"Asian Language Linguist"

     There was a time, not too long ago when there was an acute shortage of Asian language linguists in America.  The exigencies of World War Two created some by way of language training given to military personnel, but even then, there just weren't that many Americans who could speak Japanese, Korean, Chinese, or other Asian languages fluently.  During World War Two, most Asian linguists were actually first or second generation Asian-Americans, although there were some non-Asians as well.  The interest in Asian languages was always there, it is just that the numbers of linguists was always kind of small, compared to linguists in European languages. 
     The decades of late the 1970s through the 1980s were boon years for Asian culture and languages, it was when quite a few Americans learned Asian languages and also went to live and work in Asia.  This was particularly true of Japanese.  The 1990s saw a dramatic increase in interest in learning Chinese and Korean, so those two languages received a lot of attention.  These movements coincided with economic growth of Japan, Korea, and China.  Today, I believe America has more Asian linguists than any Western country, but, it wasn't always so.
     Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s when I worked at the American Embassy in Tokyo, many representatives of American companies used to come to Japan to establish business ties.  It amazed me how few (practically none!), had Japanese speaking executives.  They always had to rely on interpreters or English speaking Japanese counterparts.  Needless to say, most were not all that successful and they blamed their failure on Japanese resistance to American business.  Some of it may have been true, Japan certainly had and still has a very "protective" policy when it comes to foreign business.  But, mostly the failures were due to lack of understanding of Japanese culture and mentality, and to a large degree, inability to speak Japanese.  During that period, just about all of the Americans who could speak Japanese and understood Japanese culture and system were U.S. Government employees, civilian or military.  The none government sector seemed to be clueless when it came to Asian languages and culture.  Of course there were people in academia who knew Japanese language and culture, but they didn't work for the businesses that came to Japan!
     I remember one particular amusing incident when a famous American ketchup company sent its people to Japan to try to market their product.  The Japanese, after listening to their pitch, politely asked if the company could produce soft, squeezable plastic bottles for their famous ketchup brand.  They explained that the Japanese housewives did not like the heavy glass bottles that sometimes required the help of a chopstick or some other object to get the ketchup flowing.  All Japanese ketchup bottles were squeezable at the time.  The response from the American company representatives was somewhat surprising.  They said that they were proud of the fact that their brand of ketchup was so thick that it required some help to start flowing.  They said that plastic bottles were cheap and would present a negative image of their product.  So, no, they would not make squeezable bottles.  Needless to say, their deal fell through, the Japanese were not interested in importing that brand of American ketchup, although they readily admitted that they liked the taste!  Apparently the American company did not do its homework, market research!
     There were a number of factors involved in this case, stupidity was no doubt one of the factors.  But the lack of understanding Japanese mentality and culture, and simply the inability to communicate probably were the biggest factors in their failure!  It took a while, but it seems American companies have caught on and are now marketing various products, suitably modified to fit the Japanese needs!  But speaking of linguists, as I said, in the early days, there weren't that many in the private sector.  Those Americans who could speak Japanese or other Asian languages fluently could really cash in on their language skills when Asian economy took off.  There were several notable cases of former U.S. Government employees who switched to private sector and had great success because of their linguistic abilities.
     Andy had a very curious and interesting background.  He grew up in Asia prior to World War Two in Korea.  His parents may have been missionaries or business people, I never really found out.  He grew up in Korea at a time when it was under Japanese rule and he had a Japanese nanny!  So, he learned to speak Korean as well as Japanese from the time he was a baby.  Needless to say, he spoke those two languages like a native!  After he left Asia, he said he always felt somewhat awkward, out of place, didn't feel like he fit-in.  He worked at different jobs, but wasn't very happy and wanted to return to Asia.  When Korean War broke out he answered an ad in the newspaper for Korean speakers.  He was hired, and as it turned out, it was the young (at the time only three years old!) Central Intelligence Agency.  He was stationed in Tokyo but spent most of his time in Korea during the war.  When the war ended he stayed on in Tokyo and worked for the CIA.  He rotated between his time back stateside at Langley and Japan.  A tour in Washington (Langley) and a few years in Tokyo, etc.
     Andy was a blue-eyed, blond, Nordic type, yet he spoke perfect Japanese and Korean, like a native.  If you had your back turned to him and he spoke either Japanese or Korean, you would not have guessed in a million years that he was not a Japanese or a Korean!  His Japanese he spoke with a very slight Saitama accent because his old nanny, the woman who essentially raised him, was from Saitama-ken.  His Korean had a very slight Cholla-do inflection because that is where he learned Korean, where he had Korean playmates and friends.  No doubt Andy was one of those people who was just naturally gifted when it came to languages.  But having grown up speaking Japanese and Korean gave him a tremendous advantage over those who learned the language as adults.  The Japanese in particular were always quite taken aback when first meeting Andy.  Back in those days, there just weren't that many gaijin who spoke Japanese at that fluency level!
     By the mid 1960s Andy decided he no longer wanted to work for Uncle Sam, but rather wanted to stay more or less on a permanent basis in Tokyo, so he quit CIA and started looking for a job.  It didn't take him long to find a job, initially as a salesman for an electronics company to market the goods in America.  Within a few short years he became the senior vice president of that company!  I met him in Tokyo on my way back from Okinawa in 1968 (I had known him since the 1950s) and discovered just how Japanese electronics had almost complete taken over the market world wide!  By then, even some of the famous American brand TV, stereo and radio equipment were all made in Japan, stamped with the American company names!  I wasn't aware of that until I visited his office in Tokyo and saw photos on the wall of Andy with American company executives, shaking hands after closing the deals to purchase Japanese equipment!  He had even managed to sell some electronics (like monitors) to NASA that were used in space flights!
     Andy was one of a kind and was able to make himself a success because of his unusual linguistic ability.  He never went to college, yet was able to attain such success in his life.  Today there are many other non-Asian Americans who work for Japanese, Korean and Chinese enterprises who are fluent in the language and knowledgeable about the culture of the country.  But back in the day, a person like Andy was indeed a rare bird!  I can still remember the surprised looks on the faces of Japanese and Koreans when they first heard Andy speak in their language, it was priceless!
    

"Crazy Polack"

     I have previously mentioned the Lodge Act on several occasions.  I have even blogged on a friend that I had who came into the Special Forces under the Lodge Act.  I believe it is one of the better ideas that our legislators came up with, god knows they don't do it often enough!  Unfortunately the Lodge Act was short lived and there was much opposition from various places, including the U.S. Army itself!  The most common criticism of the act was that we did not want to create a Foreign Legion like the French!  Well, the Lodge Act was not meant to create a separate unit, it was meant to allow the army to recruit qualified people directly into various army units, especially the Special Forces.  I still believe it was a terrific idea and the people I met, those who came into the Special Forces under the Lodge Act, only made me believe even more that it was a very good idea!
     For those who may have forgotten, to refresh your memory, the Lodge Act was passed in 1952 for the purpose of allowing the U.S. Army to recruit and accept qualified Eastern European volunteers for service.  At the time there was a great shortage of army personnel who could speak Eastern European languages fluently, at native level.  It was a period when the Cold War had just begun and there was mild panic within some circles that we did not have enough people in military intelligence and other units who could speak Russian, Polish, and other Eastern European languages at a native level.
     Unfortunately, because of opposition and unfounded rumors of communist attempts to infiltrate our military, the Lodge Act had a minimal effect on the U.S. Army as a whole.  Most army units, with the exception of the Special Forces, were reluctant to recruit Eastern Europeans.  Special Forces tried to take full advantage of the Lodge Act and recruited as many qualified Eastern Europeans as it could.  In that way, the Special Forces was able to recruit several hundred Eastern Europeans, mostly veterans of ComBloc armies!  They all proved to be superb additions to the Special Forces and I was fortunate enough to have met and served with several Lodge Act soldiers during those early years.
     Jerzy Kuczak was a cheerful, seemingly happy-go-lucky, Sergeant First Class E-7 when I met him in 1964.  He was Polish, but grew up in Brest, Belaroussia.  At the time he was born and was growing up before World War Two, Brest was part of Poland.  However, at the end of World War Two when Kuczak was around 14, Brest became part of Belaroussia and the Soviet Union.  So, he essentially spent his latter teen years under the Soviet rule.  He said he had always been interested in the military so it was only natural that he excelled in the military portion of his schooling in gymnasium.  His talents were noted by the Soviets so upon graduation at age 17 he was sent off to officers training school in Minsk.  Of course he had no choice in the matter.  Had he refused to go, he would have been marked as a trouble maker and probably sent off to some "re-education" center, i.e., internment camp (slave labor) for dissidents!  So off he went to Minsk.
     Upon graduation from training, which unlike our OCS lasted 2 years instead of 6 months (today's OCS is 3 months), he was assigned to Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany, Berlin to be precise.  As a young Soviet Junior Lieutenant (that's like a "third" lieutenant!), Kuczak marveled at the wonders of the West, despite the fact that Berlin was only beginning to recover from the ruins.  This was at a time before the Berlin Wall went up so it was not difficult for the Soviet troops to see what it was like on the "other side."  Kuczak had studied French and German (and English) when he was in gymnasium.  He had even won a prize for his French.  It didn't take him long to realize that he would be much better off on the "other side" rather than remaining with the Soviets.  So after some careful planning, he defected to the French side.  Berlin, as you may recall, was divided into French, British, American, and Soviet sectors.  He chose the French side because he felt with his ability in speaking French, he would stand a better chance of making a good life for himself.
     So, he defected.  However, he couldn't take advantage of the Lodge Act because he was on the French side!  The French, after interrogating him thoroughly, allowed him to resettle at a place of his choosing, naturally he chose Paris, who wouldn't?  However, life in Paris in early 1950s for a 19-20 year old Polish/Soviet defector was not all wine, women, and song.  He couldn't find any decent work and working in menial jobs and living hand to mouth was not exactly what he had hoped for when he defected.  Life as a Soviet officer was much better. albeit not as free!  Somewhere along the line, someone suggested to him that he might want to try the Foreign Legion, that with his military background he would be a natural.  At the time, the French Indochina War was raging.  So, he marched off to a Foreign Legion recruiting station and signed up.
     He was first sent to Algeria where the Foreign Legion was Headquartered and had its training center.  There he trained and volunteered for the parachute duty.  Upon completion of his training he was immediately shipped off to Indochina (Vietnam) where he was assigned to the famous Foreign Legion's 1st Parachute Battalion, the 1er Bataillon Etranger de Parachutiste.  The unit was already heavily engaged in battle so he was immediately issued combat gear and thrown into the lion's den.  He said with a chuckle that the camouflage smock that he was issued had bullet holes in it, with some dark stains!  He said that contrary to popular belief, Foreign Legion did not have top notch equipment and their training left much to be desired.  He said the training was brutal, but lacked sophistication or proper technical know how.  Marksmanship training was minimal!
     In May of 1954 his unit, along with six other parachute battalions jumped into a place called Dien Bien Phu.  There, they engaged in a most ferocious battle of all during the French Indochina War.  At the end, he was among some 11,000 French POWs captured by the Viet Minh under the command of the General Vo Giap.  He said it was a hellish experience, the Vietnamese POW camp, the beatings, lack of medical care and food.  But he survived.  When the war ended shortly, he was returned to France first then to Algeria.  But by then he decided that he did not want to stick around.  Although the Foreign Legion enlistment is for five years, those who were POWs in the Indochina War were given an option to leave the Legion if they wanted.  Kuczak did not need a second invitation, he left the Legion and kicked around Europe as a DP (Displaced Person, a refugee) for a while until he heard of the Lodge Act.  He sought out a U.S. Army installation and enlisted in the U.S. Army under the Lodge Act and entered the Special Forces.
     He was a great story teller and he told his tale light heartedly, almost comically, as if it was all a big joke!  Later I met another Lodge Act soldier who also served in the French Foreign Legion in Indochina.  He knew Kuzcak in those days and said that he was an outstanding soldier, fearless in battle, and was known as the "Crazy Polack!"
     Kuzcak absolutely loved the Special Forces.  He served his whole career with the SF and did multiple tours in Vietnam!  He was given a direct commission after a while and used to joke that he was the oldest Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, he was in his 30s then.  He rose to the rank of full bird Colonel and retired in Milwaukee where, of all things, he ran a Polish Deli! 

Spinning out of Control

     The situation in the Middle East, most especially in Syria, is spinning out of control.  Perhaps it can right itself and bring back some stability, perhaps it will continue to spin out of control and lead to total chaos.  We won't know for a while, at least!
     America is as much to blame for the crazy situation in Syria as anyone else.  Had we stepped-in and done something four years ago when our President gave the stern warning to Assad not to cross the "red line," perhaps this whole mess could have been averted.  But when Assad promptly did cross the "red line" and did so repeatedly, and we did nothing, things really started to spin out of control.  Seeing our inaction, Putin quickly pounced on the opportunity to flex his muscles, knowing that we would not do anything to deter his aggression.  He took Crimea and eastern part of Ukraine, which is still contested and in a mess.  When no visible threat came from our side, except for some rhetoric, his next move was predictable.  Step-in and help out one of his best customers in the Middle East, Assad of Syria.  Immediately there were shipments of arms to Syria!
     In the meantime, we continued to make decisions and political moves that further weakened our position in the Middle East.  We left Iraq only to have to now try to salvage the mess our departure created.  Afghanistan is also in a mess with our drawdown.  ISIS/ISIL became a main adversary in Iraq and even the formerly defeated Al Qaeda has regained foothold in Afghanistan.  While all of that was going on, we decided to strike a "nuclear deal" with Iran, "the worst deal in history," in the words of Israel's Netanyahu!  The American public is assured that it is a "good deal" that will delay Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons.  To bring about this "delay" we released billions of previously frozen funds, allowed Iran to start selling their oil and began lifting most of the previously established embargo.  We struck this deal with Iran in concert with other nations, nations that have a direct interest in trading with Iran!  By the way, we don't do any major trading with Iran, never did, so we gain nothing on this deal except a possible "delay" in Iran's nuclear program.
     Russia, one of the participants in the Iran Nuclear Deal immediately struck a lucrative deal with Iran to sell them their advanced anti missile system, S300.  Iran has already received the initial shipments.  Most recently Putin traveled to Tehran to sign a deal to buy low grade uranium from Iran, uranium produced in a plant built by Russia!  There is talk that this same uranium will be enriched to weapons grade level in Russia and sold back to Iran!  Nice deal.  Russia has also partnered with Iran to fight ISIS, and now Iran's forces are present in significant numbers in Syria, along with their proxy forces, the Hezbollah from Lebanon.  Most recently Russia established a Headquarters for Anti ISIS campaign in Baghdad.  The Headquarters is staffed with Russians, Iraqis, and Iranians.  We were not invited, we can only gaze at their Headquarters from across town!  Iran in the meantime, announced that they will never deal with us in any manner again and just recently convicted our Washington Post Bureau Chief in Tehran for espionage!  That was a wonderful deal we struck with Iran, we sure got a lot out of it!
     So essentially we have Assad's Syrian forces, Russians, Iranians, and Hezbollah on one side and our forces, such as they are (a tiny contingent of Special Forces and warplanes off carriers and land based bombers), French Air Force, the Arab Coalition (who participate on and off, depending on their mood and weather!), the Kurds, and Turkey.  Turkey, however, marches to its own drum beat as they demonstrated in the recent shoot down of the Russian plane.  Turkey is involved in this war mainly to fight the Kurds, our allies!  We had Turkey sign on and declared them as our NATO allies because we needed to use their air space to bomb ISIS in Syria!  Remember, the Turks did not even allows us to use their air space to transport our troops to Iraq during both Iraqi Wars!  So, theoretically, it was a win for us to gain access to their air space, but at what cost?  Considering our military capabilities, could we not have continued bombing ISIS without the use of Turkish air space?
     The war in Syria, with multiple participants, is fought for different reasons and with different enemies by all sides!  Assad, Russia and Iran are primarily targeting anti-Assad forces, be they Kurds, so-called "moderate" rebels, or ISIS.  We are targeting only ISIS, we are not touching Assad's forces and god forbid, Russians or Iranians.  The French also are only bombing ISIS targets as are the Arab Coalition forces, when they are fighting.  The Turks, who we had join the fray with much fanfare, are only interested in fighting Kurds!  They have Kurdish Separatists on their side of the border that they have been fighting for years.  Now they are bombing both their own side as well as the Syrian side to try to kill all Kurds!  Some pundits in Washington feared that Turkey was leaning too much to the East and not West with its NATO allies.  Indeed, Turkey trades openly with everyone, including Russia and China.  If the idea of getting Turkey to join the fight in Syria on our side was to draw them closer to the West, then it was a pretty weak reason. 
     Turkey will do what it will do, it always has!  Historically Turkey always went its own way, even when it did ally with one side or another.  The shooting down of the Russian plane is a perfect example of that mentality.  We went through an elaborate protocol with Russians to avoid accidental shoot downs, Turkey did not shoot down the Russian plane accidentally!  Turkey shot down the Russian plane because they felt it had invaded its air space.  Plain and simple.  Turkey does not fight for anyone, they only fight for themselves and only if it is to their advantage.
     Putin angrily responded to Turkey's shoot down and accused the Turks of being in cahoots with ISIS.  To some extent Putin is correct, it is not Russian propaganda that he is spewing.  Turkey does seem to allow ISIS to transport its oil trucks freely through Turkish territory.  We have always known that, but never said anything because we want access to their air space, and perhaps also to keep them from going completely to the East!  The same thing goes for the Turks fighting Kurds.  We knew form the start that Turkey would be primarily interested in fighting Kurds, not ISIS, yet we partnered with them!
     Beginning with bombing of the Russian passenger plane over Sinai and followed by the massacres in Paris, ISIS has really come on strong.  At the same time, other terror groups peripherally connected
to ISIS such as Boko Haram in Nigeria and the terror group in Mali Al Mourabitoun that is affiliated with Al Qaeda, all escalated their attacks.  Our response to date has been absolutely puny!  There was some hope that with the French President's visit to Washington we would come up with something more than the standard verbiage, but no such luck!  "We stand united....We will cooperate fully to defeat ISIS."  These are standard expressions coming out of the mouth of our President.  At least he is no longer saying that ISIS is nothing but a JV or that it is "contained!"  It is amazing how the media is giving him a pass despite the obvious lack of conviction, plan, or any kind of a true strategy to defeat ISIS.  You can rest assured that any other president would have been literally crucified by the media for such lack of response.  At this point, even some of Obama's previous supporters are being critical for his lack of strategy, a firm plan.  Both Dianne Feinstein and Leon Panetta have gone on record to criticize Obama on this issue. 
     But the media still gives him a pass.  Instead, the media is making a big deal out of the fact that the State Department has just announced a travel warning for the entire world, as if it was some sort of a new strategy for defeating ISIS.  Big deal!  State Department issues travel warnings when there's a typhoon approaching Japan or bad strain of flu has been found in Hong Kong!  Give me a break!  Is the State Department Travel Warning our biggest response to the latest ISIS threat?  If it is, I am ready to look for a deserted island to live on, it is almost too much to take!

The Sniper

     Several years ago I published a hunting story entitled "The Sniper."  It was about an old Russian teacher that I knew in California many years ago.  He was not a "sniper" as most people understand that name/word to imply, a military or police sharpshooter.  Rather he was a sniper in a classic sense, how the name "sniper" originally came about!
     For those who are unfamiliar, a snipe is a small, long beaked bird of the shore bird family that was always considered a top game bird among European sportsmen.  It is called variously in different languages, becassine in French, beccaccino in Italian, bekazz in Russian, shigi in Japanese, and of course, snipe in English.  But whatever it is called, it was a very popular game bird that is considered a delicacy on the table and an extremely difficult target for the hunter.  Because it is such a difficult bird to hit on the wing, a hunter who is successful in hitting this bird with some degree of consistency was called a "sniper," an ultimate compliment for shooting prowess.  Somewhere along the line, the name "sniper" was transferred to military marksmen to denote superior marksmanship.  So there, a bit of trivia about the origin of the name/word sniper.
     The old Russian teacher that I knew, being of old school, was an avid snipe hunter.  Today snipe are rarely if every pursued by modern hunters.  The bird is just too small and too difficult to hit.  In today's world where bigger is better, such small quarry, no matter how sporting, is ignored.  But back in the old days, in the 19th and early to mid 20th Century, sportsmen used to sing the praises of this small bird, everyone from Ivan Turgenev of the 19th Century to Ernest Hemingway of the 20th!  But, be that as it may, this is not about the difficult winged target, but rather about the fascinating old Russian that I knew.
     Many years ago, when Beatles were still performing as a group, I was getting ready to go off to graduate school to earn my doctorate in Comparative Literature.  Since Russian literature was one of the subject areas of my study, I needed to brush up on my Russian reading and writing before going off to the East Coast to pursue my degree.  I decided to audit some Russian classes at the local junior college rather than at the four year college.  It was a lot cheaper to audit the classes at a JC than at a four year school, and money was very difficult to come by for a graduate student!  So I approached the Russian instructor at Santa Rosa Junior College and asked him if it would be alright to audit his class.  The old gentleman, who was in his mid 70s and somewhat frail at the time, said it was fine with him.  So I began auditing his class that September, a year before going off to the East Coast.
     I became very good friends with Vladimir Vorobey, the old instructor.  We used to chat a lot during class breaks and after class, and I learned some fascinating things about him.  He in turn learned about my passion for hunting and told me that he too used to be a hunter in his younger days, and especially enjoyed pursuing snipe.  That is how we got into the whole thing of going hunting together, but back to the old man and his story.
     Vladimir Vorobey was a short, bandy-legged Cossack.  He was a Don Cossack and an officer in the Tsarist army during the Russian Revolution and the First World War.  He fought in the war first, then when Russia pulled out of the war because of the revolution, he was detailed to guard the Romanoffs!  He was in charge of one of the smaller details that guarded the Tsar's family.  Then he was taken off the detail and sent somewhere else to fight the Bolsheviks.  During his absence the Bolsheviks took over the palace and moved the Tsar's family to Yekaterinbug by the Urals.  He was once more detailed to try to rescue the Tsar's family and after much difficulty, his detachment was able to reach Yekaterinburg, but too late.  According to him the Romanoffs were all murdered and their bodies dumped in a mine shaft.  He said that he and his troops retrieved the bodies and gave them proper burial in the woods, in a hidden location to keep Bolsheviks from uncovering the spot and desecrating the remains.  He said it was one of the most difficult things that he ever had to do in his life!
     When the Tsarist forces were defeated, like many other survivors, he fled Russia.  Some went west, others, like Vorobey, went east.  He ended up in China and the only employment he could get was to hire out as a mercenary to a Chinese warlord's army.  He went to work for Chiang Tso Lin's army, the warlord of Manchuria!  He was given a commission as a captain but was soon promoted to major and put in charge of training the warlord's army.  He spent five years doing that, but got tired of soldiering and left the services of Chiang Tso Lin.  He then attempted to make a living as a professional hunter, shooting mainly deer and wild boar which he sold on the market.  He partnered with another ex-Russian officer and the two of them had a fairly successful enterprise going.  But he tired of that as well.  As he said, there really wasn't much of a future in being a professional hunter!  He bounced around from one job to another, everything from being a policeman to a doorman at a fancy hotel.  Then through sheer luck, he managed to secure a visa for the United States and ended up in America.
     However, his arrival in America did not end his hardship!  He arrived in the land of opportunity right smack in the middle of Depression and Prohibition Era!  He ended up in San Francisco in a large Russian émigré community.  He worked at all sorts of odd jobs, barely surviving.  However, he worked very hard and managed to save some money, plus he had some savings that he brought with him, savings from his better days in China.  He did not like being in the city, among other Russian immigrants.  He told me that the immigrants were always squabbling amongst each other and he didn't like the crowded city life.  So, he moved north, across San Francisco Bay to a small community called Healdsburg.  He bought about 15 acres of land outside of Healdsburg along Mill Creek.  There was nothing there, no running water, no electricity.  But the land was cheap and he used his hard earned money to pay for it.
     The first several months he actually "camped" on his property, lived in a tent.  He built a small cabin first, all by hand, using hand tools.  There were no power tools back then!  In the meantime he worked at whatever job he could find to feed himself and to buy building supplies!  In that fashion he built several more small cabins along Mill Creek, on his property.  He also managed to get the power company to run some power lines to his cabins.  He first supplemented his income by holding poker games on his property during the summer.  I am sure there was also some illegal booze flowing freely at those parties!  One of the participants in these card games was a local head of power company, so that is how he was able to get power lines running to his property!
     Eventually, he was able to build a house above the creek and the cabins.  It was amazing how he was able to build a house with no professional help, only friends helping out when they could.  The house was a solid structure that was very comfortable, roomy, and built exactly to his liking!  He lived in that house the rest of his life.
     Once the house was completed, he decided that he would seek employment locally and landed a job teaching Russian at the local community college.  He was a university graduate, but he did not have an advanced degree so he could not teach at a four year school.  A pity, because he was an excellent teacher and many more students would have benefited from taking his classes if he could have taught at a four year school.
     With the teaching job and completed house, life became more settled.  He rented out the cabins during summer months so he had some supplemental income as well.  He was doing well, so he married and they had a daughter.  Eventually he cut back on his teaching and by the time I met him, he was in semi retirement, teaching only one class.  He said he needed to keep that one class to stay young, to keep in touch with young people!
     I left for the East Coast after that academic year.  Before returning to California, I had secured a teaching job at Santa Rosa Junior College.  I was to teach a class in Modern Japanese Literature and another in Modern Russian Literature.   So when I returned to California I went to Santa Rosa JC to discuss my forthcoming semester with the Dean.  I was somewhat taken by surprise when during our meeting he asked if I would be interested in teaching Russian.  I asked if Vorobey wasn't teaching anymore and the Dean told me that the old man had passed away that summer!  I was hesitant to take the class, it felt kind of odd taking over the old man's class.  But the Dean said that they needed someone because the class had been scheduled already and that I would only teach until they found a permanent replacement.   I reluctantly agreed and ended up teaching Russian for that academic year, my only time teaching a foreign language during my teaching career!

"Gung-Ho Jack"

     The world has changed.  Only a generation ago the term "political correctness" (PC) did not exist.  What was acceptable a quarter of a century ago is considered taboo today and visa versa.  A half a century ago the world was almost completely different, different in the way people saw things, accepted or not accepted views and actions.  Many accepted behaviors of that time would land you in jail today, and many accepted behaviors today would have landed you in jail back in the day!  If you are 30 or even 40 something, you would not remember those days.  If you are north of 50, then you should definitely remember a very different world, unless your memory has failed you!
     Many years ago, back in the day when I was in high school and lived on Okinawa, I first became interested in Special Forces through my direct contact with some of its members.  The 1st Special Forces Group was formed on Okinawa in 1957 in what was then called Camp Sukiran.  I lived miles away, down south in Camp Chinen.  Some of you who were on Okinawa may remember Camp Chinen, pronounced "Shee-nen" although it was often mispronounced and called "Chee-nen."    
     Camp Chinen was an isolated installation with a "lower base" that was made up of mostly administrative buildings, etc., and the "upper base" which was the housing area.  Often, small groups of Special Forces soldiers would come to Camp Chinen for various training, everything from language to weapons and other classified esoteric subjects.  They were a quiet and serious group, very professional, who kept to themselves and were only seen when they were taking a break outside of the classroom building.  As a teenager, I was very impressed with their bearing and behavior.  There was none of that adolescent bravado often seen in young Marines or Army Paratroopers and Army Rangers.  They were quiet and "professional," a slogan that is used to this day to describe the Special Forces, "The Quiet Professionals."
     In those days, when I couldn't get away from Camp Chinen to go to one of the teen clubs, I used to go to our small bowling alley.  I did not bowl, but as I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs, I was friends with the Okinawan (he was actually Japanese from naichi, mainland) manager of the bowling alley.  He had a fascinating background and I used to enjoy chatting with him whenever I visited him.  The bowling alley was located in the part of the lower base where the camp dispensary and various classroom buildings were situated, the other side of the Gym.  Often, when I walked past those classroom buildings to get to the bowling alley, I would see Special Forces soldier sitting or stretched out on the lawn outside of the classroom on their break.  They would be smoking and quietly talking amongst each other.  It took me a while to work up the courage to strike up a conversation with them.
     One day I stopped and started to chat with some of them.  I asked questions about the Special Forces.  How difficult was it to get in?  What qualification did I need? I asked all sorts of questions.  Most of them seemed to be amused, others simply ignored me.  One guy in particular was very helpful and I engaged him in conversation whenever I spotted them taking a break. 
     Jack was a young Staff Sergeant E-6, very friendly, and gave me all the answers to the best of his ability.  Jack told me that he was from New Mexico, from Santa Fe.  He was not a Hispanic, but spoke fluent Spanish for he grew up among Hispanics.  Often he would exchange barbs with one of the other soldiers who was a Hispanic.  Despite the fact that my Spanish was minimal at the time, it wasn't hard to tell that the language they were using was not the kind that you would use in mixed company.
     Jack was a big help and gave me a lot of information about the Special Forces which fueled my desire to join the outfit even more!  I never did ask them what language they were learning, and they didn't volunteer the information.  But I assumed it was some Asian language.  It would have been highly unlikely for them to be learning a European language on Okinawa!  I saw Jack quite often for the next couple of weeks, then apparently they finished their language study, for they no longer came, instead, another group appeared after a while.
     I didn't see Jack after that.  I left Okinawa and later enlisted in the Army and volunteered for the Special Forces.  About a year after I finished my training and was assigned to the 7th group, I ran into Jack unexpectedly at the Main NCO club in Fort Bragg.  Jack was now a Sergeant First Class E-7 and he was assigned to the 6th Special Forces Group.  He seemed genuinely pleased to see me and we chatted for some time before parting.  That was the last time I saw Jack.  I knew that he was not married and had a reputation for being a real "gung-ho" soldier.  Everyone said he would make Sergeant Major in no time!  My good friend Doc Barnes (I did two separate blogs on Doc earlier) knew Jack and told me that he was a "good man" but had a blind spot when it came to America.  Doc did not dispense with compliments easily.
     About a decade later, long after I left the Special Forces and was a civilian, I caught a news bit on TV that a former Special Forces soldier was arrested for attempting to assassinate an Arab diplomat.  That former Special Forces soldier was Jack, the guy I knew from Camp Chinen!  I was stunned.  I researched and read more articles about the incident.  It appeared that Jack was hired by someone posing as a CIA officer to take out this Arab diplomat who was known to be involved with terrorists.  Jack being the gung-ho type that he was,  took the "contract" and attempted to take out the Arab diplomat.  Apparently the plot was uncovered before Jack could carry it out and he was arrested.
     At the time I was in contact with my friend Doc Barnes and he filled me in on the details.  Apparently Jack was involved in the infamous "Phoenix Program" in Vietnam, a CIA sponsored assassination and kidnapping program directed at VC cadre.  Jack was among the Special Forces members who were in that program and he was booted out of the service for his part.  When the "Phoenix Program" was first hatched and Special Forces soldiers were approached to volunteer, many became leery of this "mission."  Many thought that what the program called for was probably illegal and so refused to join.  Jack on the other hand, was so gung-ho, he would do anything that was supposedly for the good of the country.  So he volunteered for the program and ended up getting kicked out of the Army and his beloved Special Forces.
     He found himself back stateside with no job, no skills that he could use in civilian life.  He kicked around in various menial jobs for several years, until one day he was approached by a former CIA Case Officer who posed as an active CIA officer!  Jack knew this man from the "Phoenix Program" but did not know that he too had been booted out for his involvement.  The man, apparently represented some private interest group, although he told Jack that he was still with the CIA and hiring on the U.S. government's behalf.  Jack believed him and signed on.  He was, after all, a patriot and if his country wanted him to do this, he would have done it without pay!
     The whole thing fell apart when somehow the FBI and local Law Enforcement got wind of it.  Jack was arrested on his way to carry out the "mission."  He became the fall guy, the bad egg, the ex-Special Forces guy gone bad, etc.  With the strong anti-Vietnam War sentiment still in existence, it didn't take long for Jack's involvement with the "Phoenix Program" to surface.  He was painted by the media as the all-around bad guy.  He was quickly tried and put in prison for 25 years.  However, things didn't stop there.  Some of Jack's old friends got together and pooled their resources to hire a good lawyer who went to bat for him.  The lawyer dug up documentation proving that Jack was duped, that there was indeed a man who misrepresented himself as a CIA officer, and Jack thought he was carrying out a "mission" for his country!
     After the way the media vilified Jack, there was hardly a whimper when the lawyer managed to have Jack released.  Although he was still considered a felon, because by his own admission he was going to carry out the act, he was no longer considered guilty of a terror act or assassination attempt.  Strange how our system works.  Don't know what happened to Jack after that.  I sure hope he doesn't fall for another one of those, "do this for your country" deals!  Jack was just too blind when it came to serving his country.  Anything for America!  That was what he lived by and no doubt will take to his grave, if he hasn't already left this earth!

Syrian Refugees and Terror Attacks

     With the recent horrible Paris terror attacks the question of Syrian refugees came up again.  Today, in Antalya, Turkey, where he is attending the G20 Summit, President Obama defended his administration's decision to take-in Syrian refugees.  He said that it was who we were, historically America has always taken-in refugees, and we were not about to change that.  He stressed the fact that the Syrian refugees were fleeing from a terrible civil war, that they were orphans, women and children, etc.  All of this is true, indeed the Syrian refugees are made up of desperate people fleeing a terrible situation, and there are Kurds among them, our only true allies in the wars in Middle East!  But, as was feared by some, even before the Paris terror attacks, there are ISIS members among the fleeing masses.  There may not be many, but there are definitely ISIS infiltrators as demonstrated by the Syrian passport found among the dead terrorists in Paris.
     Some of the opponents of the policy to take Syrian refugees point to the fact that it is nigh impossible to do background checks on these refugees.  How are we to conduct a background check in a war zone?  But that isn't the only problem.  Anyone who is familiar at all with intelligence work knows how difficult, if not impossible it is to determine the true identity of someone supposedly from an obscure village in the hinterlands of a country where the written system is completely different.  It is something that we learned when dealing with Asian countries that use a different written system.     
     China is a perfect example.  Chinese names could be transliterated into Roman alphabet a half a dozen ways.  Someone with a name Li could be spelled Lee, Yi, Yee, Ii, or a combination of all!  Even in Chinese characters, there are several different ways to write the name!  How are you going to tell which is which?  The computer will not tell you that the person claiming to be Li is actually Yi or Lee!  With Arabic names it becomes even more difficult.  Northeast Asian countries all have family registries and can be traced accurately, if they are telling the truth!  Not so with Arabic names.  Because of the very high rate of illiteracy, many births are not registered properly.  We have seen even the very popular name Mohamed spelled various ways, Mouhamed, Mohammed, etc.
     The idea that we could run successful background checks on all the refugees is laughable.  We don't even do a very good job on our own citizens, how are we going to do it on refugees coming out of a war zone?  Who is going to go into Syria and travel to all the villages and check on the backgrounds of these refugees?  I suppose we could put all of them on the "box," i.e., put them through a polygraph test.  But the polygraph is not completely reliable, although it is better than trying to run a background check in Syria!  But no doubt there will be opposition to using the polygraph from some, claiming that we are violating the civil or constitutional rights of the refugees!
     The situation in Syria is even a bigger disaster than in Afghanistan or Iraq.  We and our allies are bombing ISIS and supporting "moderate rebels" and Kurds in a fight against Isis and Assad's troops.  Russia and their allies, Iran and Hezbollah, are primarily bombing and fighting Assad's opposition, the very ones that we are supporting.  Turkey, our only ally on the ground is primarily interested in fighting Kurds!  What a fine mess!
     In one of my earlier blogs I suggested, half in jest, that we could solve the refugee situation by agreeing to take all the Kurds, we owe them as much!  The Kurds are the only ones that we can depend on both in Syria and Iraq.  But of course if we did that, there would be an uproar from various quarters, it would be seen as being selective and unfair, same as taking in only Christians, as some suggested.  So that leaves us no option but either to take in all and take our chances, or not take any.
     The population of France is around 66 million of which anywhere (depending on the source) between 4.7 to 7.7 million are Muslim.  So, essentially we are talking about roughly 10 percent of the population.  In contrast, our Muslim population is only about 3 percent of the total population.  So, we have a significantly smaller Muslim population in our country.  Our intelligence reported that there are hundreds of known ISIS or Al Qaeda sympathizers in France, perhaps thousands in all of Europe, who have traveled to Syria, trained with ISIS, and returned to France and Europe.  The numbers that could be identified in America are something like 40 and pales in comparison to France and the rest of Europe.  But, how many of these ISIS sympathizers does it take to cause mayhem and commit murder?  In Paris it took seven, seven terrorists to massacre 129 people and wound over a 100!  So there are "only" about 40 identified ISIS sympathizers in America?  How many men, women, and children do you think these 40 could massacre if seven did so much harm in Paris?
     I am somewhat concerned with our seeming almost casual approach to the whole thing.  If we know there are 40 known ISIS and Al Qaeda sympathizers who trained in Syria or Yemen, why are they still free?  What is Homeland Security waiting for?  I am also not too confident of our assessment of the whole situation and intelligence!  When the Paris massacre first occurred, our experts said that it was no doubt Al Qaeda sponsored attack.  All of our terrorist experts said that only Al Qaeda was capable of such a coordinated attack.  Yet, the reports from Paris, almost immediately said that they believed it was ISIS.  How could our "experts" have been so wrong?  Are these the same people who advised Obama last year to say that ISIS was just a JV, and also advised him to say just two days prior to the Paris attack that ISIS was under control!
     In his press conference today from Antalya, Turkey, Obama insisted that we were following the "right strategy."  But it seems he was defending his policies against ISIS and the plan to take-in Syrian refugees more than anything else.  He didn't say anything new or give listeners any hope that there will be a shift in our war against ISIS and Al Qaeda.  He did take a swipe at Putin by saying that he was not about to flex muscles or do something just to gain political advantage and prestige.  But unless it was done purposely to mislead our enemies, he gave no indication of anything new, instead, it was a very defensive dialogue.  He kept saying that sending thousands of American ground troops was not the answer, that it would only solve the problem temporarily and we could get bogged down.  That is true, but then, neither is the current "strategy" of pecking away with occasional special operations raids and air strikes.  Perhaps there is a new "strategy" in the making that will work, who knows.  In the meantime, America better brace itself for a terrorist attack in the near future.  Perhaps it won't be on the scale of 9/11 or the recent Paris attack, but there will be one by either home grown terrorists, ISIS "wannabees," or one of those 40 that Homeland Security is "watching."

My Friend George

     Today being the Veterans Day I thought it appropriate to do a blog about a veteran I knew.  Actually, it probably would have been more appropriate to do this blog on Memorial Day, but Veterans Day will have to do.
     I met George when I was with the Special Forces Training Group, during a hot and muggy North Carolina summer.  George and I were with the A Company of the Training Group, in one of those old clap board "temporary" barracks that were built during World War Two.  They were only a smidgen better than the corrugated "tin" Quonset huts which were even hotter!  George actually did not live in the barracks, he was married and lived off post in a rental with his wife and child.  However, he spent most of time with unmarried types like me in the barracks.  We used to play a lot of poker in the evenings and George loved to play poker.  When we weren't playing poker, we usually hung out at the Enlisted Club which was for enlisted men below the rank of E-5, in other words, it was for anyone who was not an NCO.  George, who was actually a Staff Sergeant E-6, preferred to go to "E" Club with us rather than going to the NCO club.  He didn't seem to have any NCO close friends, although he was friends with one other NCO, a Hawaiian like George.
     George was a Hawaiian of Filipino descent and looked a lot younger than his 30 years.  In fact, he looked like the rest of us "barracks rats" who were all around 20.  According to what George told me, he enlisted in the Army straight out of high school at the age of 18.  Korean War was raging and he wanted to go to war! He was assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division and got his wish, he was shipped off to Korea almost immediately.  He said he didn't know what he was doing and that he was not adequately prepared to face combat.  He never talked about his combat experience, only that he was captured and ended up being a POW for the next two years.  When the Armistice was signed at Panmunjom, prisoner exchanges took place and he returned home with the first batch.  He was all of 20 years old!
     Returning to Hawaii as a civilian George didn't like what life offered him.  He couldn't find a decent job, so after a couple of years of kicking around, getting into trouble, etc., he re-enlisted in the Army and decided to make a career of it.  When I met him, he had been in the Army a total of 10 years or so and held the rank of Staff Sergeant E-6.  We were both undergoing Weapons Training at the time. 
     Special Forces Weapons Training was pretty intense and covered just about all of the light and heavy Infantry Weapons that were then in use around the world.  This meant that we had to learn how to assemble and disassemble and fire all of those weapons, everything from Soviet Mosin-Nagant bolt actions to AK-47s and our own 19O3 Springfields to the then new XM-16s, soon to be renamed M-16s. British Stens and Sterlings, Danish Madsens, Finnish Soumis and Israeli Uzis, German MP-40s, you name it, we became familiar with them.  But of all the weapons, George seemed to know the old BAR the best!  He could strip and assemble a BAR blindfolded!  I asked him if he was a BAR man, if that was his specialty in Infantry.  His response was puzzling. "Yeah, that's what got me captured in Korea!" He said, without elaborating.  Later,  I learned from his only NCO friend, Dave, the other Hawaiian, that George was captured by the Chinese while he was trying to clear a jammed BAR!
     During the entire time that I knew him, George would periodically tell me that he had a grudge to settle with the communists.  Obviously his experience as a POW was not a pleasant one!  Whenever George said that, especially if it was in the presence of Dave, Dave would glance at me then shake his head sadly.  George had lots of problems.  His marriage was falling apart and he didn't seem to get along with other NCOs except Dave.  He drank a bit too much and gambled.  Overall, even to a young, single guy like me, he seemed a bit too irresponsible and somewhat reckless.
     After we completed our training, we were assigned to different units.  I went to the 7th, George went to the 5th, and Dave went to the 1st on Okinawa.  Dave who was a Staff Sergeant E-6 like George, went on to receive rapid promotions and decorated numerous times including a Distinguished Service Cross and a Silver Star!  He retired as a Command Sergeant Major.  Before he left for the 1st on Okinawa, he told me somethings about George.  He said that George told him that when he was in Korea, he was not properly trained to operate a BAR but his Sergeant assigned him as a BAR man anyway!  It seems that the smallest guy in the squad always ended up being the BAR man, carrying the biggest and heaviest weapon on the squad!  George did not have proper training and could only load and fire the BAR.  When the weapon jammed in a fire fight, he couldn't clear it, and the Chinese overran their position and captured the squad.  George blamed his Sergeant for his lack of familiarity with the BAR!  Later, when he re-enlisted, he made a point to learn all there was to know about the BAR.
     Shortly after arriving at the 5th, the entire group PCSd to Vietnam, establishing a Headquarters in Nha Trang and scattering teams all over South Vietnam.  George was assigned to a hamlet along the Cambodian border. About 5 months into George's tour in Vietnam, his camp was overrun by a large combined VC and NVA force.  During the attack, one of the "Strikers,"  a CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Group) Strike Force members who was a BAR man, appeared to be having trouble with his weapon,  George went over to see what was going on, to help the "Striker," only to be cut down by the BAR.  That camp was heavily infiltrated with VC and several members of the CIDG were VC, including the BAR man.  When the attack commenced, they turned their weapons on the 12 American Special Forces members who were in camp.  Fortunately for the rest of the team, except for George and one other killed, there were just three wounded and the rest were able to hold off the attackers until a Mike Force arrived to their rescue.
     Poor George, an unhappy man who was on the road to his own destruction long before that fateful day in Vietnam.  His POW experience in Korea must have been terrible, for he kept talking about paying back the "commies" for what they did to him.  He never told me what they did to him.  He was unhappy and his marriage was in ruins.  He had only a handful of friends.  At one point, when I was drinking and gambling with George, Dave told me to stop hanging out with George, that he would get me into trouble.  His was not a distinguished career like Dave's, it was in fact an unremarkable career.  But he died a warrior, not running, not raising his hands in surrender. This time, he did not become a POW.
    
    

Our Next President

     In every country that holds free elections, the president is elected based on a "popularity" contest!  Typically, the voters choose the candidate that appeals to them most, personally.  Every candidate promises a better life for all, better income, better health care, whatever else that the particular country needs to improve.  It is only natural for most voters to think in terms of "what's in it for me? What can you do for me?"  If the particular candidate appears to offer solutions to the voters' problems, be they financial or otherwise, then that candidate will receive the votes.  It is pretty straight forward.  Of course there are those who are more concerned with the overall welfare of the country and vote on those grounds, but by and large, personal needs trump everything else.
     It is unfortunate that political issues, particularly of international affairs, take a back seat to personal needs.  It is said by some that the American public is the most politically knowledgeable, educated voting public in the world.  Whoever said that did not check America's voting records!  Despite the modern age of easy travel and the current instant communication and electronic information availability, we Americans fall far behind Europeans and even some Asian countries in political knowledge and sophistication.  As it is with everyone in the world, what is most important to the average American voter is, what can a particular candidate do for them?
     There are millions of people in America that literally live hand to mouth, work for minimum wage and can barely put food on the table and make rent.  Of course, that is still far better than what millions of others in the world face daily.  Everything is relative.  America's minimum wage is good pay in many countries!  Nevertheless, it is understandable that someone living under such circumstances would be most concerned about their welfare, rather than some political issue or world situation. 
     If you promise to put two chickens in the pot and pay the rent, they will vote for you!  Promising them that you will defeat the enemy in some far away land like Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria, will not generate the same kind of enthusiasm.  Let's face it, the primary opposition to illegal aliens in this country is because of economic reasons, the perception that illegals are taking away jobs from Americans!  Sure, illegals commit murder and other crimes, but the main reason is that they are thought to be taking jobs away from Americans.  So, everything is tied to economic well being, a citizen's ability to earn money, put food on the table, buy a house, and yes, buy a better car!  We are a car driven society, no pun intended!  In another, less affluent society, a bicycle will replace the car!
     As I said, all of this is completely understandable and quite natural.  It is, after all, human instinct to survive, to get food, to improve living conditions.  However, in today's world, things aren't quite as simple as that.  Everything is tied to something else in one way or another.  Without political stability there is no opportunity to improve life, to better the standard of living, etc.  Political stability, unfortunately, comes with a price and certain sacrifices. A country must be prepared to make concession to rivals/enemies (which is not a good idea), or defeat rivals/enemies in war - economic or military.  Lately we seem to be making more concessions than anything else! 
     To accomplish the goal of stability, you need a strong leader in today's world.  You can't have a leader that is too wrapped up in political maneuvering and deal making.  Diplomatic solutions may work and in fact may be the best solution at times, but a leader should be one who is willing to make that difficult decision to go to war, even if it costs politically.  In other words, in these times, what America needs is a "Commander in Chief," someone who is willing to command the military in time of need without concern for political consequences.  However, Americans have largely become anti war and have no stomach for any war.  Naively, many think that with today's advanced technology, wars can be fought with drones and other high tech equipment, so when soldiers do die in battle, they immediately want to stop the war.   As a population, Americans have been anti war since Vietnam era.  So, it is very difficult for any president to go to war, to convince the population that war is the only solution to a particular problem.  Because of that, we need a very strong president, a true Commander in Chief who is more concerned in winning the war to secure future peace than his or her own political life!
     Since World War Two, America has had only a few true Commanders in Chief.  The first one was Eisenhower.  Although Eisenhower was much maligned and misunderstood by the media, he was one of the strongest post war presidents that we have had.  Kennedy was in the office for too short a period to really make a difference, but he did show some signs of being a strong leader.  Everyone else from that point on were not that good as Commanders in Chief except for Reagan and the first Bush didn't do too badly either.  Clinton was nothing but a pure politicians, that's why he was able to survive all those scandals! George W. tried mightily, but failed because he had advisors with personal agendas.  The current president is perhaps the weakest of all in that regard.  He may have accomplished some things on the domestic scene, thereby satisfying some of his voters, but he has been a miserable failure on international affairs and lacks the ability to be the true Commander in Chief as he has shown repeatedly.
     Whoever becomes our next president, Republican or Democrat, let us hope that he or she will be of sterner stuff that will make a strong Commander in Chief, not a politician!  We are going to desperately need a strong Commander in Chief in the next several decades!  All of the Islamic Terror groups will not disappear.  The White House may have decided to call them extremists, but they are still terrorists!  They will no doubt continue to evolve from one to another.  The names such as Al Qaeda, ISIL or ISIS really don't make that much difference, they will change as these groups continue to evolve.  They will be with us for a long time to come and we need a leader who is willing to use all means to rid the world of this terrible scourge!
     Experts say that only 10% of Islamic population sympathize with or become extremists.  I don't know how accurate that figure is, but believe me, it is significant.  The Islamic population in America is between 5 to 7 million.  That means, we can count on having somewhere around 500,000 Islamic Extremists/Terrorists who will try to commit murder and mayhem right here!  That's half a million terrorists, larger than our current standing army!  Worldwide, that means there are millions of Islamic Extremists/Terrorists, but we already know that!  So, you can see how important it will be for our next president to be a strong Commander in Chief, not a politician who is concerned with their legacy!

Presidential Advisors, "Doctrines," and other stuff.....

     Most of us really don't pay too much attention to Presidential Advisors, those influential figures in the cabinet or White House Staff who have the ear of the President.  Whenever a President makes a decision, it is assumed that the decision was made unilaterally, that it is all up to that one person, the President, to make that decision.  Perhaps that is true in case of a dictator, and it is true to some extent even in democracy, because after all, the final word is coming from that ultimate decision maker.  But all in all, the President, the Prime Minister, or the Chancellor of the country is dependent on his or her advisors to come up with the right answer, and they become the spokesperson for that (hopefully) consensus among the leaders (cabinet members, etc.).
     Among Presidential Advisors, it isn't always the high ranking cabinet member that has the most influence and effect.  Sometimes it is someone at a lower level who convinces their boss to champion their ideas, and their boss convinces the President.  In such a way, sometimes our Presidents don't always get the right or appropriate advice on how to handle a particular situation.  The entire Vietnam War was essentially fought at the direction of our Secretary of Defense at the time, Robert McNamara.  McNamara had tremendous influence on President Johnson and despite his total lack of combat experience, he essentially called the shots on how to conduct the war in Southeast Asia!  Although McNamara served during World War Two in the Army Air Corps, he did not see combat, instead handled statistics for General Lemay, statistics on effectiveness of bombing!  Small wonder we were so obsessed with statistics during Vietnam War!  Of course, McNamara in turn surrounded himself with his advisors, who were just about all civilian "bean counters" and CEO types that not only lacked military experience but disliked the military!
     Vietnam War was the beginning of our "strategy-less" war planning and micro-managing of the war from Washington.  McNamara, who was an automobile industry CEO tried to run the war like he was trying to run GM or Ford!  It was more like he was trying to accomplish a hostile take over of another company rather than winning a war!  Naturally he surrounded himself with assistants and advisors who were also from similar background.  It doesn't take a genius to see that the "management" of the Vietnam War was doomed from the start.  But that was more than a half a century ago, so let's move to a closer period.
     Back in the early 1980s, we had a Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger, who was determined not to repeat what happened during Vietnam.  Unlike McNamara, Weinberger was an Infantry officer who fought in World War Two, so he knew and understood combat.  As President Reagan's Secretary of Defense, Weinberger practiced a doctrine that he created which basically had a few ground rules.  1.  Never go to war without a strategy which has a beginning and an end.  2. Never go to war without overwhelming superiority in force and arms.  3.  Never go to war without a good reason and clear cut goal.  I have paraphrased part of the Weinberger Doctrine, although there never was any formal document that outlined the so-called doctrine.  But that is what Weinberger believed in and advised the President.  In this way, Weinberger felt we would never get involved in another war like Vietnam.
     So, in 1983 when we intervened in Grenada, we went in with overwhelming force, cleared out the Cubans with minimal fuss, rescued the American citizens, and after making sure that the Cubans were gone, left Grenada in short time!  Now the media ridiculed Reagan and his policies, his "Invasion of Grenada," likening it to killing an ant with a sledge hammer!  Too much force, too much man power, so on and so forth went the criticism.  Some in the media even claimed that the rescued American citizens did not need "rescuing."  Those who were rescued, and were grateful, would disagree with that assessment!  But the fact remained that we went in, accomplished the goal, and got out.  No occupation, no lingering guerrilla warfare with insurgents, etc.  Obviously, the Weinberger Doctrine worked!
     General Colin Powell, who served as the National Security Advisor to the President from 1987 to 1989 overlapped with Casper Weinberger who was Secretary of Defense from 1981 to 1987.  Powell was very much impressed with the Weinberger Doctrine.  When George H.W. Bush became president, Colin Powell became one of his trusted advisors, first as the National Security Advisor, then as the Chairman of Joint Chief of Staff.  In 1989 it was decided that something had to be done with Manuel Noriega, the strongman in Panama, he was becoming a real problem. 
     Operation Just Cause was launched with overwhelming force.  There was a precise strategy, from beginning to end with a clear exit strategy.  We went in, got Noriega, and after a very brief stay, got out.  Much like Grenada, it was a clean (as wars go!), quick operation!  It was the Powell Doctrine now.  A year later we went into the Gulf War.  Again, it was with overwhelming force, liberated Kuwait, pushed Saddam back into Baghdad, destroyed his Republican Guard and basically "degraded" his military so he wouldn't be a threat in the region.  Like the Invasion of Grenada and Invasion of Panama, the Gulf war had a precise strategy.  So despite an outcry from some that it was a mistake not to take out Saddam and occupy Iraq, we stopped short.  We had accomplished what we had set out to do, so we left.
     As good as the old Weinberger Doctrine and the newer Powell Doctrines were, there was bound to be an upstart with "new" and "better" ideas.  An Undersecretary of Defense from 2001 to 2005 and Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2007, Paul Wolfowitz had his own "doctrine" which he pushed and had his boss, the Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld convinced that he had a great plan.  Wolfowitz Doctrine was better known as "Plan for U.S. World Domination."  He was obsessed with the idea of having the U.S. remain as the sole super power and had all sorts of ideas on how to keep Russia from gaining any influence.  He was also adamant about "taking out" Saddam Hussein and establishing a new regime in Iraq.
     We went into the Second Iraq War basically using Wolfowitz Doctrine.  Unfortunately, the Wolfowitz Doctrine did not provide for complete planning, for aftermath of defeat of Saddam and occupation.  As already mention in an earlier blog, those who championed the Powell Doctrine, Colin Powell himself and General Eric Shinseki were shoved aside.  The Wolfowitz Doctrine was suspiciously similar in approach to war as Robert McNamara's approach to Vietnam War of some half a century earlier! Wolfowitz's boss, Rumsfeld was sold on his underlings ideas and pushed them.  He apparently also convinced other members of the cabinet, for Powell and his "reluctant warrior" policy fell out of favor and we became entangled in Iraq.
     What is amazing to me is that it appears that although the Wolfowitz Doctrine is no longer in favor, we have nothing to replace it.  In short, we have no strategy whatsoever on handling the situations around the world!  Obama's advisors are apparently not concerned with being without a strategy!  Contrary to what Wolfowitz and his followers predicted, Russia did not shrivel up and become a nonentity, instead, it has become a power to contend with, thanks to our bungling and lack of strategy.   In the meantime, rather than "dominating the world" as Wolfowitz planned, we have become a lesser player, especially in the Middle East.
     The President is only as good as the advisors that surround him.  Ronald Reagan was successful because he had the good fortune of having very good advisors.  Let's hope that our next President, whoever it may be, has better advisors than the current President!

"Nation Building"

     I have been harping on the fact that our government does not have a strategy in the Middle East and is constantly committing missteps.  Readers of my blogs are probably sick of hearing the refrain, "we have no strategy," like a broken record!  Unfortunately it is true, and there are many in our government who feel the same way, but their complaint is ignored and they are viewed as "right wingers" or simply anti-Obama!  The fact remains that whether they are "right wingers" or anti-Obama, they are correct, we have no strategy, and doomed to failure unless we do something about it, develop a sound strategy!
     Just when did this "strategy-less" approach to war in the Middle East begin?  It is difficult to pin-point exactly when, but it is possible to get a general idea.  It began with the Second Iraq War and our abandonment of original strategy in Afghanistan after the resounding success of the Special Operations in the early stages of that war.  Initially when we went into Afghanistan, it was with the idea that the Special Operations would lead the Northern Alliance in an unconventional war, with air support, to destroy and oust the Al Qaeda and the Taliban.  Once that was accomplished, we would maintain the Special Forces to continue to train, advise, and lead the various Northern Alliance groups and let them take the lead in defending their turf and also decide how to govern the country.  No doubt there would have been chaos, power struggles, etc. But it would have all been on their "watch" so to speak, and they would have had to work it out on their own.  Our involvement would have been minimal and confined to Special Forces trainers and advisors and economic aide.  However, once we managed to defeat and oust the Al Qaeda and Taliban, our plans changed. 
     First, we got into the business of nation building, selecting our choice for leader of the country, etc.  Second, everybody (in the military) wanted the piece of the action, all the generals and admirals got into the act.  We poured-in army, navy, and marine corps units, built a huge U.S. military presence with accompanying compounds with fast food chain restaurants and all!  Of course we had to twist the arm of NATO to make it appear as if the whole world agreed with what we were doing. This was not part of the original plan.  The original plan was to defeat the enemy then simply help the Afghans maintain status quo in their own way, no matter how disagreeable it may have been to those in Washington.  No nation building, no U.S. military built-up, no NATO and even some former ComBloc countries!  Did you know that there were even troops from Mongolia?! There were too many hands in the cookie jar, too many fingers poking into the pie!  The military, each  branch, wanted the piece of the action while the civilian leaders wanted to get into "nation building!"  So, what initially started out as a pretty straight forward plan (yes, there was a strategy then!) turned into a muddled, multi-pronged misadventure with no end strategy.
     Nation building is something in which we have been a miserable failure, yet we continue to meddle and try to involve ourselves in this arcane and almost mystical practice!  We are no good at it and should stop trying!  For some reason, we keep pointing at Germany and Japan as examples and try to recreate that post World War Two economic miracle.  All those bright minds in Washington seem to think that we can do the same all over the world, have successes with "nation building," making smaller versions of modern Germany and Japan!  What these bright minds are failing to see is that both Germany and Japan were countries with long histories before we defeated them in the war!  They were independent countries long before United States even existed.  Neither Afghanistan or Iraq have had such illustrious histories in modern times.  They may have been ancient civilizations to contend with in the past, but within the last several centuries have been in chaotic state, constantly invaded and occupied by foreign powers.  Neither country has had any experience in democratic form of government, and most of all, they have always been ruled by dictators!  It is unlikely that most people in the region even know the definition of democracy!  Yet, we come in and expect them to start a sort of a mirror image of what Japan and Germany did after the war.  To make matters worst, we back the most crooked and incompetent of all people to run the countries, because they at least know the definition of democracy, although they may not practice it!
     Now we are stuck.  We can just pull out, abandon the whole thing and pretend it never happened.  But I doubt that even the most liberal administration would be willing to do that, so we are stuck.  But then again, who knows, we may just do that!  We did it in Vietnam, so why not in Iraq or Afghanistan?
     No doubt all these bright minds in Washington envisioned a region that would, with our involvement, become free of dictators and establish democratic systems that will eventually spread throughout or, at least establish regimes that would be friendly.  In many instances, I believe we give up the idea of creating a true democracy and hope for a "friendly" regime that would not give us trouble and provide access to oil!
     We need to stop trying to create countries in our image, to our idea of what they should be.  Look at what happened in Vietnam.  We lost all those lives and destroyed so many families on both sides of the ocean trying to create a Vietnam in our image.  All those lives, all that suffering, and for what?  We are no longer at war with Vietnam and seem to be able to get along with them, albeit not bosom buddies, but at least we are not fighting a war!  We have got to stop this nation building business.  We have got to stop thinking that we have the answer to everything, to everyone's problems.