Arrias: Ship’s Surgeon

I recall thinking he looked old and frail. I was 14, it was my freshman year in high school and I remember him sitting there, on one of the love seats that my mom and dad had in the den, between the dining room and the living room, in that beautiful house we lived in on Centre Street… He sat facing the windows, I think there might have been a fire in the fireplace to his right, but it had faded, he sat with his hands in his lap and talked, almost no emotion, speaking quietly, in very close control of his emotions, as if to let the littlest hint of his feeling out would be to lose it all, and he would burst.

I was only 14 and yet I understood that, it was that clear.

He was a man of “ferocious intellect.” In fact, they were all men of “ferocious intellect.” I steal that line from Richard Dreyfuss, a fantastic actor who used it to describe another fabulous actor: Robert Shaw. I bring them up because the two men are, oddly, connected to the men I remember.

As virtually the entire world knows – or at least that part that watches movies – the two men were, along with Roy Scheider – the central figures in one of the great movies: JAWS. It is in one of the most gripping scenes in movie-making history that they connect to the subject I want to write about today. The scene, of course, is the moment when Quint, the cranky and slightly crazy shark-hunter, played to perfection by Shaw, tells Hooper (Dreyfuss) and the Sheriff (Scheider) about the scar on his forearm – where he had removed a tattoo that read: USS INDIANAPOLIS.

The man that I recall is Captain Lewis “Lew” Haynes, who in 1945 was a Lieutenant Commander and ship’s surgeon onboard the USS INDIANAPOLIS.

There is too much to tell the whole story, and much of it has been written down over the years as the survivors were all interviewed, and I encourage you to read the books, search for the stories on line. As it turned out, eventually, Capt. McVay, the commanding officer, court martialed by the Navy, was exonerated, but none of that changes the story itself, and the horror that nearly 900 sailors faced in the sea.

Capt. Haynes and my dad and a few of their friends were a core of perhaps a dozen surgeons in the Navy, there was another similar group into the Army, who in the the years between the end of WWII and Vietnam helped develop the treatment protocols for burns. They were all men of ferocious intellect.

Three of them served on cruisers as ship’s surgeon during World War II, as lieutenants or lieutenant commanders, though all retired as captains: Ted Starzynski, Lew Haynes and Roger O’Neil. O’Neil also survived a sinking: he was the assistant ship’s surgeon aboard USS JUNEAU and on 13 November 1942, after night action off Guadalcanal, found himself sent by small boat to USS SAN FRANCISCO. SAN FRANCISCO was barely afloat, her keel had been broken, and the bridge had been hit by enemy fire, which had killed Rear Admiral Callaghan and mortally wounded the captain of the ship, Captain Cassin Young, the man O’Neil was operating on in the admiral’s cabin. And at that point JUNEAU was hit by a torpedo and blew up, resulting in the death of all but 10 of the 690 man crew; O’Neil lived.

As for Capt. Haynes and INDIANAPOLIS, they had, as you will recall, just delivered “Little Boy” – the bomb dropped on Hiroshima – to Tinian, and were returning to Leyte in the Philippines when they were torpedoed. The ship was struck by two torpedoes, forward of the bridge, on the starboard side, about 15 minutes past midnight on July 30th. The ship sank in 12 minutes, but still some 900 men, of a crew of 1,196 ended up in the sea, about 720 miles west-south-west of Guam, and 560 miles east-north-east of the Philippines, in about 18,000 feet of water, in 12 foot swells, the moon ducking in and out of clouds, the water they were in covered in several thousand tons of fuel oil.

He had been sleeping when the torpedo hit and it threw him out of his bunk. Fire chased him out of his stateroom, the second torpedo threw him to the floor and he burned his hands. He stumbled around in the smoke and fire, looking for a way out. I recall him saying that he ended up in the wardroom and fell into an easy chair and said that it felt very comfortable and for just an instant he thought about remaining there. He knew he would die but “that was okay.” Then someone fell on him and he “woke up” and stood and began to find his way out. He crawled through a porthole on the starboard side (the ship was listing to starboard and the water was getting closer), climbed a ladder up onto the deck, then as the ship continued to list and sink bow first he simply walked into the water and began to swim away in the darkness.

He ended up as the senior officer in what turned out to be the largest group of men, perhaps 200 or more. Many were wounded, most of those died in the first 24 hours. As he told the story, he went from being a doctor to a coroner, swimming around, testing to see if someone had died – he would gently tap the eyes – if the eyeball itself didn’t respond, the man was dead. He would pull off the dog-tags and slide the chain over his arm. Other men would then pull the life vest off and push the body away.

Eventually, he had so many dog-tags on chains hanging around his arm they began to pull him down. The other sailors had to wrestle them off his arm, and he fought them, trying to keep the dog-tags, and he spoke of the trauma of letting that last little bit of his shipmates slip into the sea.

Perhaps the most remarkable piece of the story was when they were finally picked up, after 4-and-a-half days in open ocean, and they ended up in and around large rubber rafts dropped out by the seaplane. Several dozen men were huddled on and around the rafts. There was a large container of fresh water, but just one small cup to drink from. So, he began passing out drinks, one at a time, passing the water past men who hadn’t had any fresh water for, at that point 110 hours. He noted that each man passed the cup along, waiting his turn, that not one man cheated.

Eventually, 317 men were pulled from the sea, though one sailor died shortly after being rescued. Only 316 survived the ordeal.

The next time you watch JAWS, remember Capt. Haynes, and remember the others, those ferocious intellects; Haynes, Starzynski, O’Neil, Stephen Ryan et al, who went on to save the lives of literally thousands of wounded Sailors and Marines and Soldiers and Airmen…

Copyright 2023 Arrias
www.vicsocotra.com

Arrias and His Muse: Very Wrong

Author’s Note: My Muse and I were reading several accounts of life in the trenches around Avdiivka – could have been the Somme or Verdun a little more than a hundred years ago…

– Arrias

Very Wrong

The trenches are long and dark and dank,

Always hot or always cold,

The men climb out and go on patrol,

And come back tired and numb and old.

Day after day they fight the foe,

Tactics and weapons the same,

It may look different from the capitals,

But in the trenches it’s the same game.

The casualties continue to mount,

It’s a never-ending grind,

This war it seems may never end,

The rest of the world seems not to mind.

The leaders all have their reasons,

They can tell you why,

Why the men must keep fighting,

But the leaders don’t have to die.

Are they fighting for their freedom?

If so, men can take the hurt.

But is that really what they do?

Or do they fight just for a piece of dirt?

Prime Ministers and Presidents

Use such beautiful words to inspire,

But the soldiers are left to fight,

And in the mud and cold expire.

In the capitals the leaders

In soft, warms bed at night sleep,

But in the trenches sleep the grunts,

Where the mud’s six inches deep.

They say the war is winnable,

And both capitals say “Be Strong!”

But in the trenches this they know:
At least one side is very wrong.

Copyright 2023 Arrias
www.vicsocotra.com

Arrias: Ukraine: Time for a Ceasefire?

In an interesting development the Commander in Chief of the Ukrainian Army (the Ukrainian equivalent to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) released an essay last week, just as an interview was published in The Economist. In the essay and interview it was reported that Gen Zaluzhnyi said the war was “at a stalemate.” That was later corrected to say that the war was at “a dead end.” That was later corrected to say there there was a “technological dead end.”

Whatever he actually said (I don’t read Ukrainian) it was close enough to “stalemate” that President Zelenskyy felt the need to make a statement that the war was “not at a stalemate,” and added that “Ukraine has no right to even think about giving up,” and insisted there are no secret negotiations.

Some well known analysts also issued an explanation of the General’s paper that sought to explain that what the General really discussing was how to win the war. In a sense he did; Zaluzhnyi talked about the need for a host of improvements, to include:

Modern command and control that has the ability to respond across the entire county while operating in a hostile cyber warfare environment.
Gaining air superiority – in particular improved drones, flooding Russian air defenses, neutralizing Russian attack drones, better anti-drone capabilities, but this also includes manned aircraft (150 F-16s) and surface to air missiles. There has been repeated talk about the ability to defend the entire country from drones and cruise missiles. That would require a nation-wide integrated air defense.

He also mentioned:

More and better mine clearing as well as integration with drones to allow clearing mine fields while concealed.

More effective counter-battery fire – more and better reconnaissance drones, more assets, more artillery, and better integration of artillery with the reconnaissance and command and control.

Creating and training reserve forces – a nationwide registry, training facilities to increase the quantity and quality of reserve training

Improving Electronic Warfare – employing complex EW across the front, and a nationwide integrated command and control capability

There is more, to include getting ahead of and staying ahead of Russia in establishing and maintaining situational awareness, and establishing a single, integrated information environment.

He also called on Ukraine to develop its own arms industry.

These are all worthy goals. The problem is that none of them are easy or cheap. Ukraine had a pre-war defense budget of less than $4.5 billion, with total national security spending (to include intelligence and national police) totaling less that $7.5 billion.

Then consider that a single Patriot battery costs, per Wikipedia, about $1 billion for the US. Exports are more expensive. How many batteries will they need to cover the major cities and industrial facilities (power plants) across Ukraine?

Said differently, the force described above cannot be afforded by Ukraine; NATO and the US would need to pay for it, and sustain it.

And, even with the equipment on hand, the manpower problem is serious. Ukraine has a shrinking population, one that is likely to shrink even more as the war drags on. And the military he describes is one that will require a large cadre of professionals plus a constant churn of reservists. And professional soldiers are expensive to create both in time and money.

He finished with a statement that there’s need for technological breakthroughs – which sounds a lot like “wonder weapons.”

But Gen Zaluzhnyi isn’t stupid, he knows all this; all the pieces that he discussed have been discussed before in the press and by various figures in the Ukrainian government. So, what was the point?

As one of my smart correspondents noted: this is Zaluzhnyi subtly telling the chain of command – President Zelensky and the senior civilians – that the country is hurting and that the country not only may not have enough to win, but it may not have enough to sustain a stalemate.

None of us knows the real casualty counts on either side, both sides have striven mightily to hide their own casualties while spreading rumors about the other side. But there are snippets of data which suggest that the total number of casualties is staggering, with each side losing well over 100,000 killed in action and perhaps 400,000 wounded. It’s worth mentioning that there are some estimates that triple each of those numbers.

Another one of my smart correspondents noted a strange echo from the past: as World War I dragged on, the political leadership in London and Paris began to develop skepticism about the course of the war, while the generals kept saying that “this is not time to stop, we’re going to break through on the next push.” Now the roles might be reversed, but the grind on the front line appears to be very similar.

So, maybe there are no secret negotiations, as President Zelensky insists. But perhaps Gen, Zaluzhnyi is telling him that there should be.

Copyright 2023 Arrias
www.vicsocotra.com

Arrias & His Muse: Blue Circle

Author’s Note: A less passionate issue from my Muse…

– Arrias

Blue Circle

The world is just a blue circle,

Just dark blue water is what you see,

Even from 30,000 feet,

All there is, is sea.

The ship is fixed, it doesn’t move,

The ocean just flows past,

But we seem to remain in this same spot,

We’ll be here ‘till the end at last.

A hundred port calls behind us,

Promised a thousand more,

And another thousand after that,

‘Ere we reach the further shore.

But now the ship is fixed,

In this vast circle of blue,

And every day is like the last,

And every day the same view.

The same ocean, the same men,

The same ships just astern,

The same mission that never ends,

And no known day of our return.

Perhaps this is our final deployment,

We slipped our mooring for the last time,

We are headed for one last great portcall,

In a land that is truly sublime.

But ‘till then we have our tasks,

It’s a 15 cycle day,

Flight ops right around the clock,

Starting right after the unrep breakaway.

So grab some coffee and some chow,

You know what you must do,

Turn to, look alive,
War at sea for Event Two.

Copyright 2023 Arrias
www.vicsocotra.com

Arrias: My Muse on World Events

Author’s Note: My Muse has a burr under her saddle about things…

– Arrias

What Makes Sense?

It doesn’t make much sense to me
All that is going on,
Terrorists conduct a raid
On a warm, clear dawn.
Raping, burning, killing,
Civilians, all unarmed.

More than a thousand so they say,
Hundreds more badly harmed.
Evil of an ancient kind,
Or so it seemed to me,
But then the newsman told me the truth!
From the River to the sea!

And so the call to rein Israel in,
The IDF’s response must be restrained,
We will tell them what to do,
Violence must be contained.
But for 18 months we have said,
“No one should tell Ukraine when to halt,

After all – the Bucha Massacre,
Not after such a violent assault.”
Everyone declared Putin
A war criminal beyond the pale,
But surely we must talk to Hamas,
And not get caught up in each detail.

Ukraine can fight for every inch,
We will not say a word,
But the Israelis – oh those whacky Jews,
They’re crazy, haven’t you heard?
Ukraine can seek vengeance,
Putin’s evil after all.

There’s been nothing like him
Since the garden and the Fall.
But we need to talk to Hamas,
You must understand the nuance,
It’s a very complicated process,
Only Ivy Leaguers understand the dance.

And the IDF need take a chill pill,
It was only a thousand folks or so,
Raped and burned and butchered,
Surely Israel brought it on, you know?
After all Bibi’s a terrorist,
The IDF’s attacks must cease…

Never again? Never again?
Israel’s the real threat to world peace!
Let the pros from Foggy Bottom,
And the Hague handle this,
They can talk to the folks in Tehran,
I’m sure nothing will go amiss.

The New York Times, The BBC,
They will tell us all the truth,
From the River to the Sea,
They will rewrite Ruth…
After all we’re just little peons,
They’re Ivy Leaguers with Big Brains.

So what it all seems ass end to,
Their logic tied up in chains…
So, send aid to Gaza, and to Ukraine,
Russia is beyond the pale,
Kiev gets F-16s and more missiles,
Saleh al Arouri will be a professor at Yale.

Copyright 2023 Arrias
www.vicsocotra

Arrias:  Action or Reaction?

In virtually any situation, from sports to geo-politics, you can usually parse things down to one major actor and a whole bunch of reactors. There may also be spectators, but usually they’re reacting as well.

For the US, as the world’s preeminent great power, maintaining some level of stability requires that we stay in front of any situation, that we act, and essentially force everyone else to react. Like a great ship moving among a fleet of small boats, the great ship goes where it will, and others have to respond.

That is not where we are.

Never mind how we got here – we all know that story has a host of chapters, some that reach far back in time, some to decisions made more than 100 years ago. But what matters is that right now, and for several years, the US is and has been reacting, not acting.

First, there’s the war in Ukraine. Russia is wishing to have its way, the US is preventing it. Russia understands that the only nation that’s preventing it from getting what it wants is the US. If the US were to stop providing arms to Ukraine, the EU could not – and would not – be able to stop Russian efforts.

Then, the Gaza Strip. Hamas – and Hizballah – are engaged with Israel. But this is done through the support and decision making of Iran. And it’s done with an eye to eventually forcing the US out of the Mid East. The US already has an ally, Saudi Arabia, engaged against Iranian proxies in Yemen. And we’re also engaged with Iranian proxies in Syria. In both cases, if the US were to withdraw, the Iranians would get their way. That isn’t the case in Israel, the Israelis can survive without US aid – but it would be a difficult struggle and in the end might well result in an existential case that could lead any leadership in Israel to consider the use of nuclear weapons.

Eastern Asia. China is pressurizing the atmosphere, and with the assistance of North Korea, is ensuring that US forces are not free to focus on a single problem. Rather, we are obliged to honor the threat on the Korean Peninsula, as well as the threat North Korea poses to Japan, even as we work to address the threat China poses to Taiwan. And while the nominal parties involved are Taiwan and the ROK and Japan, China clearly understands that they are “playing against” the US.

And there is South East Asia, where China is pressing on a series of US allies – the Philippines and Singapore and friends – Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia, and threatening other, more distant allies – Australia and India. Again, China sees these as a series of proxies, but the real opponent is the US.

That last point is central to the case: Russia, Iran, China, North Korea – are more than well aware that the main player on the other side of the table is the US, and that the proxies they are facing (Ukraine, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syrian Kurds, Taiwan, the ROK, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, India, et al) all massively benefit from US power.

And China is also engaged in other efforts against the US: economic, technological, biological, chemical. Any doubt about that should be put to bed with more than 250,000 Americans killed by fentanyl since 2015, 99% of which has come from China, per Congressional Testimony.

Meanwhile, Russia, China, North Korea and Iran grow closer. They aren’t likely to soon drift apart. Three of them have nuclear weapons and long range missiles. Iran will probably soon have nuclear weapons and already has long range missiles. They may already have warheads, whether they made them on their own or were given them by China. 25 years ago leading think tanks in the US were already publicly suggesting that China had at a minimum provided nuclear weapon design information to Pakistan. Might they have done the same (or more) for Iran?

All of which leaves us where?

First, as our conventional forces are currently constituted, we can’t answer all these problems simultaneously. Which gets us back to President Eisenhower’s concern that trying to do so would lead to a defense budget that would come to dominate the entire society. This was why he ordered the buildup of nuclear forces – to offset the conventional forces that the US would face around the world. We face a similar problem now. So, we need to take another hard look at our nuclear forces.

That involves two major points: we need to modernize our major nuclear forces – the ICBMs and SLBMs – to ensure that they’re not only reliable and are in high state of readiness, but that the world knows that. And, we need to again look at the deploying of other nuclear weapons – call them what you will, theater nuclear weapons, battlefield weapons, tactical nuclear weapons. But what they are, are weapons that would be clearly seen to be not directed at Russian or Chinese “strategic forces.”

Currently, the threadbare “nuclear umbrella” that protects Taiwan, the ROK, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, etc. consists of those same US ICBMs. To suggest that they will remain the US “umbrella” immediately escalates any confrontation, and forces asking whether the America people wish to trade a US city for a Taiwanese or Korean city. To do so calls into question the credibility of the US “nuclear umbrella.”

Doing so also inevitably raises the specter of Taiwan, the ROK and others building their own nuclear force rather than trusting on the US. That is a less safe world, and one also to be avoided.

Second, the US needs to fix the industrial base and start now. The response from Washington is likely to be the same as it always is: “that won’t work, it will take 5 years. We need an answer now.” What is certain is that if we never start, it will in fact never work. But time and again we have refused to do things because they would require “5 years” and 10, 15 and 20 years later the problem is still not solved, no solution has even been started, and the threat has increased.

Third, and most important, the US needs to recognize that we are in a Cold War, a fighting a series of proxy wars, and we need to call together our allies, together we need to enunciate a clear, credible vision of deterrence and containment of these 4 nations, and then craft a workable strategy. The US and the West today are reacting. If we keep reacting, we will eventually lose. We need to change the deck of cards, we need to start acting.

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
Www.vicsocotra.com

Arrias: Club Gaza

Author’s Note: I know this is impossible, but it really needs to be said…

While the Israelis pursue their plan to sweep through Gaza, the question that bugs me is this: what is the long term solution to the Gaza Strip? As I see it, there are four major paths forward for Gaza – in no particular order (there are others, but these appear to be the major options going forward):

They can continue to suffer under the rule of HAMAS and their ilk
They can leave
They can all unite and decide to invade Israel
They can decide to make life better

For the foreseeable future invading Israel is probably not going to work well.

They can leave, but the sad truth is that no one wants them. Everyone talks a good game, but if you’ve spent any time in the Mid East and bothered to sit and have a cup of tea with someone from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, etc., you will find that they all think something needs to be done about this problem, as long as it doesn’t involve moving Palestinians into their country. Every country in the region has Palestinians living among them, no one wants any more (and most probably would jump at the chance to move their Palestinians someplace else).

They can always choose to do nothing, and just keep suffering. This is the usual course of action for people throughout history. David Hume, the Scottish philosopher, observed that all governments are, in one way or another, the ones that the people are willing to accept. Too oppressive and the people will – eventually – overthrow it. Even very oppressive dictatorships are, at least initially, accepted by their people. When the oppression becomes so severe, and the living conditions so horrible that they’re literally intolerable, the bulk of the citizens will act to change the government.

But, as was noted in our own Declaration of Independence: Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

And people will suffer a very great deal. If you want to see how terrible it can get without an uprising, look at North Korea – it’s worse than Gaza, a good deal worse.

But, to recap, they probably aren’t going anywhere, and they probably aren’t going to successfully invade Israel and occupy it any time soon.
All of which leaves getting rid of the long string of grossly incompetent governments that have run Gaza off and on for a half a century, and fix it.

But, that isn’t possible; the Gaza Strip, after all, is a mess and can’t be fixed.

One of the highest population densities on earth…. 48,000 / square mile
A tiny land, doomed to overcrowding
A much larger, much wealthier nation crowding their borders
A thin sliver of land on the ocean
Except for being on the ocean, no natural resources

Oops sorry, wrong notes, that’s Monaco.

Monaco: A land with far fewer natural resources than Gaza, and 3 times the population density; Gaza’s population density is only about 17,000 per square mile.

And Monaco has a per capita income that may be the highest in the world; the World Bank isn’t certain, there are no hard numbers – just an estimate, but the estimate is that Monaco’s per capita income is about 30% higher than Lichtenstein’s, generally held to be the highest in the world.

Monaco was under the control of Mussolini early in WWII and then the Vichy French, and then later the NAZIs and was falling apart by the end of the war and it wasn’t until Prince Rainier III came to power in 1949 that an effort was made to turn the country around – which he did. There are many points that make Monaco unique, but the fact is that a tiny piece of land, on the ocean, does not need to be a slum. What could you do with a little investment and some hard work? What indeed?

Israel was a waste land when the Jews of Europe showed up after the war. The bulk of them didn’t have, as my mother would say, two dimes to rub together. They were an economic basket case. They now have a $500 billion GDP, 29th in the world. In the Mid East or North Africa only Saudi Arabia has a larger GDP. The country is nearly devoid of natural resources, just like Gaza. Offshore natural gas despots were first exploited less than 20 years ago (2004). Israel, by the way, minus the Negev Desert and the 250,000 people living there, has a population density of about 3,000 per square mile. Better than Gaza to be sure, but still, densely packed. But Israel now has the world’s 18th highest per capita GDP.

The Gaza Strip is a mess not because Israel has done this to them, but because the small cliques of maniacal narcissists who have run the strip, and “led” the Palestinians for the last half a century and more have used the poor of the Gaza Strip as pawns in their political maneuvering. The Gaza Strip receives several billion in aid every year, yet nothing seems to improve. The per capita GDP is $5,600 per year (higher than Ukraine’s) but that is an average, 30% of the population lives below the poverty line, the few at the top are squeezing everyone on the bottom.

The Gaza Strip is a mess because it benefits those in charge to keep it that way. They have 25 miles of Mediterranean water front and yet they are mainly a giant slum. It could be a garden spot. The long term solution to Gaza isn’t going to be found in Hamas or the PFLP or Hizballah or any of the rantings of the lunatic fringe who wish to kill Israelis – and are willing to kill lots of Palestinians to do it. Gaza could be a giant Club Med and the people of Gaza could all have decent jobs and their kids could grow up without constant worry about gunfights and demands that they be ready for martyrdom. The first step is that the people of Gaza need to get rid of the “leaders” who have been abusing them for as long as anyone can remember.

Hard work will do the rest.

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Arrias: Rest in Peace, Mr. Smith

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Just needed to say this…

– ARRIAS

A good man passed away the other day… I’ll call him Mr. Smith. He deserves, as much as is possible, given his career, a note on his passing. You don’t know him, and in all likelihood you never will. He worked for one of those organizations that, at least among the true professionals therein, doesn’t share what it’s doing. He spent a long career with them, more than 3 decades, and he did some remarkable things. Among them, he saved a country.

Several decades ago Mr. Smith was the senior fellow from his organization in a certain country that was, and is, a close ally. The country was in trouble: there was a large and growing insurgency, there were several small groups of terrorists in one part of the country, and there were several ad hoc “organizations” within the government and army that wanted to throw out the elected government and run things their way.

Smith arrived in the country immediately after one failed coup, a coup that had come within a hair’s breadth of succeeding in destroying the sitting government, far closer than what might be portrayed in a spy thriller.
Smith was not interested in seeing how close we might come again. He corralled a small group of people, both from his organization and from the Navy and Marine personnel who were in country, and got them all working in the same direction. He was talented, calm, extremely competent, and knew how to lead a room of type A personalities and let them have their run without letting them get out of control. And all was done in good humor. His comment in the post mortem of one operation that nearly went wrong, as they prepared for another, set the right tone. Said with a slight smile, he cautioned all to remember that “when things get exciting, it probably means someone did something wrong.”

And then off everyone went again.

Their efforts were extraordinary successful. Two coups were pulled apart before they could gain any traction, another was “killed” in the planning stages. A long-standing slice of an insurgency was unraveled and within 18 months had effectively ceased to exist. The terrorists were, if not eliminated, at least contained.

It did get exciting at times, and a number of Americans were killed. But the focus remained on the main issue; there was no coup, the insurgency was pushed back into a small “box,” and when the country held elections they were able to elect an honest man who knew what was needed to bring the county together. More than 30 years later that country is stable; not perfect, but certainly not teetering on the brink, as it had been.

Most of the people in Washington had no idea how close things had really been. In fact, most folks in the US Embassy had no idea how close things had been.

Smith had kept it all together, with no histrionics, no fireworks, no yelling. Even when there was a mistake he would calmly pull things back together, fix the problem and push on.

He even managed to save the careers of two officers, a Marine and a Naval officer, both of whom were on the verge of being brought up on charges by some folks in Washington – for their participation in Mr. Smith’s efforts; both went on to successful careers.

In the end, he was the orchestra leader who brought it all together and made it work – he deserves the bulk of the credit. But, in fact, I doubt there were 30 people who knew what he had done. But he had done it. And in doing it he saved a country and an ally.

It’s easy to forget sometimes, but there are some good folks out there, some very good folks. Mr. Smith was one of them, one of the very best.

Mr. Smith, Rest In Peace.

Copyright 2023 Arrias
www.vicsocotra.com

Arrias: Another Busload

When a Captain or Colonel is promoted to admiral or general, he is sent through a program called “Capstone,” which is basically a 6 week program to make sure all new admirals and generals understand how the services integrate in support of national strategy. A friend of mine told me that when he went through the program, on the 2nd day a very well known 4 star officer spoke to them and told them that they shouldn’t get too excited about their new rank and position, that “if you were all on a bus and it drove off a cliff, we could get another busload tomorrow.”

Yet, to hear the caterwauling from those opposed to Senator Tuberville’s hold-up of nominations, what he is doing is tantamount to some sort of personnel Pearl Harbor, that a failure to put each named figure into place as the head of some organization or the other – NOW – is to leave the nation defenseless.

Hooey.

First, let’s be clear, the number of admirals and generals who are in command of actual combat forces – units that are engaged in combat operations that are currently taking fire from the enemy and there is an admiral or general in the field, making tactical decisions – is Zero.

Second, there is no command, no organization in the US military today (or for the last 247 years) that was so poorly led that it needed the admiral or general to function on a routine, daily basis.

Third, I know a great many Colonels and Captains who have held senior combat commands and to a man they will tell you that the command functioned better the further it was away from the nearest admiral or general. As a very good friend of mine – a retired admiral – once said, “the fact is, there is no such thing as a good visit from the admiral.” When admirals (or generals) are about to show up, real work stops and everyone starts preparing for “the visit.” And when admirals hang about your “space,” whether the bridge, the war room, the command tent, or even the foxhole or mess tent, everything changes. Let him hang around long enough and it gets downright weird. The only people who regularly disagree with this thesis and believe that the regular presence of generals helps the troops are generals.

Fourth, as was demonstrated this week, if Senator Schumer wanted to end this, he could.

But finally, let’s take brief look at officers, and the number of officers…

Here are some “fun” numbers: In 248 years the US Army has had 242 four-star generals. If you include George Washington, (who wasn’t a 4-star general when alive, he was promoted in 1976), by the end of World War I the US had had 7 (seven) 4-star generals. Between the end of World War I and the end of World War II we added a grand total of 18 x 4-star generals. At the end of World War II we had on active duty 16 x 4-star and 5-star generals.

In December 1945 4 of our 4-star generals (Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower and Arnold) were promoted to 5-star generals. Prior to that the US Army had run the war with 7 x 4-star generals. Following the promotion of the 4-star generals to 5-star, in March and April of 1945, 11 x 3-star generals were promoted to 4-star.

Between the end of World War II and the end of the Vietnam War (Military Assistance Command Vietnam stood down March of 1973, so, I’ll use that date) the US Army promoted 71 x 4-star generals. Between the end of Vietnam and the end of the Cold War (December 1991) the US Army promoted 50 x 4-star generals. So, including George Washington, 147 x 4-star generals in 216 years.

Since December 1992 the US Army has added 96 x 4-star generals.

The other services are as bad or worse.The first US Marine 4-star served for the last 6 months of World War II and later. The Marines had 4 x 4-star generals between the end of WWII and the end of the Cold War. Since the end of the Cold War the Marines have had 31 x 4-star generals.

The US military today consists of 1.3 million active duty Soldiers and Sailors and Marines and Airmen and Space force, plus more than 700,000 National Guard, and 700,00 civilians. All together just short of 2.9 million folks. We also have almost 300 ships, and perhaps 10,000 aircraft.

In 1944 Admiral Nimitz, as a 4-star admiral, had a force of several thousand ships, tens of thousands of airplanes, and several million men, a force larger than the entire DOD – and he was fighting – and winning – a war.

The Navy had 14 x 4 and 5-star officers by the end of WWII, including 5 who were promoted to 4-star in 1945. Since the end of WWII the Navy has promoted 168 officers to 4-stars, even as the forces have shrunk.

By early 1945, across all theaters, with 1/3rd the number of 4-star officers, we had 16 million in uniform, 5,000 combatant ships, 6,000 + cargo ships, and more than a quarter of a million aircraft, all controlled using WWII technology.

We have 7 x 4-star admirals today, with not quite 300 ships combatants.

Compared to WWII we have 6 times as many flag officers (1 through 4 stars) per soldier or sailor, we have three times as many 4 star officers, we have communications systems that are literally millions of times more capable than they were in 1945, we have intelligence collection capabilities that are, relative to 1945, almost magical in their capabilities. Shouldn’t that mean we need fewer admirals and generals?

Yet, somehow the Army and Navy are going to grind to a halt if we don’t promote more generals? Planes going to fall out of the sky? Satellites will burn up in uncontrolled reentry? Ships will sink? No. Nothing of that sort is going to happen.

I suppose the worst that might happen is a bus might drive off a cliff. But, as the 4-star general said, we could always get another busload.

Copyright 2023 Arrias
www.vicsocotra.com

Arrias and his Muse: Country Lane

Cruising in an Auburn roadster,
Sliding down a twisting country lane,
Speckled sunlight through the elms,
In the distance lumbers a huge coal train.

With a sultry blonde by my side,
We drive beside a lazy river,
A stand of towering cottonwoods,
In the breeze their leaves gently shiver.

She’s wears a broad straw hat
With a wide pink bow,
A million dollar smile –
I shift down real slow…

Slide around the corner, step on the gas,
Down the road we roar,
Across a field runs a shiny black foal,
Above, a red-tailed hawk soars…

Stop for picnic with my Muse,
Shoes off, the river cools our feet,
In the shade of a stand of pine
We escape late summer heat.

Then back in the coupe and of we go,
Down another quiet country lane,
Cruising with a ravishing blonde,
No need to explain…

Copyright 2023 Arrias
www.vicsocotra.com