Back in June 2014, I wrote a two part blog about American combat troops in Manchuria, a relatively little known military action that took place between 1918 and 1920. I described how ill prepared our troops were, having been shipped directly from tropical Philippines where they were stationed, to sub-Arctic Siberia in the winter! No doubt the troops were sent from Philippines because that was the closest place where we had troops stationed. I imagine the War Department (Pentagon of old) felt that it was more cost effective to send the G.I.s from Philippines rather than from our West Coast. But ultimately the War Department ended up spending more money because our troops from the tropics were ill prepared to handle the brutal Siberian winter! We bought everything from heavy winter overcoats to rifles and ammunition from the Japanese! It cost us dearly and gained us nothing. The Japanese, on the other hand, made a bundle of money from our purchases of winter clothing and arms and ammunition, and also ended up with the large territory of island of Sakhalin as their booty at the end of this operation!
That military operation, one of our earliest large scale military operations in Asia (other than during Spanish American War and the Philippine Insurrection that followed) could have been easily called a SNAFU or a FUBAR, had those terms been in use by the G.I.s at that time. However, both SNAFU and FUBAR supposedly didn't come about until World War Two. The earliest definition of SNAFU appeared in the Yank magazine in January of 1944. The definition for SNAFU was given in very polite language as "Situation Normal: All Fouled Up." As you know, G.I.s would not have used such mild language, it wasn't "fouled up" in common G.I. usage! FUBAR was also defined in polite terms as "Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition/Repair/Reason." Anyone who has served in the military is no doubt well aware of these terms and have heard them used often in the military.
It is sometimes a mystery as to why such simple things as proper clothing can be forgotten or ignored. The Germans paid a heavy price for not having proper winter clothing in Russia during World War Two, especially during the Battle of Stalingrad. But that was because they didn't expect to get stuck in Stalingrad during winter! Hitler and his generals thought that Stalingrad would be in their hands by the end of the summer at the latest!
In the early 1960s, before the escalation of Vietnam War and expansion of the Army Special Forces took place, there were just three Special Forces units with one in the making. There was the 10th Group in Germany with Europe as its area of responsibility, and the 1st Group on Okinawa with Asia as its area. The 5th Group was in the process of being formed and trained for deployment to Vietnam. The 7th Group which had been the 77th Group until 1960, had the dual responsibility of not only providing cadre members for newly forming groups like the 5th and the future 3rd, 6th, and 8th, but its area of responsibility was the entire globe! In other words, anyplace, just as the unit motto declared: "Anytime, Anyplace, Anything." The older 77th Group motto had an additional fourth word added, "anyhow." As such, the 7th Group provided "teams" for Vietnam along with the 1st Group on Okinawa. The 5th Group didn't really start in Vietnam until late 1964 and early 1965. The 7th Group also had teams in other parts of the world, Latin America, Africa, and Middle East, although it seemed at that Asia took up most of its time!
In order to maintain its status as a unit with global responsibilities, those members that were not deployed were constantly in training for various environments. The members of the 7th Group spent time in Alaska for cold weather training, Panama for jungle, Mojave for desert, etc. In February 1964 my detachment, A-17, along with several other "A Teams" were sent on a long, exhausting cross Pacific flight in C-130s to Philippines for training exercise. We knew we were going to tropical climate since we were told to take only our jungle fatigues and no winter gear. After an exhausting three days in the air, from Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina with numerous stops for refueling and whatnot, we finally landed in Philippines. The hot, humid air that hit our faces upon lowering of the tailgate was a shock to our system. Anyone who was sent to Vietnam during the winter in the States, knows the feeling upon landing at Tan Son Nhut! The hot humid air hit you in the face like a shock wave! Well, at least we were properly dressed in jungle fatigues and jungle boots!
After a week of running around and playing war games with Philippine Army Special Forces, we were loaded up in C-130s again. But this time we were all 'chuted-up, ready to make a parachute drop. We thought we were going to be making a jump somewhere in Philippines. But when the planes climbed to a higher altitude, we realized we were going for a long haul. Several very uncomfortable hours later (if you have flown long distances all 'chuted-up, you know how uncomfortable that can be!), the plane lost altitude and we began flying at around 2000 feet. When the jumpmaster gave us the command to stand up and the tail gate was lowered, the cold air hit us like a ton of bricks! After going through the pre-jump routine and hooking-up, we finally made the jump. By that time we were pretty cold! Imagine our surprise landing on the ground that was partially covered with snow! As we learned later, we had flown to, and made a jump in South Korea in February, wearing jungle fatigues! We survived that ordeal, but you can rest assured that the acronyms SNAFU and FUBAR were used liberally by everyone involved, and not with the polite language terms!
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