The FReeper Foxhole Profiles - Reevaluating the Role of the Dustoff - April 3rd, 2005

see educational sources

[snippy_about_it]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.


...................................................................................... ...........................................

U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues

Where Duty, Honor and Country
are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.

Our Mission:

The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans.

In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support.

The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer.

If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions.

We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.

To read previous Foxhole threads or
to add the Foxhole to your sidebar,
click on the books below.

Reevaluating the Role of the Dustoff



Vietnam

While it improved the survival rate and confidence level of troops in Vietnam, medevac often distorted the tactical shape of battles.

By Paddy Griffith

Within the general evolution of the art of war, the conflict in Vietnam was notable for several novel and important features that were destined to become irreversible. Among these were such things as the helicopter gunship, the electronic battlefield and even the hush-hush array of satellite-based surveillance assets. All of these are powerful tactical factors that we today seem to take pretty much for granted, to the extent that from our present perspective, a generation later, we may overlook the significance of their original development. We tend to forget that a large number of the key elements of modern warfare were totally new in 1965, and that it was the Vietnam War that first allowed them to be explored and deployed under the stresses of real and mortal combat.



From the viewpoint of troops on the ground in Vietnam, the innovation that made by far the greatest impact was not directly tactical at all, but actually medical in nature. This was the casualty evacuation helicopter, or "dustoff," which could whisk a wounded man to a well-equipped aid station within minutes, and from there to a base hospital within a few hours. One Vietnam infantry veteran told me: "The troops in my own unit always felt that if we were not killed outright if we were hit, the odds of surviving were in our favor. This added greatly to the confidence factor in any situation."



In historical terms, it represented still another advance in the speed of casualty evacuation and in the treatment of shock, which had significantly improved since the Napoleonic Wars. Until then, unless one was a high-ranking officer, wounded soldiers were not removed from the field until after the battle was over.

In 1792, however, French surgeon Dominique Jean Larrey began to develop horse-drawn, two-wheeled "flying ambulances" for the swift removal of casualties—primarily to prevent their being slaughtered by the enemy—and he soon discovered that the earlier they were treated, the better their chances of recovery. Even after that fundamentally critical innovation, some 44 percent of the soldiers wounded during the American Civil War failed to survive, but by 1918 the British died-of-wounds figure was down to around 8 percent. In World War II it was 4.5 percent for U.S. troops, and in Vietnam it was as low as 2.6 percent.

Each successive improvement in medevac procedures brought a concrete tactical advantage in terms of troop morale, and in Vietnam the process was brought to practically the highest level it could possibly attain. There was also a political advantage for the U.S. government to take unprecedented care of its conscripted soldiers and lavish upon them a degree of medical succor that had been unknown in any previous war. Fewer losses meant more support back home.



The dustoff, however, did not come cheap. First, it involved a heavy cost in rear-echelon personnel, as well as some long-term cash payouts. More convalescents in the hospital, surviving for longer, meant that more doctors and nurses were needed to look after them, after which more veterans' pensions had to be found. It is a sad fact that the average wounded soldier costs the taxpayer many more dollars than a soldier killed in action, however differently we may rate the psychic or moral costs. Second, the helicopters themselves represented a particularly significant drain on a precious tactical resource.

We must recall that 1965 came only 11 years after the entire French empire had been able to deploy a grand total of only seven helicopters in the Southeast Asia theater. The United States would eventually deploy something like 4,000. But even then the average time available for flying might be only about 10 percent, since as much as 90 percent of any chopper's time had to be devoted to maintenance tasks. Hence, on average, only something like 400 helicopters were reliably available at any moment to cover all the requirements of the U.S. forces in-country, as well as of the ARVN and of the many political and civilian agencies.

If we break this down still further, it is not difficult to understand that only some 70 to 80 helicopters might be available for military use within each corps area. This might translate into only one or two dozen per division. Lifting a single infantry company might normally require some 16 to 20 helicopters, depending on fuel load. Those choppers were supplemented by the necessary accompaniment of gunships, command ships and associated heavy-lift support—or indeed the continuing routine requirement for logistic backup throughout the Army. So by definition, there can rarely have been very many surplus helicopters available for medevac purposes. As Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (then the lieutenant colonel commanding the lead battalion) later reported on the start of the November 1965 Ia Drang battle, "my main concern focused on the fact that we would have only sixteen Huey slicks to ferry the battalion into the assault area... .What that meant was that fewer than eighty men—not even one full company—would hit the landing zone in the first wave... ." (In the face of three whole enemy battalions!)



Then again, in December 1969, Lieutenant Michael Lee Lanning experienced a nerve-wracking wait when only three helicopters could be made available to lift his company out of the scene of a bloody battle. "We would have to be extracted in three separate lifts," he recalled. "Turnaround time between each sortie would be about thirty minutes. That meant that before the last group could be picked up, any lingering dinks would have an hour to plan an attack on the remaining eighteen men." All in all, we must conclude that despite the apparently plentiful supply of helicopters available to the U.S. forces in Vietnam, they were still always a relatively rare resource that needed to be managed and husbanded very carefully.

The dustoff suffered from a particular difficulty that has been common to all front-line ambulances throughout history. It was designed to rescue wounded soldiers from as near as possible to the time and place they were wounded—which by definition would add up to an especially dangerous situation. The dustoff had to fly right into the heart of the battle zone and pluck out shocked, suffering, bleeding and badly damaged combatants who might still be under heavy fire. Yet the medical crew also had to make sure that they themselves managed to survive such fire, so that their rescued casualty could be removed safely to an aid station in the rear.



That made for some urgent personal dilemmas. As one crewman recalled in Moore and Joseph C. Galloway's We Were Soldiers Once…and Young: "The NVA were in the wood line shooting at the helicopter. The medevac pilot kind of froze up on us and was having trouble setting the ship down. We never did come to a complete hover. All aboard had to dive out on the ground from about six feet up in the air. We ran in a crouch."

On some occasions the infantry had particularly bad experiences with dustoff crews. William Shucart reported of the Ia Drang battle: "We were trying to get the medevac ships to come in but they would not. A couple of Huey slicks came down but we were taking fire and the medevacs wouldn't come. When you are taking fire is precisely when you need medevac. I don't know where those guys got their great reputations. I was totally dismayed with the medevac guys. The Huey slick crews were terrific."



Obviously, there was always a serious conflict of interest inherent in the whole business of medevac. On one side, the dustoff crews had to ignore the tactical dangers and go in regardless, and in fact many of them were often among the bravest men to be found anywhere in the military. Yet, on the other hand, they had to carefully calculate their risks and make sure that conditions were relatively safe, or at least safe enough. Otherwise, they would be certain to lose the wounded men they were evacuating as well as their own lives.

Lanning's account of a conversation between him and a pilot was perhaps not atypical: "I held [the wounded and delirious Staff Sgt.] Blyman with one arm and reached for the handset to talk to the medevac pilot with the other. 'Listen,' I said, 'I need a hook and a cable.'

"'What's the situation?' he asked.

"I told him we were receiving sporadic fire, knowing ahead of time what his reaction would be. 'No way,' he answered. 'I can't hover that long under fire.'

"'Listen,' I said again, 'we've got a man hit in the knee. He's gone crazy. I've got to get him out of here now! We'll put down all the supporting fire we can.'

"The pilot must have heard the urgency in my voice, because after a slight pause he said, 'Okay. Pop smoke. Let's give it a try.'"

In that instance, the dustoff chopper did receive some hits. But the extraction was successful and the members of the medevac team were recommended for medals.

---

---

FReeper Foxhole Armed Services Links

[snippy_about_it]

..........



It was essential for medevac helicopters to drop their extraction hooks at safe sites, or more normally they would need to find a viable and secure LZ—which was often even more difficult in overgrown jungle terrain, in marginal weather or close to the enemy. The quickest way to lose a helicopter was to land it under heavy close-range fire. So it was understood, as Philip Caputo memorably remarked, that "happiness is a cold landing zone." The dustoff pilots became renowned for their courage in placing themselves and their ships in harm's way, but there was always a fine line to be drawn between an acceptable risk and a suicidal one.



Quite apart from enemy action, even the basic physical and administrative preconditions for a medevac mission were often daunting. Such problems persisted from the start to the finish of the war. In War Zone D during July 1965, General John J. Tolson recalled that 173rd Airborne Brigade members "found that they had to go to unusual lengths to clear new landing zones for medical evacuation." One company of the 1st Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry, tried to clear an LZ with 100 pounds of C-4 explosives, but the GIs could make little impression on the trees. In July 1969, the 1st Battalion, 3rd Infantry, accidentally dropped a massive mahogany tree across its LZ, and the men needed a whole day to clear it away. Then again in Laos, in March 1972, according to Tolson, "even single-ship re-supply and medical evacuation missions had to be planned and conducted as a complete combat operation. This entailed a separate fire plan, allocation of escorting armed helicopters, and contingency plans for securing downed crews and aircraft." Such operations were by no means easy or instant, as might casually be assumed by the armchair strategist.



The sheer complexity of organizing many of the dustoff missions leads us on to the final price that had to be paid for them, which was surely by far the most serious and costly of all. In a nutshell, medevac often distorted the tactical shape of battles, because it was normally given priority over every other type of mission. As F.J. West put it in Small Unit Action in Vietnam, care for the wounded, and even retrieving the bodies of the dead, became a mission "more sacred than life itself." Strict attention to these considerations became elevated into a vital point of honor, as well as a precondition for high morale both among soldiers in the field and (albeit less directly) among the civilian population back home.

Both the in-country comrades in arms and the Stateside relatives of conscripted teenagers had to be reassured that the United States would do everything possible to rescue its soldiers if they should be injured or in danger of falling into enemy hands. And the men also needed reassurance that, if the very worst befell them, their bodies would not simply be left to rot in a suppurating alien jungle. This approach was excellent in itself and in many ways supremely humane. However, the requirements of medevac frequently changed the planned evolution of battles, or even led to new engagements that had not been planned at all. It became a force that worked strongly against the freedom of tacticians to organize tactics.



The need to search for a viable LZ for helicopter medevac often distracted the unit fighting on the ground (which had by definition just suffered one or more injuries) from pursuing its battle against the enemy in front. There are numerous examples of this in eyewitness narratives. In essence, what often happened was that an infantry company would advance, come under fire, lose a few men, and then start looking for and securing a suitable LZ somewhere close to—or embarrassingly often, rather far from—its immediate rear.

Unless the unit was relatively lucky, this effort might involve at least a whole platoon, which would normally constitute the company commander's all-important tactical reserve. As soon as that platoon became unable to participate in the main battle, all further offensive movement beyond the front line would naturally become unthinkable, and the general battle plan would instantly dissolve.

Arranging this medevac effort would also take up a great deal of the company commander's attention when he should have been converting the firefight into an assault and exploitation. The overall result was that the whole company would freeze and abandon its forward movement.



The alternative would have been for the whole American company to press forward without detaching any significant part of its combat strength or diverting command energy into medevac-related tasks, so that it could finish mopping up the enemy before starting to worry about its own wounded. If this system had been generally adopted, it would certainly have increased the number of U.S. soldiers who later died of their wounds. Moreover, it would arguably not have secured any more decisive strategic result against the notoriously elusive VC and NVA. However, it was the "traditional military thing" to do in any firefight, and it would surely have increased the extent and scale of many tactical victories, at least at the local level.

That might have added up to either a good or a bad thing in itself. But the new doctrine that was actually put into effect (i.e., dropping everything in order to care for the wounded) did clearly indicate that a major, if not a seismic, change had suddenly taken place in the whole art of war.

Since 1973, the minimization of American casualties has become an increasingly prominent feature of all U.S. deployments overseas. Quite apart from the traumas of Tet, Hamburger Hill and the Mayaguez incident, the need for economy in lives lost in limited wars was underlined in the public consciousness by some sharply unpalatable losses in both Beirut and Grenada in 1983, and even in the otherwise triumphant Gulf War of 1991. In 1994, the entire American peace-keeping operation in Somalia was called off after 18 U.S. soldiers had been killed in a single botched assault against one of the country's warlords, Mohammed Farah Aidid. In more recent times, the often very violent U.S. interventions in such places as the Balkans, the Sudan and Afghanistan have always been predicated upon a demand for, and an expectation of, absolutely minimal U.S. casualties. This has normally meant the use of air power or cruise missiles rather than of troops on the ground. Or if ground troops have been deployed, they have come to be very carefully protected and husbanded. Today we even seem to have reached a situation in which the dustoff itself has become almost obsolete, for the simple reason that there seem to be so few U.S. casualties to medevac.

Against this scenario we should remember that, although care for the wounded in Vietnam might often have caused a battle to be prematurely curtailed, there were also many occasions on which rescue missions for the missing or dead actually produced an escalation of the fighting. Perhaps the most spectacular example was the saga of Bat 21, a Douglas EB-66 aircraft that was shot down in 1972 in a part of the DMZ that happened to be occupied by an entire NVA division. A major 12-day battle was fought to rescue the one crew member known to have survived, and additional aircraft and helicopters were lost in the process.



More prosaic, but perhaps rather more typical, was the five-day fight for the body of Lieutenant Bill Little in November 1969. It started as a platoon action but grew until it involved two companies of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry, 10 armored vehicles and a large weight of air- and artillery-delivered ordnance. Lieutenant Little had been killed while he was trying to medevac the pointman of his recon platoon, but the rest of the platoon had then been unable to retrieve the body and had called in Charlie Company to help. The attackers encountered a strong bunker complex and were repulsed, necessitating dustoff evacuation of their own wounded. At this point, an insulting enemy voice broke into the battalion radio net to taunt the would-be rescuers, saying: "We have your lieutenant. Come and get him."

The NVA were thus using Bill Little's body as bait, and the U.S. response was eagerness to retrieve it, exactly as proffered. Without that taunt, there might not have been quite so strong a desire to assault the strongly fortified NVA area. But the action duly escalated, and a sustained air and artillery bombardment was laid upon the bunkers. After several delays, a combined attack finally was launched by both Bravo and Charlie companies, supported by what was (for Vietnam) an impressive array of armor. The whole area was then promptly evacuated by the NVA, who suffered fairly heavy losses for no further U.S. casualties. The body of Lieutenant Little was successfully recovered from its shallow grave, where it had been buried with all the respect due to a brave opponent. This action was certainly a tactical victory for the U.S. side, but it is important to remember that its inner structure had in many ways been shaped and determined not by deliberate tactical planning, but by the overriding urge to recover a single dead body.



According to the tenets of classical strategy, this sort of thing would seem to be complete nonsense. Why on earth should it matter whether a fallen American lieutenant was buried with honor in Vietnam by his enemies or in the cemetery at West Point by his family and friends? Why should the status of one body (or in other cases, of one wounded man) be allowed to change the whole course of a battle? In the 19th century, when life was cheap and few fallen warriors were even given marked graves, that sort of question would have been verging on the incomprehensible, if not the inconceivable. Even in World War II, where total U.S. losses were more than five times those suffered in Vietnam in about half the time span, it was still very much the exception, rather than the rule, for any special effort to be made to "save Private Ryan."

We have to stop and wonder just why these matters should be viewed so differently today.

Perhaps the answer lies in the perceived importance of the cause being fought for. In Vietnam, most GIs tried to execute their mission as well and as efficiently as possible. Yet many still felt a deep contempt for the Vietnamese whom they were trying to defend, reinforced by a belief that American civilians neither understood nor supported the war. Without any loss of military professionalism, they found it difficult to work up any fierce commitment to the preservation of the Republic of Vietnam. At the same time, it was correspondingly easy to feel totally devoted to the lives and welfare of one's own comrades in arms. It therefore became natural to feel, as Lanning put it, that "the people (animals) of Vietnam are not worth one drop of American blood," or that even a spectacular tactical victory, in which dozens of enemy troops were killed, was "not worth nine lives."



There was thus apparently a type of unspoken multiplier at work, whereby it was subconsciously thought to be acceptable to lose one American life for every 10 or 20 of the enemy's, but any greater sacrifice than that was perceived as something of a defeat.

This line of reasoning was, of course, encouraged by the Pentagon's strategy based on attrition and the body count, in which it was just as important to minimize American deaths as it was to maximize the enemy's. Those two goals, however, often turned out to be incompatible, because rescuing one's own wounded of-ten meant that the battle against the enemy had to be broken off at a critical time, or diverted into an unplanned direction.

---

Today's Educational Sources and suggestions for further reading:

Article from Vietnam Magazine

[snippy_about_it]

"FALL IN" to the FReeper Foxhole!



Good Sunday Morning Everyone.

If you want to be added to our ping list, let us know.

If you'd like to drop us a note you can write to:

Wild Bird Center
19721 Hwy 213
Oregon City, OR 97045

[snippy_about_it]

Veterans for Constitution Restoration is a non-profit, non-partisan educational and grassroots activist organization.

---

Actively seeking volunteers to provide this valuable service to Veterans and their families.

Thanks to quietolong for providing this link.

---

We here at Blue Stars For A Safe Return are working hard to honor all of our military, past and present, and their families. Inlcuding the veterans, and POW/MIA's. I feel that not enough is done to recognize the past efforts of the veterans, and remember those who have never been found.

I realized that our Veterans have no "official" seal, so we created one as part of that recognition. To see what it looks like and the Star that we have dedicated to you, the Veteran, please check out our site.

Veterans Wall of Honor

Blue Stars for a Safe Return

---

NOW UPDATED THROUGH JULY 31st, 2004




The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul

Click on Hagar for
"The FReeper Foxhole Compiled List of Daily Threads"

LINK TO FOXHOLE THREADS INDEXED by PAR35

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.

[alfa6]

Sunday Bump for the Foxhole.

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[Dustoff45]

Thanks for honoring those that flew above the best

just a note, there is one picture of a Blackhawk. Not in 'Nam days - All we had were "B", then later, "D", then in late '67 "H" model Uh-1H Hueys.

The hoist missions were critical, but sometimes we found ways down through the trees. The pictures of the choppers hovering way up high over the trees were a little distorted.

We got down close, both to shorten the time on station, but also to lower our profile. Can someone say RPG?

Don't forget that not only did the 44th Medical Brigade support the two Medical Companies 498th and 45th[24 ships] and all the Detachments [6 ships] (Air Amb) spread over the 4 Corps, but also 1st Cav had Cav Medivac, 101st had Eagle Dustoff, Air Force had their Pedro Kamans, the AF did some yeoman work performing extractions north of the DMZ, and every chopper through 'Nam became a medivac on the spot when the need arose.

I, for one, was one blessed 20-21 year old warrant officer, with 1541 sorties completed and 2099 patients.

DustOff continues its mission to this day as a critical component of the Armed Services committment to get our injuried troops evacuated to medical attention, any way, any how and in any tactical condition.

My thanks to a lot of great gun ships that provided support on way too many hot LZs, but my favorite kudos always go back to the Sharks, 174th Assault Helicopter Company, Duc Pho, attached to support the Americal Division 1968

[Aeronaut]

Good morning Snippy.

[Iris7]

The risks you guys took.

Had a little experience (very little) in the Duc Pho area, just enough to see that it was no place to sight see, that is for sure. Wherever you went eyes were on you.

Never liked flying in helicopters much, always figured it a miracle that they didn't go down even more often than they did.

So, thanks for getting our people out. Americans are not disposable. My salute, Sir.

[Valin]

On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on April 03:
1367 Henry IV Bolingbroke Lincolnshire, King of England (1399-1413)
1569 Giovanni Battista Massarengo composer

1715 John Hanson Port Tobacco MD, 1st US President under Articles of Confederation

1783 Washington Irving New York NY, American writer (Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle)
1798 Charles D Wilkes Commander (Union Navy), died in 1877
1822 Edward Everett Hale US, clergyman/author (Man without a Country)
1823 William Marcy "Boss" Tweed corrupt NYC political boss
1837 John Burroughs writer/nature enthusiast (Burroughs Medal namesake)
1842 Ulric Dahlgren Colonel (Union volunteers), died in 1864
1858 Matthew Ricketts 1st Black man elected to Nebraska State Legislature
1860 Frederik W van Eeden Dutch utopian writer (Walden)
1885 Harry St John Philby [sheik Abdullah], British explorer
1894 Dooley Wilson Tyler TX, actor (Sam-Casablanca)
1898 George Jessel toastmaster general/entertainer (Diary of Young Comic)
1898 Henry R Luce Tengchow China, publisher (Time, Fortune, Life, 1965 Fisher Award)
1900 Camille Chamoun President of Lebanon
1904 Sally Rand US, actress/fan dancer (1933 Chicago World Fair)
1904 Iron Eyes Cody Tulsa OK, actor (Black Gold, Ernest Goes to Camp)
1907 Isaac Deutscher Polish/English historian (Stalin/Trotsky biography)
1915 Paul Touvier war criminal
1916 Herb Caen Sacramento CA, columnist (San Francisco Chronicle)
1921 Marilyn Maxwell Clarinda IA, actress (Grace-Bus Stop)
1924 Doris Day Cincinnati OH, "girl next door" actress (Pillow Talk)
1924 Marlon Brando Omaha NE, actor (On the Waterfront, A streetcar Named Desire, Godfather)
1926 Virgil Grissom Mitchell IN, Lieutenant Colonel USAF/astronaut (Merc 4, Gemini 3)
1929 Miyoshi Umeki Otaru Hokkaido Japan, actress (Best Supporting Actress Oscar-1957-Sayonara, Mrs Livingston-Courtship of Eddie's Father)
1930 Max Frankel journalist
1930 Helmut Kohl chancellor (Germany, 1982-1998 )
1933 Robert K(B-1 Bob) Dornan (Representative-Republican-CA, 1977-83, 85-97 )
1934 Jane Goodall London England, ethologist (studied African chimps)
1941 Jan Berry Los Angeles CA, rock vocalist (Jan & Dean-Deadman's Curve) died 3/04
1942 Billy Joe Royal Valdosta GA, country singer (Down in the Boondocks)
1942 Wayne Newton Roanoke VA, singer (Danke Schön)
1944 Tony Orlando New York NY, singer (& Dawn-Tie a Yellow Ribbon)
1945 Richard Manuel rock pianist/vocalist (The Band-Up on Cripple Creek)
1946 Carlos Salinas de Gortari President (México, 1988-94)
1946 John Virgo British snooker player
1947 Pat[rick] Proft Minneapolis MN, comedy writer (Naked Gun, Airplane)
1949 Lyle Alzado NFLer (Los Angeles Raiders)/actor (Oceans of Fire, Hangfire)
1955 Mick Mars [Bob Allen Dale] Terra Haute IN, guitarist (Mötley Crüe-Girls Girls)
1955 Aleksandr Nikolayevich Yablontsev Russian Lieutenant-Colonel/cosmonaut
1958 Alec Baldwin Amityville NY, actor (Joshua-Knots Landing, Beetlejuice)(STILL living in the USA)
1959 David Hyde Pierce Saratoga Springs NY, actor (Niles Crane-Fraiser)
1961 Eddie Murphy Brooklyn NY, actor (Saturday Night Live, 48 Hours, Beverly Hills Cop, Raw)

---

Deaths which occurred on April 03:
0628 Chosroes II emperor of Persia (579..628), murdered by his son
1287 Honorius IV [Giacomo Savelli], Italian Pope (1285-87), dies
1512 Richard Pafraet Dutch printer, dies
1525 Giovanni Rucellai Italian poet (Le Api), dies at 49
1826 Reginald Heber bishop & hymn writer, dies
1838 Francesco Antommarchi Napoleon's physician on St Helena, dies at 57
1862 James Clark Ross Arctic explorer, dies
1882 Jesse James outlaw, shot dead at 34, in St Joseph MO by Robert Ford
1901 Richard D'Oyly Carte promotor (Gilbert & Sullivan operas), dies
1936 Bruno Hauptmann convicted Lindbergh baby killer, executed
1941 André Michelin French tire manufacturer, dies at 88
1943 Conrad Veidt German/US actor (Cabinet of Dr Calgary), dies at 50
1946 Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma (responsible for Bataan Death March), executed
1956 T Kostov Bulgarian vice-premier, executed
1962 Benny "Kid" Paret US welterweight boxer, dies after fight, at 24
1971 Joseph Valachi US gangster, dies at 66
1971 Manfred Bonnington Lee [Ellery Queen], detective writer, dies at 65
1982 Warren Oates actor (East of Eden, Stoney Burke, The Wild Bunch), dies at 53
1986 Richard Manuel rock pianist/vocalist (Band), dies on 41st birthday
1988 Milton A Caniff US cartoonist (Terry & the Pirates), dies at 81
1990 Sarah Vaughan jazz singer, dies of lung cancer at 66
1991 Graham Greene British writer (3rd Man, Our man in Havana), dies at 86
1993 Pinky Lee kiddie host (Pinky Lee Show), dies of heart attack at 85
1994 Betty Furness actress/news consumer reporter (WNBC), dies at 78
1996 Carl Stokes 1st black mayor of a major US city (Cleveland OH), dies
1996 Ronald Harmon Brown Secretary of Commerce, dies in an "accident" at 54
1996 Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes bluesman, dies at 59
2002 Roy Huggins, novelists, TV writer and producer, died at age 87. (“Cheyenne,” “The Fugitive” and “The Rockford Files.”)

---

GWOT Casualties

Iraq
03-Apr-2003 11 | US: 11 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Private 1st Class Chad Eric Bales Ash Shahin Non-hostile - vehicle accident
US Specialist Donald Samuel Oaks Jr. Baghdad airport Hostile - friendly fire
US Sergeant 1st Class Randall Scott Rehn Baghdad airport Hostile - friendly fire
US Sergeant Todd James Robbins Baghdad airport Hostile - friendly fire
US Staff Sergeant Nino Dugue Livaudais SW of Haditha Dam Hostile - hostile fire - suicide bomber
US Specialist Ryan Patrick Long SW of Haditha Dam Hostile - hostile fire - suicide bomber
US Captain Russell Brian Rippetoe SW of Haditha Dam Hostile - hostile fire - suicide bomber
US Corporal Mark Asher Evnin Al Kut Hostile - hostile fire
US Corporal Erik Hernandez Silva Baghdad (SE of) Hostile - hostile fire - ambush
US Staff Sergeant Wilbert Davis Baghdad (south of) Hostile - vehicle accident
US Captain Edward Jason Korn Central part Hostile - friendly fire

03-Apr-2004 1 | US: 1 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Private 1st Class Geoffrey S. Morris Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire

Afghanistan
A Good Day

http://icasualties.org/oif/
Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White

---

On this day...
0309 BC Origin of Seleucid Era
0419 [Etalius] ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1043 Edward the Confessor crowned king of England
1645 English parliament accept Self-Denying Ordinance
1657 English Lord Protector Cromwell refuses crown
1721 Robert Walpole becomes England's 1st Lord of the Treasury
1764 Austrian arch duke Jozef crowned himself Roman Catholic king
1776 Washington receives honorary LLD. degree from Harvard College
1783 Sweden & US sign a treaty of Amity & Commerce

1790 Revenue Marine Service (US Coast Guard), created

1848 Thomas Douglas becomes 1st San Francisco public teacher
1860 Pony Express began between St Joseph MO & Sacramento CA
1864 Skirmish at Okolona AR
1865 Union forces occupy Confederate capital of Richmond VA & Petersburg VA
1865 Battle at Namozine Church VA (Appomattox Campaign)
1868 An Hawaiian surfs on highest wave ever, he rides a 50' tidal wave
1882 Wood block alarm invented, when alarm rang, it dropped 20 wood blocks
1908 Frank Gotch wins world heavyweight wrestling championship in 2 hours
1910 Highest mountain in North America, Alaska's Mount McKinley climbed
1913 British suffragette Emily Pankhurst sentenced to 3 years in jail
1917 Lenin leaves Switzerland for Petrograd
1918 House of Representatives accepts American Creed written by William Tyler*
1919 Austria expels all Habsburgers
1922 Stalin appointed General Secretary of Communist Party
1923 2 "Black Sox" sue White Sox (unsuccessfully) for back salary
1925 Great Britain goes back to gold standard
1926 2nd flight of a liquid-fueled rocket by Robert Goddard
1926 1st performance of Jean Sibelius' 7th Symphony in C
1927 Interstate Commerce Commission transfers Ohio to Eastern time zone
1930 Ras Tafari becomes Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
1933 1st airplane flight over Mount Everest
1933 The longest North American hockey game requires a 1:44:46 overtime as Maple Leaf Ken Doraty scores to beat Canadiens 1-0
1936 Al Carr KOs Lew Massey on 1 punch, :07 of the 1st round (shortest boxing bout with gloves)
1941 Churchill warns Stalin of German invasion
1941 Rasjid al-Gailani forms pro-German regime in Iraq
1944 Supreme Court (Smith vs Allwright) "white primaries" unconstitutional
1944 British dive bombers attack battle cruiser Tirpitz
1945 Nazi's begin evacuation of camp Buchenwald
1946 Netherlands-German postal relations resume
1948 Harry Truman signs Marshall Plan ($5B aid to 16 European countries)
1949 KQW-AM in San Francisco CA changes call letters to KCBS
1949 North Atlantic Treaty, pact signed by US, Britain, France & Canada
1954 Don Perry climbs a 20' rope in under 2.8 seconds (AAU record)
1956 German war criminals Hinrichsen/Rühl/Siebens/Viebahn are freed
1958 Fidel Castro's rebels attacked Havana
1959 "Charlie Brown" by The Coasters was banned by the BBC because it contained the word "spitball."
1962 Jockey Eddie Arcaro retires after 31 years (24,092 races)
1964 US & Panamá agree to resume diplomatic relations
1965 1st atomic powered spacecraft (SNAP) launched
1966 Luna 10 orbits Moon
1966 Tom Seaver, signs with the Mets for a reported $50,000 bonus
1967 113 East Europeans attending World Amateur hockey championships in Vienna, ask for political asylum
1968 North Vietnam agrees to meet US representatives to set up preliminary peace talks
1968 Martin Luther King Jr. deliveres his "mountaintop" speech to a rally of striking sanitation workers
1970 Miriam Hargrave of England passes her drivers test on 40th try
1974 148 tornadoes are reported over an area covering a dozen states in the east, south & midwest killed approximately 315
1974 Gold hits record $197 an ounce in Paris France
1975 Bobby Fischer stripped of world chess title for refusing to defend
1977 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's 1st meeting with President Jimmy Carter
1979 Jane M Byrne (D) elected 1st woman mayor of Chicago IL
1981 Race riots in London's Brixton area
1982 UN Security Council demands Argentina's withdrawal from Falkland Islands
1985 Vic Elliot pocketed 15,780 pool balls in 24 hours in London
1987 Bill Elliott sets NASCAR qualifying record of 212.809 mph at Talladega
1987 Chicago Cubs trade Dennis Eckersley to A's for 3 minor leaguers
1988 Mario Lemieux wins NHL scoring title, stopping Gretzky's 7 year streak
1991 "Penn & Teller - Refrigerator Tour" opens at Eugene O'Neill NYC
1991 UN Security Council adopts Gulf War truce resolution
1996 St Francis Fighting Saints scores college baseball run record 71-1
1996 Theodore Kaczynski Jr. was arrested by FBI agents and charged with being the "Unabomber".
1996 Much of North America was treated to a total lunar eclipse
2003 16th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom US Marines and infantry moved with surprising speed toward Baghdad. Central Command said there was "increasing evidence" that Saddam Hussein's regime had lost control of its fighting forces. US troop casualty totaled: 51 dead, 16 missing and 7 captured. A power blackout in Baghdad coincided with heavy artillery fire. US forces attacked Saddam Int'l. Airport.
2004 The US Postal Service unveiled a new John Wayne commemorative postage stamp

---

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Switzerland : Glarius Festival (1388) (Thursday)
Massachusetts : Student Government Day (Friday)
US : American Circus Day
US : Don't Go to Work Unless It's Fun Day
US : Tweed Day
National Fresh Celery Month

---

Religious Observances
Anglican : Commemoration of Richard, Bishop of Chichester
Christian : Holy Saturday

---

Religious History
1189 The Peace of Strasbourg was signed, resolving the differences between Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of Germany and Pope Clement III.
1528 In Cologne, German reformer Adolf Clarenbach, 28, was arrested for teaching Protestant (some say Anabaptist or Waldensian) doctrines. The following year, Clarenbach was burned at the stake for his faith.
1593 Birth of George Herbert, English clergyman and poet. One of his verses endures today as the hymn, "The King of Love My Shepherd Is."
1759 Anglican clergyman and hymnwriter John Newton wrote in a letter: 'I believe that love to God, and to man for God's sake, is the essence of religion and the fulfilling of the law.'
1950 Death of American hymnwriter Ira B. Wilson, 70. Associated with Lorenz Publishing in Dayton, Ohio for over 40 years, Wilson's most enduring sacred composition was "Make Me a Blessing" (aka "Out of the Highways and Byways of Life").

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

---

Thought for the day :
"Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He's going to be up all night anyway."

---

*The American Creed
I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a democracy in a republic, a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.

"I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies."

–Written 1917, accepted by the United States House of Representatives on April 3, 1918.

[Samwise]

We thank you, Dustoff45.

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone.

[The Mayor]

April 3, 2005

Cobwebs

Read:
Romans 10:11-17

How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard. -Romans 10:14

Bible In One Year: 1 Samuel 29-31

The story is told of a painter who was commissioned to portray a run-down church. But instead of an old, tottering ruin, he painted a magnificent edifice of modern design. Through the windows could be seen an ornate collection box for the gifts of the fashionable worshipers. Above it hung a sign bearing the inscription "For Missions." Sadly, the box was covered in cobwebs.

The church or the individual whose heart and life is not involved in the worldwide proclamation of the gospel is on the way to ruin. We may be engaged in feverish "Christian activity," but our energies are misdirected if the main thrust of God's program for this age goes unattended.

God has so designed His plan of world evangelization that every believer is to be vitally involved. We all should "pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest" (Matthew 9:38).

Some will also hear His personal call to be preachers-otherwise, "how shall they hear?" (Romans 10:14).

Still others will be givers and senders, for "how shall they preach unless they are sent?" (v.15).

Let there be no cobwebs over the cause of world missions because of our lack of concern. -Paul Van Gorder

Lord of harvest, send forth reapers,
Hear us, Lord, to Thee we cry;
Send them now the sheaves to gather,
Ere the harvest time pass by. -Thompson

Untold millions are perishing-untold.

FOR FURTHER STUDY
What About Those Who Have Never Heard?

[Samwise]

[Grzegorz 246]

[Soaring Feather]

Twenty Third Psalm

The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green Pastures,
he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness for his name's sake,

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me, thy
rod and staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine
enemies: thou anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

[SAMWolf]

The dustoff, however, did not come cheap. First, it involved a heavy cost in rear-echelon personnel, as well as some long-term cash payouts. More convalescents in the hospital, surviving for longer, meant that more doctors and nurses were needed to look after them, after which more veterans' pensions had to be found. It is a sad fact that the average wounded soldier costs the taxpayer many more dollars than a soldier killed in action, however differently we may rate the psychic or moral costs.

IMHO, it's cheap at any price. We, as a country, owe it to the young people it sends to war.

[SAMWolf]

Thank you for your service, Dustoff45 just a note, there is one picture of a Blackhawk. Not in 'Nam days

Hey! You beat Par35!!

Good Job.

[SAMWolf]

1982 Warren Oates actor (East of Eden, Stoney Burke, The Wild Bunch), dies at 53

Great flick!

[SAMWolf]

Thanks for posting "The American Creed"

[stand watie]

GM, snippy, et.al.

the dust-off lads had more GUTS than common sense, thanks to GOD!

i know one dust-off jockey, who had 4 slicks "shot out from under him" in 13 months during 1971!

free dixie,sw