 4 hour performance.  They wanted the embassy to arrange with the Japanese National Kabuki Theater to have a show that would last may be a half an hour!  That's like asking the Shakespearean Theater to put on Hamlet that would last 15 minutes!  Amy, they said, was not interested in seeing a Kabuki play but would like to visit various stores that sold dolls!  However, as it turned out, Amy did attend the Kabuki performance.  I don't mind telling you that there was an awful lot of scrambling around, meeting with Japanese from the Kabuki Theater and so on.
     Much to their credit, the Japanese said not to worry, that they would put on a show that would last about half an hour.  They apologized and said that they would not be able to present the full scope of Kabuki art, just a tiny bit, but they would do their best.  A good friend, Phyllis Anderson, was the  FSO assigned to be with Amy 24/7, escorting her to doll shops, etc.  Of course, they would also be accompanied by security, in this case a Diplomatic Security Officer from the embassy.
     For some reason, I was selected to be the "announcer" at the Kabuki Theater.  I was to make announcements about proper protocol for everyone who was there, before the arrival of Jimmy and Rosalynn.  I was to tell the audience when to rise from their seats, and when to sit, etc.  It is a bit of a puzzle to me as to why I was chosen for that role.  It was somewhat reminiscent of my time in the army at Gabriel Demonstration Area  some 16 years earlier!  At least I didn't have to make the announcements in Mongolian!
     After everything and everyone was in place, I made my initial announcements.  Shortly, Jimmy and Rosalynn arrived.  Jimmy surprised the Japanese, who tend to be on the formal side, by showing up in a blue blazer, khaki trousers, and brown loafers!  I think he started a fashion trend in wearing brown shoes with a blue blazer!  To the Japanese, Kabuki is somewhat like Opera in the West and men usually attend the shows in formal kimono or suits.  I think it surprised the Japanese that Jimmy, the President of the United States, was so informal.  At any rate, the abbreviated and chopped classic show was put on and the Carters seem to enjoy it.  I made my final announcements for the crowd to wait before leaving their seats.  Then all of the embassy detail scrambled out to form a protective barrier for Jimmy and Rosalynn to pass through on their way out of the theater.
     Apparently Jimmy was told that the barrier would be formed by embassy personnel, for as he left the theater, he stopped and shook hands with as many of us as he could.  He shook my hand and asked me where I was from.  He had that famous, perpetual grin showing his teeth, the "toothpaste smile."  I said I was from California, and he just said, "good, good."  I don't think he even heard me.
     The Carters stayed in Tokyo for several days and kept the embassy personnel hopping.  Jimmy's staff, the infamous "Georgia Mafia," was the most demanding, obnoxious, and arrogant group I had ever run across in my time in the Foreign Service!  Rosalynn was very demanding, that's all I'll say about her.  Amy, as it turned out, according to my friend Phyllis, was really a sweet, normal girl! Jimmy was, well...Jimmy.
     Before their departure, Jimmy met with some of the embassy staff in the embassy auditorium.  He gave a brief standard politician's speech and told us that we were all doing a great job, so on and so forth.  Then as he left the auditorium he shook hands with those closest to the aisle.  I happened to be by the aisle so he shook my hand again, and asked me again where I was from!  I had heard before that Jimmy Carter had a photographic memory, or something like that.  One article claimed that he never forgot a name or a face.  Well, obviously, my name or face was not worth remembering!
     I remember my thoughts after that.  I thought "God help the United States of America, because this guy is going to get us into trouble!"  I am certainly no prophet, nor have any special insight into things, but Jimmy Carter's bungled handling of the infamous "Desert One" Iranian  hostage rescue attempt which took place shortly after, didn't surprise me at all.  I remember talking to colleagues about that fiasco of rescue attempt and how White House had micro managed, or I should say micro mismanaged the affair.  It didn't surprise me or my colleagues.  In fact, some of my colleagues who said that they had voted for Jimmy ended up voting for Reagan in the following election!

U.S. Presidents I Have Met.....by Chance!

     Well....actually, one of them was a vice president when I met him, George W. H. Bush, but he became the 41st president four years later.  So why quibble over such minor things!  At any rate, all of the meetings occurred more or less by chance, with the first one being the most "chancy" of all!
     In the second week of November of 1963, on Monday the 11th, I finally left the Special Forces Training Group where I had been in training for the past 8 months or so.  I arrived at my new permanent assignment, B Company of the 7th Special Forces Group.   I was a brand new Special Forces trooper, a  young PFC with a brand new green beret with a "recognition bar," not a full flash. 
     Back in those days, unlike today,  you did not receive a full beret flash until you were fully "three" qualified.  Number 3 was the suffix for the MOS that signified that you were Special Forces qualified.  It didn't matter that you had just gone through a grueling process of training anywhere between six months to a year and a half, depending on your MOS.  You were not considered fully ("three") qualified until you did additional training with your unit and cross-trained in at least one more MOS which could take about six months to a year.  Only then were you allowed to wear a full beret flash.  Prior to that, you wore a little strip of the flash that was officially called a "recognition bar," and more commonly referred to as a "candy stripe," but more popularly called an "idiot bar."
     So, there I was, a brand new Special Forces trooper with an "idiot bar" on my beret.  At any rate, I was just getting used to being with the 7th in my second week when I was ordered to report to the Company Sergeant Major.  The Sergeant Major in the old army was like a god!  Everyone feared the Sergeant Major, officers included!  I went into a mild panic, trying to think of what I had done wrong to cause the Sergeant Major to demand my presence.  But, orders are orders, so I reported to the Sergeant Major.
     Sergeant Major Greer, everyone called him "Pappy" Greer, was a World War Two and Korean War Veteran.  He was with the 503rd Airborne and then the Alamo Scouts during WWII and in Korea he started out with the Airborne Rangers and ended with Army Unit 8240, the United Nations Partisan Forces in Korea (UNPFK).  He was a grizzled, hardened combat veteran, an imposing figure.
As I stood in front of him, he was looking over my 201 file (Personnel file).  He glanced up at me and asked which languages I spoke.  I was a bit puzzled, since my languages were listed in the file.  But he asked, so I answered. 
     He looked at me hard, then said, "You speak Mongolian, don't you?" 
     I gulped and answered, "No, Sergeant Major, I don't speak Mongolian." 
     He continued to stare at me and said, "You speak, Mongolian."
     I said, "No Sergeant Major, I don't speak Mongolian."
     He gave me such a look that it almost made me shrivel up!  "You speak Mongolian! Do you understand?"  He said in a booming irritated voice.
     "Yes, Sergeant Major, I speak Mongolian,"  I told him as he wished.
     "Good," he said, calming down. "You're just what we need.  You're detailed to the Gabriel Demonstration Area.  Report to Sergeant Major Gaffney, he's in charge over there.  He'll tell you what your duties will be. That's all!"
     Well, the Gabriel Demonstration Area, or "Disneyland" as we used to call it, was a vast area that was built to use for demonstration purposes, mainly for VIPs.  The whole idea was to set up grounds where Special Forces could demonstrate its various skills to VIPs, Congressmen and such, so that it would help funding for Special Forces!  There was everything from rappelling to HALO and Skyhook demonstrations.  There was even a typical Vietnamese village constructed. 
     The whole demonstration began with the introduction of an "A" Detachment, the Special Forces' main operating unit.  A 12 man "A" Detachment marched out and faced the VIP crowd, then each member, beginning with the Team Leader, the Captain, would take turns and give a spiel, namely their duties and the foreign languages that they spoke.  Sometimes, some of the VIPs would ask questions directed at individual soldiers. In some cases, I was told that language skills were tested, so, it was important to be fluent in the languages that you claimed to speak. 
     Sergeant Majors Greer and Gaffney thought it would be good to have someone who spoke a language that would be highly unlikely that anyone in the audience would know.  So, they decided on Mongolian, and they needed an Asian to carry off this ploy,  The soldier, of course, had to speak another language or languages as well, languages that might be tested!  But they thought Mongolian would be a safe bet!  It was a kind of a joke that the Sergeant Majors wanted to pull!  So, there I was, assigned to the Gabriel Demonstration Area team.  The first thing I was told to do was to have a full flash sewn on my beret.  It wouldn't do to have someone with an "idiot bar" on the demonstration team!  So, at least there was that one fringe benefit, I could put on a full flash months before I actually earned it.
     We practiced our drill daily, marched out and gave spiels.  Everyone else on the demonstration team thought it was a riot that I was supposed to speak Mongolian.  The team leader, Captain Hoffman, started calling me Genghis, and that nick name kind of stuck for my remaining time in the Special Forces!  Then, around November 20 there was a bit a frantic activity in "Disneyland" as well as the rest of the Special Forces.  Rumors were that someone really important was coming to Fort Bragg, specifically to Smoke Bomb Hill where the Special Forces was located.
     On the 21st of November we got all spiffy in our starched fatigues and spit-shined boots, looking like a bunch of parade ground soldiers!  The VIP that arrived was the President and the First Lady!  They were on their way to Dallas and Air Force One made a previously unscheduled stop at Pope Air Force Base just the other side of Fort Bragg, because JFK wanted to visit his favorite Army unit, the Special Forces.  Both the President and the First Lady had visited the Special Forces before, so this was not their first time.  But it was their first time at the Gabriel Demonstration Area which was only built a few months earlier that year.
     So, we all waited anxiously, and when time came, marched out as we always did.  The team leader, Captain Hoffman gave his spiel and said he spoke French.  Jackie said a few words to him in French and JFK joked and said that his French was awful.  They came right down the line.  Another team member announced that he spoke Spanish, Jackie said a few words to him in Spanish.  The team was made up of predominantly French, Spanish, and Portuguese or Italian speakers.  I was the only one with none Romance language ability. When it came my turn, I was surprised that I was able to say anything at all!  But I managed to give my spiel, and ended by saying I spoke Russian, Japanese, Korean, and Mongolian! At the time I did not speak Spanish so I couldn't add that to my list, but I still had the longest list of anyone on the team.
     I probably just imagined it, but it seemed to me that JFK's eyes registered surprise at hearing that I spoke Mongolian. But he didn't say anything or ask me if I was a Mongol, he just shook my hand, as he did with every team member, and said that he was impressed!  Jackie didn't say anything, just smiled pleasantly.  Obviously, she didn't speak any of the languages that I claimed to know, especially Mongolian!  If truth be known, although my Russian was at native level, my Japanese was just fair, and Korean shaky at the time!  Of course, Mongolian was non-existent!
     So, that was my first meeting, as brief as it was, with a President of the United States, in this case JFK, who was assassinated the next day in Dallas.
    

Women Warriors Revisited - Part 3

     Since earlier I posted on my FB a bit about two female ROK Army soldiers earning the coveted U.S. Army Expert Infantryman Badge (EIB), I thought I might expand a little on the subject, give a background on the whole EIB business as to why it is such a big deal.  Also, give more information about the Republic of Korea's women in the military.
     First, the background on the ROK women in the military.  The Republic of Korea, Army, Navy and Air Force were founded in 1948, two years before the Korean War broke out.  In 1950, during the war, because of the acute shortage of men, women were accepted into the military, primarily to serve in administrative capacity and as nurses.  Just as in America during WWII, women in Korea were not drafted, they were recruited and joined voluntarily.  Although the ROK Army, Navy and Air Force did not use women in combat, the U.S. Army used Korean women in combat as guerrilla fighters in the UNPFK program.  When the cease fire took place in 1953, many of the surviving men and women of the UNPFK transitioned into ROK Army.  The UNPFK veterans became the foundation for the new ROK Army Airborne units, since they were all already parachute qualified!  The women were put in non-combat roles, but, it didn't take long for the ROK Army to realize that perhaps they could use women in combat roles as well, especially since the UNPFK veterans were all combat veterans!  By the 1990s women were fully integrated into ROK Army in various roles.
     In the Republic of Korea, all men are required to serve two years in the military.  Women are not required to do military service, so all women service personnel are volunteers.  Surprisingly, military service is very popular in South Korea and many women, after graduating college seek to enter service and be commissioned through Officers Candidate School program.  Others seek direct appointments to one of the three service academies.  All in all, military service seems to be viewed differently in South Korea than here in America.  In the 1990s, just about all military jobs became open to women and today, all jobs are open!  That is why the two women NCOs from the ROK Army could compete for the U.S. EIB.  They had already earned the ROK equivalent of the U.S. badge!   In contrast, the U.S. Army still does not allow women to serve in the Infantry with an Infantry MOS (military occupational specialty).
     The Expert Infantryman Badge (EIB) was created in 1943, the same time as the Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB).  The difference, of course, is that the CIB is earned by participating in ground combat while EIB is earned through vigorous testing, a five day testing of various infantry skills.  In order to earn a CIB you must have served in combat with an Infantry or Special Forces unit.  Since the War on Terrorism (Afghanistan and Iraq) started in the early 21st Century, a new badge was created, the Combat Action Badge (CAB) which is issued to anyone who is not in the Infantry or Special Forces and has served in combat zone, not necessarily in direct combat, although initially it was meant only for those who served directly in combat.  The CAB is more or less like the Navy's (and Marines) and Air Force's Combat Action Ribbon (CAR).
     In order to qualify to take the test for the EIB, like the CIB, you must have either an Infantry or Special Forces MOS.  Women are not yet allowed to serve in either one of those categories in the U.S. Army, so, women could not take the test.  However, since the two Korean women were awarded the EIB in October of 2014, the Army had to do some soul searching and make some changes.  Now, female soldiers who are serving in an Infantry unit, can take the EIB test, even if they don't have an Infantry MOS.  Since the change was made, a U.S. Army female Sergeant Major became the first woman in the U.S. Army to earn the EIB.  So, you could say that the two Korean women soldiers paved the way for American women soldiers.  Ironically, it was for a U.S. Army award!

Women Warriors Revisited, Part 2

     In last year's blog on UNPFK, the United Nations Partisan Forces in Korea, I also talked about the KLO agent program, the so-called Korean Liaison Office program which involved recruiting, training, and deploying agents for intelligence collection in North Korea.  This program in general was not as successful as the "partisan" or guerrilla forces program.  For one thing, agents had to be clever enough to pass for locals.  Just because an agent was from North Korea did not necessarily mean that he or she could easily melt into the crowd.  Dialect differences were quite distinct from one region to another.  To a foreign ear the Korean spoken by a person from Wonsan may sound the same as the one from Pyongyang, but to a Korean, the difference was not just obvious, but striking.
     During the war, employment opportunities were next to zero, except as a participant as one of the combatants!  For women, it was even more difficult to survive.  Many sought employment working for the war effort in one form or another.  KLO agents received a hefty bonus when they signed on and their salary was quite good.  If they were fortunate enough to survive a mission, they received additional bonuses.  In other words,  being a KLO agent was financially beneficial.  But, you had to be from North Korea!  The Americans who ran the program were from all branches of the service but predominantly from the fledging CIA (CIA had been formed in 1947).  Except for those personnel who were charged with parachute or other technical training, all other Americans, military and civilian, were essentially all Case Officers, involved in recruiting, training, and deploying agents into North Korea.
     Initially, many mistakes were made.  Many who were not from the north claimed that they were North Koreans so that they could get the job.  The Case Officers hired these people who were lost on their first mission!  The North Koreans captured them almost as soon as they arrived!  So, it became a much more difficult process of finding and hiring for KLO work.  It was especially difficult to find women for the program.
     The program paid a hefty bonus to Case Officers for recruiting agents, around $5,000 per agent.  That was an awful lot of money back in the early 1950s....it isn't exactly chump change today either!  So, as you can guess, whenever money is involved, there are going be attempts by some to take advantage of the situation.  Unscrupulous Case Officers would make arrangements with desperate people who wanted to earn the good money that was paid by the program.  The prospective agents received a $5,000 bonus for signing up, and the unscrupulous Case Officers would hire new agents with an arrangement for a kick-back on the bonus.  Most of them split 50/50, so a Case Officer could conceivably make as much as $7500 on each new hire!
     There were also numerous cases of trying to pass off new agents as North Koreans by some Case Officers.  Some South Koreans were coached to speak with a northern accent, etc.  But generally, these bogus cases were uncovered before these poor men and women were sent off to their deaths, and the Case Officer responsible was transferred out of the program.
     There was one rather disturbing incident that involved a mistress of one of the Case Officers.  This man had made a small fortune collecting bonuses and he was known to be a top recruiter.  He was very charismatic and a ladies man.  His Korean mistress happened to be North Korean from Pyongyang, originally.  She was a beautiful girl, one that easily would have made an impression on any Hollywood casting director, and she was very much in love with him.  At the time the supply of North Korean women for KLO agents had dried up and Case Officers in the program were busily scouring the country looking for prospective agents. 
     Apparently this particular Case Officer was not about to go without a bonus, he convinced his mistress to join the program.  She was so much in love with him that she would have done anything for him, so she joined the program.  Most of this man's colleagues were shocked!  But he insisted that she volunteered on her own, but everyone knew that he had convinced her to join.  He collected not only his bonus, but kept her bonus for "safe keeping!"
     She went through all of the prescribed training, culminating in parachute training.  A mission was selected for her just on the outskirts of Pyongyang and she was sent off.  She never returned.  Word had reached the KLO headquarters via an agent that returned that she was captured almost immediately, tortured, then killed.  Her lover/Case Officer had collected both bonuses and didn't seem to be bothered by what happened to her.  Ironically, this man went on to live a long and fairly prosperous life.  He married three times, each time to a successively more wealthy woman!  He died in Hawaii from alcoholism when he was in his late 60s.  His last wife and family in Honolulu discovered after his death that he had another family on the big island of Hawaii!
     He was a not a nice man, but of all the despicable things that he did in his life, collecting a bonus for sending off his mistress to her death was the worst.

"Doc"

     They say that friendships that you develop in high school are much more intense, longer lasting than those made in college.  The reason given is that in high school you are just in the process of entering adulthood and usually your teenage, immature emotions, run somewhat wild and your relationships become very intense. You also tend to identify and bond with your peers more so than at any other time in your life.  In college, although you may maintain a friendship for a four year period as in high school, but it is usually not quite as intense.  You are more mature, have more interests, and your goal is to finish college and get a degree, while in high school.....well, its high school!  No one really thinks that they are not going to graduate!
     But for those who have served in the military, that is another period when intense friendships are developed.  In the military, depending on where and when you served, you may face danger together as well as extreme hardships.  This experience tends to cause some very strong bonding, you truly become brothers.
     In an earlier blog that was titled "Some Heroes I Have Known" I mentioned my friend Doc Barnes.  I really did not do justice to him by mentioning him so briefly.  He deserves much more, for he was an amazing person, an amazing friend.  He was actually the very first person to befriend me when I had arrived at my new unit, the 7th Special Forces Group.
     I was a lowly PFC at the time, freshly out of Special Forces Training Group where I spent 8 months in training.  I had been in the army for almost a year and a half, first going through the basic training, then AIT and Jump School, before arriving at the Special Forces Training Group and doing 8 more months of training - one month of MOI (Method of Instruction), four months of Communications training, and finally, three months of Branch Training (today it is called "Q" course).   Frankly, I was sick of training by that time!  Little did I know at the time that I would be constantly training, as everyone else did in the Special Forces!  The training never stopped!
     I was assigned to a barracks in B Company, so I trudged my way with my duffle bag and other gear and found myself in an empty barracks, with only one person in it, but apparently with almost all the bunks taken.  There was only one bunk with its mattress "S" rolled to indicate that it was empty.  So I put my gear down and proceeded to put away my stuff in the empty wall and foot lockers. 
     There was a tall, lean fellow lying on the bunk next to mine.  He was a Sergeant E-5 according to the three stripes on his sleeves.  However, there were dark areas below the three stripes to indicate that at one time that shirt had seen more than three stripes!  The man glanced up at me (he was reading a book) then went back to reading.  I noticed that the book he was reading was Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.  That was surprising.  You didn't usually find a typical Army NCO reading Tolstoy!  Playboy, perhaps, or maybe a James Bond novel that was very popular at the time, or a Western, but Tolstoy?  That was unusual.
     As I started to put away my meager supply of reading material, the reclining sergeant noticed one of my books and commented, "Well....I see we got someone literate, or do you just look at pictures!  James Joyce, no less!"  Then he added somewhat sarcastically as he went back to reading his book, "You don't look Irish to me!"  I saw his name tag and knew that his name was Barnes, so I quipped back, "You don't look Russian to me!"  He glanced up in surprise, then smiled and said, "Touche!"  Then he stuck his hand out, without rising from his bunk and added, "I am Will Barnes."  I shook his hand and introduced myself. 
     That is how I first met Doc and we became friends from that point on, a friendship that lasted many years, until his death ten years ago.  It was unusual for an "old timer" like Doc to be friends with a "newbie" like me.  He was an NCO, a senior NCO until he was busted down to E-5 for drunken misbehavior.  He had been in the Special Forces for a number of years, a veteran of many deployments.  I was a brand new prospect, newly assigned to the unit, and I was about ten years his junior.  Yet, we became friends, good friends.  Aside from the age difference, it was highly unusual for an NCO to befriend a PFC!
     William Gerard Barnes, better known as Doc, was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York in a working class Irish family.  His father was a New York City policeman and his mother a stay-at-home-mom.  Doc grew up wanting to be a soldier.  That is all he wanted to be, but his mother had other plans.  She wanted him to become a priest!  So, like the good Irish Catholic kid that he was, after graduation  from high school, he entered a seminary in upstate New York.  All the time he was studying to be a priest, he felt that he needed to do something else, that priesthood was not his calling.  So, to the great disappoint of his mother, just a few months prior to graduating, he quit and joined the Merchant Marines! 
     For the next couple of years or so, he sailed the seven seas.  In those days there were no TVs or videos for entertainment, nothing on those merchant ships.  The only thing he could do in his spare time was read.  He had already become a voracious reader while in the seminary, but now he doubled that!  He read everything and anything he could get his hands on.  At the same time, he got to see quite a bit of the world.  Doc was, without a doubt, one of the best read individuals that I had ever met!
     After a couple of years he quit the seas and joined the army, his first love.  He volunteered for the Special Forces and quickly rose in rank.  He was offered a chance to go to OCS and receive a commission, but he declined, preferring to remain an enlisted man.  By the time I met him, he had been deployed to three or four different countries and spent a year in Laos on "Operation White Star," a CIA sponsored classified mission to fight the communist Pathet Lao. 
     He had reached the rank of E-7, Sergeant First Class, and was assigned to the 1st Special Forces Group on Okinawa after Laos.  However, he got drunk one night and was arrested by the RASP for doing some damage in a bar in Naminoue.  He spent a night in the stockade and the following morning busted down to E-5!  His assignment to the 1st Special Forces Group on Okinawa ended shortly and he was reassigned to the 7th Special Forces Group.  I met him just a few weeks after he had arrived from Okinawa, with his new, reduced rank!
     Someone higher up must have had it in for Doc.  For the longest time they would not promote him.  Usually, someone busted down like that regains the stripes after a year or so.  But such was not the case with Doc....as he said, "somebody up there doesn't like me,"  paraphrasing the title of a movie, Somebody Up There Likes Me.  Pretty soon I caught up with him when I made sergeant E-5.  Fortunately, shortly after that Doc got one of his rockers back and went up to staff sergeant.
     Doc and I had many adventures, both good and bad, too many to mention.  A month before I left the army, Doc was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group in Vietnam, so we parted company, but we corresponded regularly.  After the army I spent about a year in San Francisco before going to Okinawa.  Shortly before Jo and I got married on Okinawa, Doc was assigned to the 1st Special Forces Group on Okinawa for the second time.  We had some good times together, before he left for Vietnam again.
     Jo thought he was "crazy," she really didn't know what to make of him at first, but I think she got to like him.....sort of.  When our son Tony was born, he was given a middle name of William, in honor of my friend Doc.  Doc was quite pleased with the naming and being an "unofficial" godfather.  He gave Tony one of those gold "railroad" pocket watches with a long note addressed to him.  Leave it to Doc to come up with a gift like that.  We did not give the watch or the accompanying note to Tony for a long time, since we felt he would not appreciate it as a kid.  When Tony became older we gave it to him and it became one of his prized possessions.
     Doc was badly wounded on one of his TDY trips to Vietnam from Okinawa.  After we left Okinawa and returned to California, I received phone calls from Doc frequently from various locations.  At one point the army wanted to give Doc a medical discharge because of the wounds he received.  He fought that and stayed in the army.  Doc not only stayed in the army, but he stayed with the Special Forces, going on two additional combat tours in Vietnam before that war came to an end. 
     Doc finally retired in the mid 1980s and got married.  However, Doc's drinking as always got him into trouble, this time he didn't lose any stripes, but his marriage fell apart.  He was a heavy drinker in the 1960s and never let up, and it finally killed him.  It wasn't his multiple combat tours of duty and numerous purple hearts that he received that killed him, it was the booze!  Doc volunteered for combat duty and spent a total of about four years in Vietnam during that war!  He also spent a year in Laos and several shorter TDY "missions" in various "hot spots" that put him in harms way.  He survived it all, but died of drinking!  How ironic, yet he was truly an American hero, putting his life on the line for this country time and time again.
    

Women Warriors Revisited

     Recently the US Army announced that women will be allowed to undergo Ranger training if they qualify for the rigorous physical training requirements.  The US Army has allowed women to receive airborne (parachute) training for quite sometime now, as long as the Marines have allowed women in the Corps.  However, women in the US Army Airborne units and the US Marines do not serve in combat capacity.  No women are assigned to rifle companies and most certainly none serve in Recon units, Hollywood movies and TV action dramas notwithstanding!  So, it appears that although women may receive Ranger training, they will not be serving in Ranger Battalions, at least not in combat roles.  Women are not yet allowed in the Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, the Marine Force Recon or MARSOC.  They can be assigned to these units to serve in administrative units, but not in operational units.
     Russians have allowed women to serve in combat (out of necessity, due to shortage of men during WWII), and other countries, most notably, Israel, has always allowed women in combat roles.  However, in most cases, women served in separate units, not integrated with men when it came to combat.  The only exception were always the women snipers, who served along side male snipers.  As previously noted, Russia produced some exceptional women snipers.  Israel, since about 2000 has integrated some women into their elite commando unit that operates in very small groups.  So far there have not been any problems and those Israeli women that wish to serve in elite units such as their Parachute Brigade or the special commando unit may do so, if they qualify.
     Last year, in a blog entitled "The 'Miscellaneous Group',"  I described the special operations program during the Korean War.  It was run by the US 8th Army and the HQs FE Command, although there were British and Australian participants as trainers.  The unit that trained the so-called United Nations Partisan Forces in Korea, or UNPFK were the early Army Special Forces members and they trained Korean volunteers to fight as guerrillas in North Korea. This unit was called the 8240th Army Unit with a much longer, cumbersome title of Combined Command Reconnaissance Activities (Korea).  Most of the time the UNPFK units infiltrated into North Korea by parachute, sometimes by boat, and rarely overland. Among these Korean volunteers, there were many women.  Women were mostly used as agents to infiltrate into North Korea to gather intelligence and they worked under a program that was euphemistically called Korean Liaison Office or KLO.  However, there were also those that trained and fought as guerrillas.  I gave a very brief account of one such mission that bears repeating.
     Two women, ages 18 and 20, were parachuted into North Korea just outside of Wonsan to gather intelligence and blow up a train depot.  They accomplished their mission and took photos for proof with cameras that each carried.  As they were getting ready to ex-filtrate, they were surrounded by an 18 man North Korean patrol.  The women, as it happened, were the two best shots in their unit, especially the younger 18 year old!  She was the best shot of all, including the men of the unit! They were each armed with an M-1 Carbine and 45 rounds of ammunition, 38 caliber revolver (the trainers felt that the 45 caliber automatic was too big for them) with just 12 rounds of ammunition, and two hand grenades.  With this meager armament, the two wiped out the entire 18 man patrol!  Then, the 18 year old, to make sure there was a record of what they did, took photos of the North Koreans that they killed!  They managed to reach the coast and the rendezvous point where they stayed hidden until a submarine picked them up that night.
     Their American bosses were absolutely thrilled by what the two had accomplished.  However, since all of the missions were highly classified, none of this was made public until the 1990s!  Although their heroics could not be made public, still, the story circulated around the UNPFK units and among everyone involved in that secret war.  North Korea, on the other hand, released a news bulletin that a "large" group of saboteurs had attempted to blow up a train depot but were all hunted down and killed by the heroic members of the People's Army!  However, the 8240th Army Unit and the UNPFK knew otherwise!  They had photographic proof of what the two young women accomplished.  Very quickly they made up leaflets and dropped them in the area where the train depot used to be and informed the North Korean population that there was no "large" group of saboteurs, just two women, and they were alive and well, while 18 North Korean soldiers were dead!  It was a propaganda coup!
     Today, the Republic of Korea maintains that tradition of having women warriors carrying out dangerous missions.  They have a special unit of women who are highly trained for special operations.  Who knows, perhaps some of these exceptional young women are granddaughters of those brave women who fought as guerrillas during the Korean War!

A "New" America?

     Yesterday a "historic" meeting took place in Panama between Raul Castro, the President of Cuba and Barak Obama, the President of the United States.  It was "historic" in more sense than one.  Aside from being the first meeting between a Cuban and a U.S. president in more than half a century, it was "historic" because Raul Castro took the opportunity to criticize and castigate the United States for almost 50 minutes (he was allotted 6 minutes, which he obviously ignored!) while Barak Obama sat by meekly listening to the Cuban lambast and accuse the U.S. of all sorts of wrong doing!  These marathon speeches by both Fidel and Raul Castro are nothing new, and actually criticizing the U.S. for 50 minutes is not such a long time, considering that both he and his brother have given 2 or 3 hour speeches lambasting the U.S. in the past, including at a UN session.  But to do this with the President of the United States sitting right next to him, that was something new and unexpected.
     At the end of his long tirade, Raul Castro turned to Obama and "apologized," saying that he did not blame Obama for all of America's wrong doing, that all the "bad" things were done by his predecessors, that he believed Obama was an "honest" man!  The media, of course, immediately seized upon Raul's "apology" and pointed out how "sincere" and "emotional" he had been!  What a crock!  Castro, no doubt realized that he had gone a bit too far, so he quickly tried to gloss over it with his "apology." It was so obvious, but the media chose to present it as a genuine apology on Castro's part!
     Obama in turn, responded by saying that he did not believe in looking at the past, that he only looked "forward!"  In short, he completely separated himself from America's past, America's history.  He, Barak Obama, was going to establish a "new" United States of America, one that has no ties to its history, to its past.  The President of the United States of America, the most powerful country in the world, sat by meekly while a true "Banana (communist) Republic" leader lambasted America for 50 minutes!  Then the American President says that he doesn't worry about the past (especially since, according to Castro all the bad things were done by Obama's predecessors!), and that he is only concerned about the future!  I don't get it, are we employing some sort of a new clever strategy?.
     I don't know how many Americans who watched this play out on CNN or other networks caught what Obama was saying, but I certainly did!  I have said repeatedly before that one of the biggest mistakes that we seem to make time and again is to ignore history, to not look at what took place before.  We are what our history made us, to ignore our past is to ignore our very existence, our core values!  Yes we made many mistakes in the past, but we are supposed to learn from those mistakes, not ignore them!  It is bad enough that we do seem to ignore our mistakes of the past, but to ignore everything of the past as Obama suggested, is inconceivable.  It is to deny who we are, what we stand for.
     I am not against normalizing relations with Cuba.  But like our dealings with Iran, it should not be a one way street.  So far, all of the advantages go to Cuba.  What have we gotten so far?  Cuba has already benefitted from various restrictions that have been lifted, restrictions that were not part of the sanctions.  It seems like a repeat of the so called "Iran Deal."  We have gotten absolutely nothing in return except to be castigated, chastised, and embarrassed in front of the world audience by Raul Castro for 50 minutes.  To us, and to those of the developed world perhaps it does not have much of a significance.  But to the developing world, particularly in Latin America, it has huge implications.
     In the eyes of the typical disaffected Latin American, the gringo president sat by meekly while the president of a small Latin country criticized and chastised America.  To the average campesino or cholo, Castro might have as well just slapped Obama or spit in his face, that is how they see things, very simplistically!  Of course, many will say that such an interpretation of this event is an overreaction.  No doubt that is how the media as well as many others see it.  But believe me, it is not an overreaction.  I think I know something of the Latin American mentality, and I can assure you that they do not see things the same way as the typical American.
     Some said that Raul Castro was worst than his brother Fidel.  Fidel was more charismatic, more of a politician given to long-winded marathon speeches.  Raul was always the military commander, in fact, before replacing his brother as president of Cuba in 2008, he was the longest sitting Minister of Defense or the head of all military!  Raul is known to be cruel and ruthless.  He was directly responsible with the execution of 700 pro Batista officers as soon as he and Fidel came into power.  Raul was recruited by Soviet KGB in 1953, years before the revolution.  He has kept close ties with the KGB and even spent time in Moscow receiving training.  Why do I mention all this?  Well, once a KGB man, always a KGB man!  Witness Vladimir Putin, he started his career as KGB, and still acts like KGB!  So, if anyone thinks that Raul will change and human rights violations will not take place anymore, think again!
     Cuba has been responsible for all of leftist insurgency movements in Latin America since the 1960s.  They are State Sponsors of Terrorism, a label that they, like Iran, would very much like to have removed.  Cuba is in Latin America what Iran is in the Middle East.  Cuba has also ventured outside Latin America, most notably into Africa, Angola being a good example!  Before the fall of the Soviet Union, they acted as Soviet's proxy in many parts of the world. They have sponsored many, many terror groups, too many to mention all!  Who was in charge of all that before becoming president of the country?  Why, Raul Castro!  Che Guevara was very charismatic and got credit for many of the early insurgency movements in Latin America.  But it was Raul who masterminded and sent Che to launch the insurgencies.  So, "Raul" is not a "politician" as we know it.  He is much more than that, and very, very dangerous!
     But despite all of that, we can normalize relations with Cuba, and after all those years, we should.  Cuba needs normalization of relations with us more than we need it.  However, we shouldn't give up the store for it, and we most certainly shouldn't do it at the expense of our national prestige, having our president sit by while Raul launches a tirade against us.  But then, Obama didn't seem to be too bothered by it all.  Apparently, Barak Obama is determined to create a "new" America, one that has no ties to its past!

"A Pact with the Devil"

     Ever since the end of World War Two when America emerged as one of the two leading super powers, it seems that we have been making "pacts with the devil," so-to-speak, backing foreign leaders that were not, as it turned out time and again, the best choices.  Part of this proclivity seems to stem from the fact that we don't look far enough ahead and simply want immediate solutions to problems.  We want things done right now!  We invented fast food, instant photos, one hour dry cleaning, so on and so forth!  To America, a decade is a long time, to many older countries, a century would have the same meaning as a decade to us - of course that is an exaggeration, but you get the idea.  Why else would our government be constantly making such poor choices in selection of leaders to back in our "nation building" efforts.
     It started with our blind support of Chiang Kai Sheik, the Nationalist leader of China.  We knew he was corrupt, we knew that he surrounded himself with corrupt and inept individuals, yet we poured-in billions in cash and equipment, all to no avail!  It seems everything went downhill from that point.  In Vietnam we supported the corrupt Ngo Din Diem, and when things turned sour we engineered a coupe to replace him.  His replacements, one after another failed, leading to the total collapse of South Vietnam in 1975.  In Latin America, there were too many to mention all in this blog.  The most notable disaster was Manuel Noriega, a monster that was our creation!  This was someone that we created, nurtured through the years, until he got out of control, so, of course, we got rid of him, at great expense.  "Operation Just Cause" cost billions to the American tax payers, and we are still paying, supporting Noriega in prison!
     Sometimes, when we make a "pact with the devil," things go sour almost immediately.  Such, it seems, is the case with our latest "pact,"  the Iranian "nuclear deal."  As I mentioned in the previous blog, how we perceive things and how Iran views the same thing, tend to be very different.  Yesterday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei announced that there would be no deal unless all sanctions are dropped immediately and that there would be absolutely no inspections of "military" nuclear sites.  This is completely opposite of what Kerry announced!  Obviously, Iran and the U.S. do not see eye to eye.  As the Japanese say in a rather quaint manner, this is a case of "rom/paree me" (Rome/Paris eyes), which actually refers to cross-eyes and suggests seeing things in opposite direction!  If the talks continue, no doubt there will be some agreement, that is always the case.  But we will have to see just how much the U.S. has to give up to get the deal!
     As mentioned in the previous blog, we have already paid a hefty price just to have Iran sit down for a talk.  We released considerable amount of frozen cash assets (apparently the President can release a certain amount without Congressional approval), and we allowed Iran to enter Iraq to fight ISIS.  Essentially, we made it appear to the Arab world that we could not handle ISIS so we let Iran go in and do the job.  The taking of Tikrit by Iranians (yes, I know, there were Iraqis involved too!) has boosted their prestige tremendously in that part of the world.
     What I think many Americans do not know or realize is that the Iranian forces that are fighting in Iraq, the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, their Special Operations, is led by Qassem Soleimani, a Major General in the Revolutionary Guards and the Commanding Officer of the Quds Force.  Just who is Qassem Soleimani?  He is the one that engineered and inserted Iranian (Quds Force) militants into Iraq shortly after Saddam Hussein's forces fell apart and Baghdad was taken.  Essentially, he started the insurgency in Iraq!  He (the Quds Force) taught Iraqi insurgents how to make roadside bombs, the IEDs!  Thousands of American soldiers have been killed and maimed by these devices!  The Quds Force went to work in Afghanistan as well, joining some of the Taliban groups and teaching them how to build IEDs etc.
     Soleimani is called the "Shadow Commander" because he always remains in the background and shuns publicity and public appearances.  The Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards is like the old Soviet Communist International, the COMINTERN, which was responsible for spreading Soviet communism in the world.  The Quds Force is charged with spreading Iranian influence in the Islamic world by supporting movements that will help drive out foreign interference and influence.  It was the Quds Force that created and backed the Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian West Bank.  It was the Quds Force that went into Syria when Assad's forces began to lose ground to the rebels.  They turned the tide and now the rebels are in trouble.  There are currently 3000 Quds Force stationed in Syria, and of course, they are supported by Hezbollah that was brought in as well.
     The Quds Force has been in Iraq since the early days of the war, but they were there disguised as "volunteers" for the insurgency movement.  Now they are there openly, about 1000 or so.  In Yemen the Houthie Rebels are supported by Iran and assisted by not just Quds Force but other elements of the Revolutionary Guards,  the so-called Basij Militia, which incidentally is also present in Iraq, disguised as simply "militia."  We got kicked out of Yemen by Iranian backed Houthie Rebels.  Now, our allies, Saudi Arabia is fighting in Yemen, facing Iranian Quds Force and Iranian backed Houthie Rebels, while we have allied ourselves with Iran in Iraq!
     It is difficult to determine just how many terror acts carried out around the world were either directly conduct by Iran or sponsored by Iran, notably the Quds Force.  It is said the Soleimani is responsible for just about all of the terror acts around the world that can be linked to Iran, since about 1990, even before he took over command of Quds Force in 1998.  It seems, Soleimani is the "devil" with whom we made a pact!  It appears that once again our government is only interested in a quickie solution, someone to take care of that nasty problem with ISIS in Iraq.  However, we seem to have turned a blind eye to Yemen....and what are we going to do in Syria where Iran is so visible?  Our politicians are interested in only raising their stock right now, as for the future, well, the attitude seems to be "let the next guy handle it!"

Our "Deal" with Iran

     Sometimes, what is apparent on the surface is really not at all what it seems.  This is particularly true when dealing with someone with a different mindset and a different agenda.  Take for example our latest "deal" that we struck with Iran.  It is really not a "deal" but merely the framework for an agreement that has yet to be signed!  But even at this infant stage, there are major differences in how we perceive this "deal" and how the Iranians see it!
     Among several major differences shown in the statements released by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, just two issues perfectly illustrate the opposite views.  Zarif announced that nuclear cooperation with European countries (what he meant was Russia) will increase and two new nuclear plants will be constructed soon. There was no mention of building additional plants or Iran's cooperation with European countries in the statement released by Kerry.  Instead, Kerry announced that Iran will reduce its stockpile of weapons grade uranium, but Iran made no mention of reduction of stockpile!  Iran also announced that all sanctions will be immediately dropped as soon as the agreement is signed.  Kerry made no mention of dropping the sanctions immediately, instead, he said that the easing of sanctions will be gradual. 
     It is obvious that Kerry and Zarif are speaking in different languages and appear to have a totally different understanding of the "deal" that they had supposedly reached.  That is precisely what I referred to on several occasions before, when I mentioned the difficulty in dealing or negotiating with Islamic countries, who seem to have a totally different perspective.  What we think Iran had agreed to is not what Iran thinks, and what Iran thinks we agreed to is not necessarily the same.  So, despite all the hoopla and media attention, what has been agreed to thus far really doesn't seem to have much meaning. 
     On the other hand, Zafir appears to be a much better negotiator, or bargainer, than Kerry.  Iran has already gotten something out of this deal, just by sitting down for negotiations.  Most Americans are unaware that we have already given up part of the store, even before negotiations started.  Apparently, to entice the Iranians to the table, we have already released $490 million of their frozen assets back in January!  Iran spends anywhere between $100 to $200 million in aid to Hezbollah annually.  The $490 million that we gave them will keep Hezbollah going for another couple of years, or keep Hezbollah, Hamas, and a couple other terror groups going for a year or so!  Small wonder that there were celebrations in the streets in Tehran!
     We have released other funds, but the amount is unknown at this time.  By June, we have agreed to release $11.9 billion in frozen assets.  We are also going to release additional $8 billion in assets, allow Iran to collect $4.2 billion in oil sales and $1.5 billion from other imports.  That is a significant amount that Iran will collect in the next few months.  When all is said and done, the total amount that Iran will get from this deal, once the sanctions are completely lifted, is $250 billion!  Most of this information was already released by Al Jazeera and European press.  Interestingly, we hear very little from our own media on the money that has already been released to Iran!  Iran has already gotten something in return for having only agreed to talk!  What have we gotten out of this so far?  Perhaps some much needed positive spin and boost for the administration's foreign policy!  That's a pretty hefty price to pay for just some political points!
     Since we established sanctions against Iran, only Russia, China, and North Korea have conducted business with them.  Both Russia and China have built nuclear plants for Iran and North Korea has provided their know-how in building missiles.  Just about all of Iran's military hardware has been purchased from either Russia, China, or North Korea.  They also have reverse engineered many of those weapons and are now producing them in Iran.  Since Iran does not abide by any patent or copyright laws, it freely pirates and reverse engineers weapons and equipment that was acquired from the West.  In this fashion Iran has even produced copies of U. S. made weapons and parts that were left over from pre 1979!
     Russia and China have a strong interest in seeing Iran as a major player in the Middle East.  Ironically, we have asked them to participate in these so-called talks.  It was Russia and China that helped Iran set up its vast nuclear plant system, and Russia has just signed a contract to build two new nuclear plants!  Russia may not be a communist state anymore, but under Putin, it has started to revive its Soviet-like past belligerent nature - witness what has happened and is happening in Ukraine.  Russia would like nothing more than to see a split occur between U.S. and Israel, and have a strong Iran as their own ally!  This would definitely shift the geopolitical balance in the Middle East.  At one time, Russia as Soviet Union had quite a bit of influence in the Middle East.  Israel's victories in the Six Day and Yom Kippur Wars have largely negated that influence.  Today, only Syria and Iran appear to be Russia's "friends." That is why it is hard to believe that Russia would be interested in seeing Iran "neutralized." 
     China too, would like to maintain Iran's position in the region as a power.  China may be our economic ally, but it is not our political ally!  China wants to spread its own influence and in many parts of the world is in direct competition with us!  So, their participation to "de-nuclearize" Iran is indeed a curious affair.  All it needed was to have North Korea to participate in the talks to make it truly bizarre!  Of course, Russia and China being permanent members of the UN Security Council almost have to be included in any discussions involving world's security.  But in this case, it is like having a pair of foxes in a hen house to discuss its security!  An addition of a Tasmanian Devil (North Korea) would have made it even more like something that was dreamed up by a mad man!
     This so called "Nuclear Deal" is much more than an agreement to stop Iran from making nuclear weapons.  That may be our goal, but it is certainly not the goal of Russia or China, or perhaps even some of the European participants in the talks.  Iran desperately needed sanctions to be eased, which happened even before the talks started when we released $490 million in January.  Since that time we released more funds and have eased sanctions in other areas, although none of it has been widely reported by our media.  Iran may very well get more than it hoped for, it already got partial relief from sanctions without having to do anything except agree to talk!  They are definitely better negotiators than we are!

"Kippumjo" - The Joy Group

     The word kippumjo is a North Korean creation, a combination of Korean for joy or happiness, kippum, and a group of people, jo.  It has been given a more catchy name and translated as "pleasure squad" by the Western media.  The existence of kippumjo or "pleasure squad" in North Korea has been suspected for many years.  Periodically word would filter out that Kim Il Sung and later his son Kim Jong Il, had women that were specifically recruited and kept for the purpose of providing pleasure to the Kims and other leaders of North Korea.  However, all of these reports were unverified and there never were any witnesses.  All of that changed when in 2010, an attractive North Korean female defector divulged to the South Korean authorities that she had been one of the kippumjo, a member of the "pleasure squad" who was one of Kim Jong Il's favorites.
     According to Mi Hyang (only her first name was revealed), she was recruited as a very young girl specifically for the purpose of providing sexual pleasure to Kim Jong Il or other leaders.  She said that there were many other young women recruited from all over North Korea.  Perhaps "recruited" is not the right word, "drafted" would be more appropriate, since neither the young women nor their families had any say so in the matter.  A special department exists in the North Korean government that is charged with finding attractive young women for kippumjo.  They scour the cities and the countryside and pick young girls for the "pleasure squad." 
     Apparently there are three categories of kippumjo.  The prettiest, the most attractive ones are called manjoku and they are for sexual pleasure.  Another category known as haengbokjo are the ones who are trained to be skilled in giving massages, and the third group is the gamjo, those who are skilled in singing and dancing.  Of course all are attractive and required to provide sex if called upon.
      The whole business of kippumjo is so surrealistic that it is generally waved off by some as just another fiction or anti North Korean propaganda.  After all, in that controversial movie about North Korea, The Interview, which caused such a stir not long ago, the "pleasure squad" was prominently displayed.  The movie being a comedy, most viewers no doubt felt that the whole business of "pleasure squad" was just an invention of a Hollywood script writer.  But as strange and far-fetched as it may be, the "pleasure squads" did exist and have been resurrected recently.
     Initially, when Kim Jong Un took power, he got rid of the kippumjo.  He was paranoid and felt that these women knew too many state secrets, sensitive information about various leaders.  Also, Kim Jong Un initially shunned the extravagant life style of his father.  But it didn't take him long to develop a taste for the high life, which he had originally lived, but abandoned briefly when he took power.  Now, being fully in power, he has reinstituted the kippumjo or "pleasure squads" and has been living a decadent, bacchanalian life style.  What a country!
     North Korea seems to be on another planet, in another world.  Through the years, it has been almost impossible to deal with them.  Their mentality, their way of thinking is so far removed from that of the rest of the world that it is impossible to have a meeting of the minds.  In 2005, after many years of trying, finally an agreement was reached on the nuclear issue.  The United States, Russia, China, South Korea on one side, and North Korea on the other, came to an agreement, a deal was struck and sanctions were lifted.  A year later, in 2006 North Korea had its first successful nuclear bomb test, completely ignoring and negating the agreement that it had made earlier!  Now, some nine years later, North Korea has had several successful nuclear bomb tests and it is believed that they will have about 20 nuclear devices within a short time.
     The danger is not that they will fire missiles with nuclear devices at South Korea or Japan, although they are perfectly capable of doing that.  The more imminent danger is that they will sell the nukes to earn money, which they desperately need, to terrorist states!  North Korea has a record of selling weapons to terrorists.  All of those scud missiles that Saddam Hussein fired at Israel during the first Gulf War were purchased from North Korea!  Now imagine those same North Korean scuds with nuclear warheads!  The missiles that North Korea now produces have a much longer range, so, with nuclear warheads, they become extremely dangerous not only in North Korean hands, but in the hands of terrorists that will purchase them!  We have a problem, and I am surprised that there is so little talk about the situation with North Korea and their nuclear weapons.
     Our latest deal with Iran smacks of the deal that we struck with North Korea.....Washington appears to be confident that Iran will keep its word and will not develop nuclear weapons surreptitiously.  That's a lot of faith in a regime that has shown nothing in the past 35 years of its existence to merit such trust.  It is a regime that has vowed to destroy Israel and refers to the United States as the "Great Satan!"  In general, Iran has shown no tolerance towards any none Muslims!
Are we to believe that they changed overnight and will not pull the same thing that North Korea did?
Washington appears to have that confidence in Iran, let's hope they are right.  One North Korea is more than enough!

Israel and Israeli Leaders

     Israel is the most important and the staunchest ally that we have in the Middle East, there are no two ways about it.  Our current administration's flirtations with Iran notwithstanding, without Israel to provide a deterrent, Middle East would be even a bigger mess than it is, if you can imagine it!
     An editorial in this morning's paper explained our relationship with Middle Eastern countries by pointing out that the Iran Hostage Crisis in which 52 of our diplomats were held as hostages for 444 days was not as bad or serious as the 1973 Oil Crisis that was created by OPEC, lead by Saudi Arabia!  In other words, Saudi Arabia's price gouging was more serious than Iran's act of holding our diplomats hostage!  Its not hard to see where that writer's priorities are, obviously it is more important to keep his car running with cheaper gas prices than protecting the lives of our diplomats!  It was such a weak and shallow attempt at justifying our nuclear "deal" with Iran that supposedly had been negotiated that it is laughable.
     You will note that I said "supposedly" negotiated.  What we think or how we perceive things aren't seen or thought of the same way by Iranians.  It is not easy to penetrate, to understand the workings of a Middle Eastern mind.  It may sound like a cliché, but it is true!  So, what we think we had agreed on is not necessarily what the Iranians think that they agreed upon.  Most none Middle Eastern and none Islamic cultures have a very difficult time understanding, agreeing, or having a meeting of minds with that part of the world.  Israel is an exception, because Israel is a part of the Middle East and can truly understand the way the Arab mind works.  They certainly have had enough time to learn, something like a couple of thousand years!  Yet Israel is also a part of the West, with its educational system and life style that is similar to Europe or America.
     We should pay heed to what Israel says.  Of course Israel has its own best interest in mind, and will put forth what serves them best.  But nevertheless, they know and understand their neighbors better than we can ever hope to do so.  To ignore Israel's warnings and advice is indeed foolhardy.  But, we have always had people in power who thought they knew better than anyone else.  That's what happened during Vietnam, during Carter Administration with his Georgia Mafia, and it has continued to this day!
     We share intelligence with Israel, and some of the best (if not the only good stuff) intelligence that we get on Middle Eastern countries is what we get from Israel!  Before the ground war took place in the first Gulf War, we asked the Israelis to brief us on Saddam Hussein's forces and other aspects of his defenses.  Israeli Special Forces, Sayeret Matkal, officers came to Fort Bragg, North Carolina and briefed our Special Forces on the disposition of Saddam's Republican Guard and other units.  Their briefing allowed us to have pretty good knowledge of what to expect and how to avoid any pitfalls.  Our own intelligence was unable to provide that kind of information, but Israelis could!  When the ground war began, it was literally a "cake walk" for our forces!  Israelis truly know their neighbors, their enemies.
     Israelis had warned us that the most difficult part would not be defeating Iraqi forces, the most difficult part would be the aftermath.  After we defeat their forces, that is when the real problems would begin.  Israel had plenty of experience dealing with Arabs in occupied territory.  They have been fighting insurgents (Hamas or Hezbollah) in occupied areas of Lebanon or Palestine ever since they took the territory!  Wisely, in the First Gulf War, we refrained from occupying any territory.  The second time, Iraqi Freedom, we occupied Iraq and look what it has created!
     One of the main problems that we have is that our civilian leadership seems to be totally lacking in experience and understanding of what war is all about.  The president appears to be surrounded by a bunch of brainy people who seem to think that wars are fought like video games!  It has reached a point where Vietnam veterans are mostly too old to serve in the government.  There may still be a few, like John McCain, but they are now looked upon as relics of the past. 
     There may be a handful of Gulf War veterans, but not to take anything away from them, the first Gulf War only lasted a couple of months, the ground war even less than that.  The amount of experience that you can gain in that period is not the same as spending a year in combat or for the duration as in case of Korea and World War Two.  There are too few veterans of current wars to make an impact. In short, we are lacking in combat experience among our top civilian leaders and advisors.  The president himself does not necessarily need combat experience, although it would help.  But he must be surrounded by advisors who are at least knowledgeable about war!  Yes I know, John Kerry is a Vietnam veteran, I remember very well when he "threw away" his medals in protest before TV cameras!  But Kerry is about the only Vietnam Vet who is close to the president, and he is a phony!
     In contrast, Israeli leadership, since its beginning in 1948 with David Ben-Gurion, has consisted of those who were veterans of either the War of Independence (Ben-Gurion was the leader during that period) or had actually served in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) which was created after the independence.  Most of the older leaders like former Prime Ministers Shimon Peres, Yitzak Rabin and Menachem Begin fought in the War of Independence with either Haganah or Irgun, the two guerrilla organizations that were absorbed into IDF after the independence.  Golda Meir, the only woman Prime Minister was very active and served with the underground movement during the War of Independence and before!  The younger ones all had served, and with distinction, in IDF during one of the many Arab-Israeli Wars!  Ehud Barak was the most highly decorated soldier in IDF!
     Benjamin Netanyahu, the current Prime Minister who appears to have a rocky relationship with Washington is a seasoned combat veteran who was wounded in battle.  He served with IDF Special Forces, Sayeret Matkal in both the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War.  He is also a graduate of MIT with a BS and MS and served as Israel's Ambassador to the U.S. before becoming the Prime Minister the first time.  So you can see that Benjamin Netyanyahu does understand America and Americans!  Can't say the same thing about our leaders and their knowledge and understanding of Israel!
     Netanyahu's older brother, Jonathan (Yonatan), was also with IDF's Sayeret Matkal and he was killed during the raid on Entebbe to rescue Israeli hostages from Uganda in 1976.  Had he survived, he probably would have served in politics like his younger brother.  By the way, Jonathan, who was born in New York, had trained with the U.S. Army Special Forces and studied at Harvard.
     But Washington turns a deaf ear to Benjamin Netanyahu's warnings, and our media makes him out to be a war mongering Arab hater. Obviously folks in Washington know and understand the Middle East and the Arab world better than Netanyahu.

Some Heroes I Have Known

     Generally speaking, most people are unaware of thousands upon thousands, countless number of true heroes that emerge in each war that we have fought.  The press will normally advertise the exploits of someone who is awarded the Medal of Honor, sometimes even those who receive the Distinguished Service Cross (Navy Cross for Navy and Marines and Flying Cross for the Air Force) or even a Silver Star.  But those others, the vast majority who receive "lesser" or no medals at all, are rarely if ever mentioned.
     Although every recipient of the Medal of Honor or the Distinguished Service Cross more than deserve the honor, unfortunately there are others that go unmentioned because they were never nominated for the higher awards.  Like most things in life, everything depends on being at the right place at the right time, or having someone note your actions and record them officially.  Sadly, sometimes someone would commit an act of valor that would deserve a high award, but because of personal differences with the commanding officer or simple dislike for each other, no award recommendations are written up and the exceptional action goes unmentioned and unrewarded. At other times, the paper work gets lost in the huge bureaucratic nest that is called Pentagon and with luck, resurfaces a half a century later!  That is human nature, that is how things work or don't work ever since awards were given to warriors for their acts of valor.
     I knew several people during Vietnam who deserved much higher awards than the ones they received, or didn't receive at all!  One such person was my good friend William "Doc" Barnes.  I already mentioned in an earlier blog how he had stitched up a fellow soldier in Laos and got his nickname.  He should have gotten more than a nickname for that act, but he didn't.  Considering that he was not even a medic, it was remarkable what he did!  Unfortunately, none of the members of "White Star," got any recognition for their work.  They spent a year fighting the Pathet Lao and training loyalist troops.  Several were killed and many were wounded, but they never even got a campaign ribbon for their effort!
     Several years after Laos, in Vietnam, Doc was on a patrol with a small contingent of Nung mercenaries and another American NCO.  It was a typical patrol consisting of two American NCOs and a dozen indigenous troops.  Special Forces ran these patrols that lasted from one day to several days, around their camps constantly.  The patrols were conducted to sweep the area and gather intelligence for MACV in Saigon.  On this particular occasion, the patrol ran into trouble when they stumbled upon a much larger NVA unit that had been staging to attack the camp.  A firefight broke out and it was obvious that the small patrol could not hold off the larger enemy force so they had to make a run for it.  A radio call was made to the camp, advising of their situation and a prearranged point was selected for extraction by helicopter.  It was a running firefight and several Nungs, as well as Doc were hit. 
     Doc was the senior NCO and the patrol leader.  As the patrol fought their way into a small clearing in the jungle where the high canopy was open just enough to allow for extraction, all the wounded were gathered to be extracted first.  The Huey (UH-21) could not land, it had to lower a rope with a harness and winch up the patrol members, one by one!  Fortunately, the canopy was so thick that the NVA could not see well enough to hit the hovering Huey.  Doc ordered the wounded to be extracted first while he fought on, firing his weapon and supervising the extraction.  He was hit several times and bleeding profusely.  When the four wounded Nungs were lifted out, it was Doc's turn to go since he too was wounded, but he refused.  Instead, he ordered the rest of the team to go and for the other American to go as well.  When the junior NCO turned to him and said, "Doc, you're wounded!  You've got to go!"  Doc shook his head and said, "I am the team leader and I say who goes first!"  It was like a scene out of a John Wayne movie!
      Doc made sure that everyone had gone up before him.  It was just Doc and one Nung remaining when the Nung was hit and fell to the ground.  Doc grabbed the wounded Nung, and holding him, slipped himself into the harness and gave the signal to be winched up.  The incident was accurately reported and Doc's actions were verified by the other American and all of the Nungs.  Doc was never written up for his actions and never received even a letter of commendation for it!  On his subsequent tours in Vietnam, Doc committed several valorous acts in combat but never received anything higher than a Bronze Star with a "V" device for valor and the Army Commendation Medal which was sometimes derisively referred to as the "Green Hornet" (because of the green ribbon)! 
     It wasn't until much later that I discovered what a legend he had become in the Special Forces.  Back in the late 1980s when I was stationed in Ecuador, a Special Forces team from the 7th Special Forces Group in Panama used to come down often to train Ecuadorian troops and also to conduct a "survey" of the American Consulate General where I worked.  The Special Forces team was assigned to "cover" us, to help with security and evacuation in case of trouble.  It was ironic, but I discovered that the team from Panama, was my old team A-717, which was now called ODA 717!  The Special Forces team members were excited to learn that I was one of the "old timers" and asked me countless questions about the "old days."  Talk about feeling old!  Somehow Doc's name came-up and I was surprised to learn that they had all heard of him!  He had become a legend of sorts in the Special Forces.  Naturally, my stock went up in their estimation (whether deservedly or not!) simply because I knew Doc personally!  I was no longer just a State Department wimp but a former SF, one of the "old guys," and a friend of Doc Barnes!
     Doc Barnes was a true American hero, everyone in the Special Forces thought so, but like so many others like him, he never got the recognition that he deserved.  I was very fortunate to have known him, to have served with him, and to have been his friend.