April 24, 1980

[ABNAK]

Dude, I have an AARP card….

Pot calling the kettle blacker…

Lighten up Francis, it was in jest.

If you have an AARP card (50yo minimum) you are less than a decade younger than me.....hardly a spring chicken!

[ViniVidivici]

Why would you have a card from a freedom-hating group like that?

[SteyrAUG]

Why would you have a card from a freedom-hating group like that?

Free lunch container.

[arbninftry]

True, but we got to live in the world before clown reality became the norm. I don't think I'd trade that for anything.

Neither would I. 70's and 80's kids had it the best. No seat belts, no car seats and kids riding in the backof pick ups (guess what fuc*& sticks we didnt fall out). Man I miss the 70's and 80's. Men were men and women didn't have DICKs.
You young guys have to inspect like Crocodile Dundee. IYKYK, if you don't, well enjoy the drag show!!!!!

[T2C]

Carter was a misfit as a President. I served under Carter the first few years of military service, then President Reagan the last four years. There was a stark contrast in leadership.

Operation Evening Light was supported by the USS Nimitz carrier group. I was not directly involved. Scuttlebutt was that the operation was not coordinated as well as it could/should have been to risk the lives of our people for what was perceived as a political stunt during an election year.

The positive side is that the key commanders in the Special Operations community performed a self-assessment on how things could be better coordinated in the future. IIRC, the 160th SOAR was formed to support such operations and a high school buddy was one of their pilots. Unfortunately, he was killed during Operation Urgent Fury.

[Averageman]

America was in pretty tough shape economically then. I don't think it was totally Carter's fault, as Nixon did a lot of misguided economic policies too !
Home loans were going out in the High Teens, so it wasn't uncommon to be paying 17% on a home loan. Credit Cards were relatively new to Middle Class Americans and more than a few folks learned a Valuable yet Expensive lesson there.
One thing that happens about this time is Due to the extream rise in gas prices Import Cars begin coming in to America and you're about to see Detroit begin to die a slow death. Along with Detroit, every Steel Mill ringing Lake Michigan is about to get a kick in the nuts.
So an errant group of Camel Jockey, College Students taking our Embassy was about the the end of the rope for a lot of Patriotic Americans.
In retrospect the pendulum swung back as a wave of Patriots soon began joining the Military.

[chuckman]

I understand that, I even understand that Delta as also pretty new. But Eagle Claw still seemed needlessly over complex. While on a much smaller scale we were able to pull off stuff like Son Toy, which all things considered had a high probability for failure. But it did seem like Carter tried to include everyone and give everyone a meaningful role over letting the experts say what they needed and just doing that. I'm not here to criticize Carter, I just don't think he knew how to use the military as effective as other presidents. Reagan also didn't have SOCCOM but he generally knew how to use the military to it's own best advantage.

It's hard for me to judge the scale of that kind of op and complexity. According to Beckwith, Kyle, and Flynt, in their books it sounded as if Carter gave the military carte blanche and stayed out of meddling, and the plan was just the way it was because they didn't have a better way.

As for Reagan, I liked Reagan, and because I was the son of a Marine and a child of the 80s, those years informed my decision to join the military. That said, his use of the military was pretty atrocious at times. RE: Carter, I don't know that I recall his use of the military any other time aside from Eagle Claw, but his defense (and intelligence) policies were 100% irrefutably horrible. He absolutely gutted those two communities in terms of money, personnel, and tech.

[yoni]

I am going from memory, but I think Eagle Claw was overly complicated and then the really big problem was everyone wanted in on the act.
.
The issue with the helicopters if I remember correctly was that they were off of a ship and suffered from maintenance issues.But this failure resulted in the creation of the Night Stalkers.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

Lighten up Francis, it was in jest.

If you have an AARP card (50yo minimum) you are less than a decade younger than me.....hardly a spring chicken!

That is my point and why I get your Francis comment, but barely.

Why would you have a card from a freedom-hating group like that?

Free lunch container.

Crap started showing up at my house. Ends up my wife signed me up when she busted through my 25yo times two barrier.

Carter got screwed by the end of 60s culture war and ‘losing’ Vietnam along with the rise of the OPEC cartel and Arab hostility. He might have survived one or the other, but not both. If there was a cause of death on his presidency, it was ‘inflation’. That seems to be coming back…

On Eagle Claw, C130s full of rescued hostages trying the RATO out of soccer stadiums would have been…. Epic.

[ABNAK]

If you remove the Desert 1 debacle the things that were planned in order to ultimately succeed were pretty ballsy and perhaps a bit far-fetched. The odds of them being able to pull it off were pretty slim IMHO.

I'll give them an A+ for creativity though.