Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Question for the military guys

Members of military special operations groups, (in general) don't generally talk about what they did, or did not do, other than amongst themselves....there are exceptions....

From the article about first casualty in VN ... " ... Fifty years ago, 25-year-old [Tom] Davis, a Tennessee Tech engineering student, joined the Army and went to Vietnam on a secret mission.

Davis was in Vietnam intercepting communist radio signals and alerting the south Vietnamese so they could target and destroy those operations. ..."

I believe he was ASA (Army Security Agency).

L.W.

No fuggin way

Ask him to drop and do 80 push ups and you'll find out

When I got out of the military in 1992 I was hanging out with my cousin and some of his friends one night just relaxing and drinking beer. One of the guys had heard that I had just gotten out and started telling me horror stories of being in Vietnam killing children with bombs strapped to them, etc. I didnt know the guy and really didnt pay him any mind. Later that night one of the guys pulled me aside and told me that was his father telling the tales and dont pay attention to him because he was discharged in basic training after he was drafted and never went anywhere. I guess he just needed to make himself look impressive.

But, but, what about James B. McGovern jr. (Aka Earthquake McGoon). Doesnt he count?

At NSA headquarters there is a Wall with a few hundred names, in an area not open to the public. There is a replica at the National Cryptologic Museum outside the gate.

Those whose names are on the wall weren't sitting behind any desk. In addition to the ASA soldier Leanwolf mentioned, there are members of the crews of the USS Pueblo and Liberty, as well as several aircraft shot down.

The museum is well worth a visit for anyone interested in a little known part of history.

Paul

Yea, something about classification, and National Secrets etc, kind of makes it hard to discuss with the general public.

Depends on the branch of service. In some, stay in long enough, it's likely you will do your share of both strategic and tactical assignments.

"Ask him to drop and do 80 push ups and you'll find out"

Considering he weighs about 325 at 5'8", doubt that will happen....

"Depends on the branch of service. In some, stay in long enough, it's likely you will do your share of both strategic and tactical assignments."

This guy was in for 4 years, 1992-1996

Used to work with a guy who had retired from the US Army after 20+ years. Pretty nice easy going fellow and a no BS type person. He didn't mind talking some about his years spent in the service in general but not much on specific details other than he was a recruiter the last few years before retiring. One night at work we were talking and he told me he spent a tour in Vietnam assigned to ASA who was handling electronic surveillance for NSA as NSA was not supposed to be in country. He said that most of his duties were working as a go-fer, doing physical grunt work and security for the real ASA high tech people. I asked him what happened when one of their guys was injured or killed? He said that that rarely ever happened but when it did their official records showed them as assigned to Signal Corps.

The Tier 1 units like Seal Tm 6 and Delta are routinely augmented by MI types and other specialists. Normal SOF units now have specialty MI type units and teams and there are several unknown large MI type units that use SOF operators running around since early 80s. The trend has been to more augmentation from specialty personnel, like PJs, combat controllers, linguists, EOD and MI types etc.

Very few halo classes have graduated with as little as 17 jumps when it used to be at Fort Bragg but that was 20 years ago but never with as little as 14. Weather and clearance for the altitude was the problem from DC Air Control. Just was hard to get the clearance to go above 15,000 at times and we jumped up to 30,000 feet. That is why it was moved it to Yuma AZ and now every class easily gets 20 plus jumps.

You would be surprised at the number of HALO and HAHO (High Altitude High Opening) jumps that have been conducted in combat in the last 15 years. It still is an excellent method of infiltration. I know small teams have jumped and landed at 14,500 on a mountain top in combat in recent years. Expense is not a criteria if the mission calls for it and actually not much more expensive for the actual jump than a static line. Once the person is trained (that is the huge exense), you are still jumping from normall same A/C just at different altitude and different parachutes and equipment.

The Tier 1 guys routinely tandem jump w/ ancillary specialist personnel that are deemed mission essential by someone. Dogs are often mission essential and have their own goggles. Spec Ops and M.I. have shared many missions, google Combat Support Activity and The Army of Northern Virginia.


mike r

Come to Clarksville and ft Campbell area for some good chuckles.

From a linguist/Navy perspective - we didn't teach linguists to jump, we taught SEALs to speak the language.

Much better chance of the student passing.

I was an older student at DLI and thus spent most of my time with other, older sailors. A few SEALs and an EOD guy. There to learn languages as it's easier than the other way around. The army MI types I was around were all prior Russian lings who spent most of their time not doing language things or MI things with their first unit.

That is a good story but that is about it. Navy goes to school at Bragg for basic jump and the rest is within the Navy at Miramar. Tell me how many SEALs burned in anywhere else. The systems are completely different between Navy and others. I wouldn't jump with a CYPRRs if you paid me.

What Unit and where were you stationed ?--- Their answer very often is--- " Top Secret ,can't talk about It " Or I was all over Vietnam. --------- Hand full of snipers that did not want to talk to much about their choice of weapon. The John Wayne Airborne Ranger from Jersey I know turned 61 years old in Feb. 2017. His Vietnam Stories predate his age. Web

I do believe that he was murdered by a fellow Air Force airmen,,,,,,,,,,,,

I can verify with others (like my MFF-I buddies) but as far as I know, there were no combat HALO drops during the 92-96 timeframe, much less three of them

Poser