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When you have nearly completed the ROTC program and are approaching graduation and commissioning, you request a specific branch assignment. There are… - Jack H. Jacobs
" "When you have nearly completed the ROTC program and are approaching graduation and commissioning, you request a specific branch assignment. There are many occupational specialties whose smooth integration into the whole of the Army produces the well-oiled military machine we know well. Soldiers and contractors have to get paid, so there is a Finance Corps. The Army is a large bureaucracy, and there is plenty of paperwork to do, and so some officers join the Adjutant General's Corps. The Army can't fight without supplies, and so the Quartermaster Corps is critical to combat success. Indeed, among many of my brethren in ROTC, the large majority of them selected noncombat branches, almost certainly because for some of them these administrative specialties afforded far less chance of becoming a casualty. Let's face it: some people talk a convincing game, but they shrink at the point of decision, when, in the harsh glare of sunlight, the consequences of their selected course of action appear overloaded with personal danger. This does not make them bad people, but it is instructive of the axiom that you should believe half of what you read and none of what you hear.
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About Jack H. Jacobs
Colonel Jack Howard Jacobs (born August 2, 1945) is a retired colonel in the United States Army and a Medal of Honor recipient for his actions during the Vietnam War. He serves as a military analyst for NBC News and MSNBC and previously worked as an investment manager.
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Jack Howard Jacobs
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Additional quotes by Jack H. Jacobs
The South Vietnamese were never highly thought of but one thing in retrospect that is of interest to me is the perception now that a lot of soldiers are only as good or as bad as their leadership, and they were taught a lot of bad lessons. For example, go out, contact the enemy, drop a lot of bombs on them, and then go in there. But that doesn't work in that environment. What you're supposed to do tactically is use all your indirect fire, bring it all to bear and move while all this fire is going in there. But we didn't do that. We tried to bomb the shit out of them, and then move on.
Sure the Vietnamese were reluctant, they didn't want to fight. They were true believers, but they were reluctant participants. The kids were all conscripts, and they were going to get their brains blown out. They weren't interested in fighting. And this is to say nothing of all the strategic errors we had made when Ho Chi Minh asked for help. I mean we advised them during World War II and they asked us to help them throw the French out and, because we were afraid of pissing off de Gaulle- who, by the way, needed a great deal of pissing off, if you want my opinion- we decided we weren't going to do anything about it. We would have solved a lot of problems if we'd just told de Gaulle to get the hell out, if we'd helped Ho Chi Minh and got rid of those guys and been done with it.
But we couldn't distinguish between Ho being a Nationalist on the one hand and his being a communist on the other, any more than today we can distinguish between Osama bin Laden's beig a Muslim on the one hand, which by the way is completely trivial, and a revolutionary on the other, which is really what he is. Ho Chi Minh really was a Nationalist, a revolutionary. So they say Osama bin Laden is a fascist.
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You don't think you're going to get shot. And, as a matter of fact, even when you get shot, you think it's a big mistake. Your first reaction- it's a bit like getting cancer or something, there's all this denial, you say, well, this is not really happening. This actually is not supposed to happen to me. It's supposed to happen to that guy over there. Then, of course, you realize that it is happening to you and it isn't a movie and you're not watching somebody else. If you had a high degree of confidence you were going to get killed, nobody would ever go to defend this country. I think one of the things that motivates you to do so is not only your inherent patriotism and your desire to do the right thing, but also at least the hope that it ain't going to happen to you. Otherwise, you just wouldn't do it. Only a maniac would do it, and most people aren't maniacs. So I think you start with a high degree of confidence that it's not going to happen to you. There was another old saw back then that said: 'If you go into the Army, you're either going to go to Vietnam or not; if you're not going to get sent to Vietnam, you don't have to worry; if you go to Vietnam, you're either going to get wounded, or not; if you're not going to get wounded, there's nothing to worry about; if you are wounded, you're either going to die, or you're not going to die. Well, if you are not going to die, you have nothing to worry about; and if you are going to die, you can't worry... so don't worry.'
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