Operation Eagle Claw. I was 11, glued to the TV. RIP, warriors.
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Operation Eagle Claw. I was 11, glued to the TV. RIP, warriors.
We are similar in age...think my interest in politics started by all the adults & Carter complaining.
I was a freshman in high school. I remember how hated Iran was back then (and SHOULD be now). "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys "Barbara Ann".
I was in 9th grade, remember it well. The whole Iran bullshit is what got me interested in world events and politics.
Also, (completely unrelated) Fumio Demura died April 24, 2023, he too was also a piece of my childhood.
I remember being told about it in school.
At that point the hostage crisis had been nightly news for almost half a year. I understood the military made an attempt but it would be awhile before I understood what Delta was or the extent of the operation attempted. The news basically just covered what went wrong without explaining why it went wrong. They made it sound like we got lost in the desert and some helicopters crashed into each other.
Iran, being the reprehensible POS state that they are, issued a commemorative stamp with the image of a burned US soldier on it.
Mentioned on my page today.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.p...00064354402831
F, some of you guys are old.
Old? wtf? you people were kids. LOL.
I never heard of "Delta Force" until then. My dad and I watched the news everyday for over a year waiting, hoping for the hostages to be released.
A few years later I finally learned all about the Delta Force, Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin were their commanders.
Carter had the opposite of the midas touch. Even when he eventually made the right decision, it still went to shit.
Nice person, terrible president. I remember in the 90s he was swinging a hammer down in Liberty City for Habitat for Humanity. He was just there to help, no press and he didn't want recognition and there was a drive by shooting on the construction site. He also died in a way I wouldn't wish on anyone but the worst serial killer / pedos. The guy just couldn't buy a break, not that it alleviates him of any of his terrible policy decisions.
The most ironic thing is Carter did actually manage to free the hostages, he negotiated until the last hours of his presidency and finally they agreed to release the hostages if Carter unfroze Iranian assets. But the hostages didn't leave Iranian airspace until after Reagan was sworn in and as a result most people credit Reagan with getting the hostages freed when it was really just a final FU from Iran to Carter.
It's a tragedy Eagle Claw didn't work. If we got similar results that Thatcher got with the SAS retaking the Iranian Embassy in London we probably wouldn't have had to endure most of the BS from that region. Obviously our hostage situation was just a bit more complex. I also don't think Carter knew how to effectively use the military, especially special forces. His efforts seemed to stress the inclusion of every branch of the armed forces making a complicated plan even more complicated. Sometimes the results are more important than making sure everyone gets equal recognition and participation.
I was able to meet two of the Iranian hostages. One was the father of a fellow cadet at Fort Knox during Basic Officer Candidate School. We were in the same platoon. The other lived in the town I work in and he worked at Crane NSWC.
I was a freshman at Indiana University when Desert One occurred.
My how the time has gone.
I was just a wee lad, but severely disliked Carter's politics and policy, which has only been reinforced over the past 40-something years. With regards to Eagle Claw, at least he had the balls to try, and he took full responsibility.
Regarding bolded/italicized, we did not have SOCOM, we didn't have special operations unified commanders, we didn't have 160th SOAR, we didn't have dedicated capability. That's why we had to use every branch. Out of those ashes came those things.
Right?
Remember it? I wasn't born for nearly a decade afterwards. Though, with the state of the military, our current POTUS's own Carter-like ability to fail, and tensions with Iran, I do wonder if I'll get my chance to remember an upcoming live fire reenactment.
I was so pissed at Ford, that like a just turned 18 idiot I voted for Carter.
Years later Carter came to Israel in 1983, I had moved to Israel and had one war under my belt by the time he arrived.
We were hosting some people from England and one of the officers father had been in the King David hotel when it had been blown up. So he had pre trip requested a meal at the hotel, which we did. Carter was also staying at the hotel at the same week. So after the meal, as I was leaving the hotel, I saw a female member of the Shabak protection, she had a huge afro and well the rest is history.
I will never vote for a democrat as long as I live, you vote for one democrat and you have to live with the pain in the neck forever. But she put up with a lot wars, chasing terrorist, and a lot of time away from home and country through the decades.
Yes he did, but the real problem is he attempted diplomacy far too long. He should have realized if a country can't even respect your embassy, there can be no real diplomacy. He suffered from Jimmy Carter syndrome which is basically "I'm a reasonable, rationale person and then assuming everyone else must be also." I don't think he could even conceptualize the extremist views of the average Iranian, much less the militant, martyristic views of the revolutionaries.
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.
Why would you have a card from a freedom-hating group like that?
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!!!!!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
That is my point and why I get your Francis comment, but barely.
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.
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.
It was very complicated. The authors I referenced prior wrote a good deal about the complexity. They also spoke to the question of 'everyone wanted in on it,' and that wasn't really true. That was the image of the reality that no one branch had all the pieces, so by design it had components of all branches.
I was going from memory and from the perspective of Israel trying to learn from what other SMUs were doing.
Back then it was a different world.
I look at what YAMAM has become and will be honest enough to admit it was the input from a certain unit in the USA, that taught us a lot.
I was a young A1C at Davis-Monthan AFB at the time. Pretty depressing news, as I recall. That operation had a lot of moving parts that had to work perfectly in order to assure success. If the Desert One disaster hadn't happened, could it have worked? Possibly. Reading Col. Beckwith's book ("Delta Force"), the operators were certainly trained and motivated to a high level.
From reading Beckwith's and Kyle's books on the subject, the Marines were selected to be the helicopter pilots because they had more experience operating over land than the Navy pilots. Navy crew flew as co-pilots because of their familiarity with the RH-53D variant of this helicopter.
It was suggested fairly early in the planning process that USAF H-53 pilots might be preferable since some of them had (fairly recently) flown long range, low altitude Special Operations missions in Vietnam. It was thought that they could be brought up to speed in a fairly reasonable time period. This idea was shot down because they were scattered among various bases in the Air Force, and rounding some of them up might be a security concern.