The closest that I have come is France's withdrawal from NATO in 1967. But instead of a fiasco, the US military (and other NATO allies) pulled everything that they could from our military bases in France.
I watched my Father go from repairing radar units to driving a truck moving things out of France - in his case, from Metz to any base in Germany that had space.
I remember my Father discussing how he started driving trucks full of equipment, and within a few weeks was driving a flatbed with curbs from the base. Yes, apparently the military decided that since they paid for the concrete curbs they would take them also, out of France!
A functional army is more about logistics than anything else. Can't shoot bullets without the guns and bullets in the right place, at the right time.
Has the US military fallen so far from grace that logistics is no longer taught or implemented? Do the US Army need to fire its logistics coordinators and hire some from the US Navy?
—and when DeGaulle announced that , some famous American asked him if it included “the American soldiers in graveyards”—
JFK’S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the 60’s when DeGaule decided to pull out of NATO. DeGaule said he wanted all US Military out of France as soon as possible.
Rusk responded, “Does that include those who are buried here?”
DeGaule did not respond.
While I will admit that the challenges of removing ~15 military bases from Afghanistan are much more formidable than removing them from France in the 60’s, it is not like we have known that this day would be coming.
After all, the massive build up of arms and munitions in Afghanistan ramped up tremendously once Bid*n got in office.
Almost like the military-industrial complex decided to sell off old stocks of munitions.
The US government paid for all that stuff. It’s not like a single afghani came from the Afghani’s ...
DeGaulle was nothing but a self-serving blowhard. During the was Ike couldn’t tell him about pending operations as he would demand to take it over.
bump
I remember a BRUTAL political cartoon from that time. It showed De Gaulle standing in front of an American Military Cemetery saying...
“Why do you Americans always stay where you are not wanted?”
They forgot the part in 1961 where Dulles and his CIA encouraged the Algerian Generals Putsch which De Gaulle was able to put down.
You want logistical efficiency? Talk to Wal-Mart
The local population was very friendly and supportive of Americans. They were close to the invasion fighting and liberation there. When traveling farther away from the channel, to Paris, they became typically arrogant french euroweenies.
My dad got shipped out to Rhine-Main in early Jan 1965 then when we joined him a few weeks later we found out we were being shipped again to High Wycombe England by the end of January. Four different high schools, four different countries in three months. Such was the life of a military family.
A favorite story about De Gaulle was in WWII just before the invasion of Normandy. De Gaulle kept pushing for more influence in the invasion, and Churchill was pushing back. De Gaulle finally said to Churchill that the French people considered him a Joan of Arc. Churchill replied, “We burned that one.”