RIPPLE SALVO… #824… THE 74th ANNIVERSARY OF D-DAY HAS COME AND GONE. THE SCENES FROM WASHINGTON TODAY WITH THE PRESIDENT RECOGNIZING THOSE WHO CARRIED THE DAY AT GREAT COST WAS INSPIRING. THE PRESIDENT REFERRED TO THOSE AGELESS WARRIORS AS “PATRIOTS WHO ANSWERED THE CALL.“ Most of the old vets on scene were volunteers and draftees who did indeed answer the call to serve. At age 6 to 9 in those WW II years of red, white and blue, Humble Host concluded that military service and the “draft” were, and remain, part of being an American. You got the call to serve, you went; unless you volunteered to accelerate the fulfillment of the personal obligation and responsibility to serve the country–“To do something for my country for all she has done for me.”
The “Silent Generation” (b. 1925-1944) took the example of the “G.I. Generation” (b. 1905-1924), renamed “The Greatest Generation” by Tom Brokaw. They assumed and carried on the traditions and values that were celebrated on the nation’s mall in yesterday’s ceremony of remembrance of D-Day. They saluted the thousands of American G.I’s, Canadians, British and others, who fell breaking through Rommel’s circumspect defenses on the beaches of France. The inspired Silent Generation picked up the baton for the 45-year Cold War, the Korean Police Action, and the Vietnam war. Our national commitment to make and keep world peace meant there was a requirement to sustain the draft.
Unfortunately, as the 1968 monthly call-ups of 30,000 to 40,000 young men to maintain a fighting force of 525,000 in Southeast Asia to wage a war –that was not winnable–that was taking the lives of 400-500 young warriors every week, fuses in the American spirit began to blow. “Hell No, I Won’t Go,” became a familiar call from coast to coast. And the emerging “Boomer Generation”(b. 1945-1963) had to choose. They could be patriots who answered the call to serve, and accepted as their own, a Daniel Webster-like commitment to the United States (“My country, right or wrong, my country.”). Or, they could become patriots who heard and heeded the call of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (“On the moral responsibility to break unjust laws. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer to be plunged into the abyss of despair… One has not only a legal but moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”. The law that millions of Americans felt morally responsible to disobey were the laws governing the American Selective Service System administered by General Hershey. The year was 1968 when the two camps of American Patriots divided the “house” and “the dream died.”… “Students and the Draft” at Ripple Salvo…but first…
GOOD MORNING… Day EIGHT HUNDRED TWENTY-FOUR of an immersion in the history of the country during the years of Rolling Thunder–1965-68…
HEAD LINES from THE NEW YORK TIMES on Friday, 7 June 1968…
THE WAR: “VIETCONG SHELLS STRIKE BUILDINGS IN CENTRAL SAIGON–HOSPITAL, CHURCH AND TRUCE HEADQUARTERS DAMAGED–TWO CIVILIANS KILLED”…’… and four others injured…Damage to the church was not known but a spokesman for the International Control Commission, the organization charged with supervising the 1954 cease-fire agreement in Vietnam said that three of their storage sheds hd been hit with shrapnel. In the last two weeks late-night and early morning shelling by the Vietcong has become almost daily occurrence in Saigon…The South Vietnamese Rangers fought a fierce battle with the Vietcong in Cholon yesterday and killed 30 of the enemy…South Vietnamese losses were put at 7 killed and 21 wounded… No significant fighting was reported in South Vietnam.”… “IN A REGULAR SUMMARY OF CASUALTIES, THE UNITED SATES SPOKESMAN SAID THAT 438 AMERICAN COMBAT DEATHS WERE REPORTED IN THE WEEK ENDED AT MIDNIGHT SATURDAY, JUNE 1….”2,180 AMERICANS HAD BEEN WOUNDED AND HOSPITALIZED. ENEMY LOSSES DURING THE WEEK WERE 3,237 KILLED.”
PEACE TALKS: Page 3: HANOI ASKS A DATE FOR BOMBING HALT–PAPER LINKS UNCONDITIONAL STOP TO PROGRESS IN PARIS“… ” An official North Vietnamese weekly called on the United States today to set a date for a cessation of the bombing of North Vietnam. ‘It is on this sole condition that conversations will be able to progress,’ The Vietnam Courier concluded in an article on prospects for talks being held with the United States in Paris. It was not evident from the text whether the ‘sole condition’ for progress in talks was effective cessation of bombing or simply in setting of a date for cessation. Elsewhere in the article what it called ‘serious’ discussions of a number of issues raised by W. Averell Harriman, the chief United States negotiator in the Paris talks, was linked with ‘unconditional cessation of bombings and all other acts of war’ against North Vietnam.’ “…
STATE DEPARTMENT. Office of Historian. Historical Documents 264 and 263. Document 264 date 6 June 1968 is a telegram from the Embassy in Vietnam (Ambassador Bunker) to the Secretary of State expressing his dismay that, at the same time the United States has backed off the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong area targets the Vietcong and North Vietnamese have commenced a non-stop rocket and mortar attack on Saigon without regard for civilian casualties. This is an interesting one-pager… The 263 document is a “Special National Intelligence Estimate” on the Vietnam Situation” dated 6 June 1968 and gives the President and his senior officers the best guess on where war and peace in Vietnam will be gong over the next six months… It is several pages of small print worth reading, but if you are short on time, The conclusions are in four paragraphs on the first page… this is one of the most interesting documents in the library…
264… https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d263
253… https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v06/d264
Page 1: “KENNEDY’S BODY IS FLOWN HERE (NYC) FOR FUNERAL RITES TOMORROW–LBJ Asks for Strong gun Laws–Arlington Burial–Body Will Lie In State Today As St. Patrick’s Solemn Mass Set”… Page 1: “Woman Is Sought In Kennedy Death–A witness Says She Ran From The Scene Exclaiming That ‘We Shot Him””… Page 1:”SUSPECT IS A STRONG NATIONALIST WHO HOPES TO RETURN TO JAPAN”…
7 JUNE 1968… The President’s Daily Brief (CIA) CZECHOSLOVAKIA: We have confirmation that Dubcek was hard pressed by the Soviets to make sure that his reform movement did not slip out of Communist control…. COMMUNIST CHINA: There is further evidence of the bad effect the cultural Revolution is having on exports… Export goods are in short suppl;y… MIDDLE EAST: KENNEDY ASSASSINATION: In the coffee houses and the editorial pages of the sensational press, the Arabs are calling the Kennedy assassination a ‘Zionist plot.’ They see it as intended to sour Arab relations..SOVIET UNION: “The Soviets are showing a rather unusual interest in the Atlantic around the Canary islands. they have spent expeditions to the areas almost yearly since 1963- the latest one there was in the last half of May. Definitely related to nuclear submarine activity. One good possibility is that they have in mind eventually setting up a mobile support base for submarine operations… NORTH VIETNAM: Doumer Bridge: Permanent repairs to the Paul Doumer Bridge are nearly half completed Photos of 23 and 27 May shows three of seven dropped spans are in place and work completed on damaged or improvised piers. May be fully operational by Mid-June. The destruction of the Doumer bridge, although an impediment to the traffic crossing the Red River, never halted the movement of supplies. There are 18 rail nd highway by-passes to the Doumer bridge….
7 JUNE 1968… OPERATIONAL ROLLING THUNDER… New York Times (8 June reporting 7 June ops) Page 2: “A military spokesman said that no American planes were lost in North Vietnam during the day as pilots flew 131 missions below the 20th Parallel which is the upper limit established by President Johnson’s bombing restriction. In a delayed report the spokesman said that a Navy A-7 Corsair jet and a propeller-driven Air Force Skyraider were shot down May 31 southwest of the Khesahn outpost. Both pilots were rescued.
VIETNAM: AIR LOSSES (Chris Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast asia on 7 June 1968…
(1) LTJG W. R. McCLENDON and LTJG R.J. EDENS were flying an F-4B of the VF-92 Silver Kings embarked in USS Enterprise and ejected shortly after the catapault launch when the aircraft became uncontollable. The control column was unresponsive to LTJG McCLENDON‘s commands and both aircrew ejected before water impact and were rescued to fly and fight again.
SUMMARY OF ROLLING THUNDER LOSSES (KIA/MIA/POW) ON JUNE 7 FOR THE FOUR YEARS OF THE OPERATION IN THE SKIES OVER NORTH VIETNAM
1965… NONE…
1966… NONE…
1967… NONE…
1968…. NONE… oohrah….
Humble Host flew #179. Led a mid-day Mini-Alpha of 16 aircraft to tear-up the Vinh railroad yards, tracks, rolling stock and support buildings, all of which had been hit dozens of times before. 12 bombers hit the railroad yards and four F-4s hit 37/57 flak sites in the Vinh area, at least two of which were firing. Good hits, no aircraft hit. Off target proceeded to conduct armed recce on Highway 15 road segment armed with two pods of 2.75 rockets. No trucks sighted, so proceeded to coast and found a water-borne-logistic craft (“WiBLiC”) east of Cape Mui Ron, and put a few little rockets into hull. No smoke or fire…
RIPPLE SALVO… #824…NEW YORK TIMES, 4 JUNE 1968, Page 46, OpEd…
“STUDENTS AND THE DRAFT”….
“Vice President David B. Truman of Columbia University recently expressed the view that the war in Vietnam had created the current restlessness among students and that if the war did not end ‘it is debatable if the university could continue.’
“This may be a somewhat exaggerated view of the role of the war in respect to student unrest, especially in the light of similar undergraduate rebellion in France, Italy, Spain, Poland and many other countries. But there can no doubt that many of America’s most intelligent and articulate young people are severely shaken by their Government’s Vietnam policies and particularly by the military draft, which is for them a point of agonizing confrontation with the moral and practical problems posed by the Southeast Asia conflict.
“Recent developments in regard to the draft offer no hope for an early end to student malaise on this score. Indeed, unrest among youths is likely to intensify as a result of actions by the courts, the Congress and the draft director.
“The Supreme Court has just upheld a 1965 law which heaps fresh punishment on those who burn or otherwise destroy or mutilate a draft card. In doing so, the Court reaffirmed the ‘broad and sweeping’ powers of Congress to raise and support armies and ‘to make all laws necessary and proper to that end.’ The 1965 Act may be constitutional, but that does not make it wise or necessary. It is neither. The law is redundant and excessively punitive, and only serves o make martyrs of young men who engage, perhaps childishly but essentially harmlessly, in an act of symbolic protest.
“The constitutional power of Congress to raise armies may be sweeping, but it does not justify the stubborn refusal of Congress to rectify glaring inequities in a Selective Service Act that is widely conceded to be bad law. The Senate has killed a bill that would have granted draft registrants the right to their own legal counsel when they appeared before local boards–a right that ought to be self-evident.
“When the courts, the Congress and Administration are so indifferent to their rights and views, it is they, after all, who are called upon to bear the heaviest burden of policies not of their making with which many of them profoundly disagree.”…
RTR Quote for 7 June: SELECTIVE SERVICE DEFINITION: “The system used in the United States to draft young people into armed service. Though the United States at present has no draft, young men are required to register with the Selective Service when they reach the age of eighteen.”…
Lest we forget…. Bear