April 24, 1980....

[Digital_Damage]

Not sure we can lay blame at his feet, other than waiting too long to go with the military option. From what I understand from an academic POV is every branch of the military wanted to be involved in the effort resulting in a convoluted and overly complex operation.

Eventually we got our people back after Reagan was sworn in but I have to wonder what the world might be like if Eagle Claw had been successful.

Carter would not listen to several individuals that were knowledge experts in the field. a few resigned right after the decision was made to proceed with introducing the world to our "new" special operations team. It was a planning and execution disaster, but Carter kept pushing for the new team to lead it. The unit involved were from several branches, you should be able to deduce who that was.

He should have proceeded with a conventional approach. It was an act of war... he did nothing.

[chuckman]

Carter would not listen to several individuals that were knowledge experts in the field. a few resigned right after the decision was made to proceed with introducing the world to our "new" special operations team. It was a planning and execution disaster, but Carter kept pushing for the new team to lead it. The unit involved were from several branches, you should be able to deduce who that was.

He should have proceeded with a conventional approach. It was an act of war... he did nothing.

Well, most people told Carter to not do it, at all, with any force. The military came up with more than one plan; the one they attempted to execute was deemed to have the highest probability of success. Not a single person involved blamed Carter. In fact one of the men involved, the guy in charge of the AF component, said of Carter "at least he had the guts to try."

We all that it was the debacle it was and that men died. But those deaths were not in vain: SOCOM was born from this event, as was the 160th SOAR and many TTPs.

[Slater]

They had to cobble together a task force from all the service branches. It was suggested that the best choice to fly the RH-53 helos were USAF Special Operations pilots, many who had flown similar types of missions (long range, low level) in Vietnam in the H-53 series. That option was ruled out as a security risk.