That's an odd way for Brinkley to write that, isn't it?
I believe the opening section of that comment: The Dec. 2, 1968 mission... are my words. The part that came from Brinkley's book is this: "a half-assed action that hardly qualified as combat."
I've used these two paragraphs in several other postings here on FR. I think when I cut and pasted it for the reply in this thread, I put the quotes in the wrong place and it looked as if Brinkley had actually made the opening part of that sentence. Sorry.