Taking Note
THE WIT AND WISDOM OF THE PENTAGON probably would not take up much space on the shelves of your local library. But the military may just have a sense of humor. Some recent examples have come...
...The latter might be overcome with mules...
...The heavily wooded area of St...
...The great success of the mule, it seems, was during the Marine campaigns against Sandino in Nicaragua from 1927-1933...
...Our July/August Report on the Americas briefly mentioned the latest in an apparently endless series of military maneuvers conducted by the Pentagon during the Reagan years...
...Our biggest concern is for the casualties, since any guerrillas that the 10th encounters may well have trouble distinguishing between the business end of the mule and the Pentagon official in charge of it...
...MacGregor of Western Texas was given special plaudits for "the way he made muleros out of Marines, some of whom had never before learned which NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1985 was the business end of a mule...
...Perhaps equitation and pack techniques may again find a place in our training schedules...
...Former Marine Gen...
...forces of the besieged democratic government were divided into companies called "Whisky," "Scotch" and "Gin...
...There are still remote mountain and jungle trails where jeeps and other mechanical transport may not travel...
...119,000...
...Army Chief of Staff Gen...
...One full squad" of Marines, it noted, "was permanently assigned with the pack train as muleros...
...V.E...
...It may make sound counterinsurgency sense, and we are grateful to reader David C. Brooks for directing our research into some of the more obscure corners of military bibliography...
...In the plethora of Pentagon codenames, the surest giveaway of their mentality tends to be the name assigned to the "communist aggressors...
...Another article in the Gazette, this time dated November 1936, described how mules were used in Nicaragua...
...Lucia itself was known as "Linus...
...Lucia where the search for the communists took place was called "Rubber Stamp," and St...
...This is especially true in dry season when corn and forage of any kind is scarce...
...The idea may be less whimsical than it sounds...
...Not to be outdone, the smaller Barbados Advocate told its readers that "NACLA, a non-profit organization focusing on the political economy of the Americas...
...Security Policy in the English-speaking Caribbean...
...John A. Wickham Jr...
...Caribbean troops combed the island for a column of 25-30 "communist insurgents...
...The Pentagon planners who designed the exercise gave free rein to their imagination...
...The pro-U.S...
...We appreciated a story that Singh filed in September for the Caribbean News Agency (CANA), summarizing our July/August Report on U.S...
...The "friendly forces" were members of the newly trained Special Service Units (SSUs), created in the English-speaking islands in the aftermath of the October 1983 Grenada invasion...
...The war games themselves were called "Exotic Palm...
...In March 1985, a news brief from the Associated Press reported that a small group of Army staff officers had been discussing the possibility of pressing mules into military service again, for the first time since the trusty pack animals last did patriotic service three decades ago...
...Lucia (pop...
...Megee's fond wish may be granted, perhaps in the second Nicaragua campaign that Washington lies awake at night scheming...
...The Barbados Nation, one of the region's largest newspapers, opened its account with a banner headline: "Report on the Americas Gives Alarming News...
...Megee, who saw action in Nicaragua in the early 1930s, wrote a long piece in the Marine Corps Gazette of June 1965, arguing that the lessons of guerrilla warfare in Nicaragua could usefully be employed in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic...
...Another innovation of note," reported Megee, "was the increased use of mounted patrols, utilizing native animals which could live off the country, and conserving the energy of the trail-weary Marines for the more important business of fighting...
...We only wish we could report that this, too, was a misprint...
...has now directed that the 10th Mountain Light Infantry Division should be given training in mule handling...
...First, the Caribbean...
...They called Nicaragua "Niggaro...
...Mules have been found most suitable of any animal obtainable in Nicaragua," reported the Marine Corps Gazette of December 1929...
...Singh also pointed out a detail in the Exotic Palm story ihat had eluded us...
...W E WERE ALSO PLEASED TO SEE recently that our old friend Rickey Singh, the Guayanese journalist whose Barbados work permit was revoked because of his criticism of the Grenada invasion, is still alive and kicking...
...A certain Sgt...
...Well, the wits at the Pentagon really took into account the sensibilities of their hosts on St...
...While these early authors dwelled on the humble mule's stamina and cargo-carrying abilities, later military thinking took the beasts more seriously...
...This time, the war games took place on the tiny Eastern Caribbean island of St...
...Well, we try...
...Some recent examples have come our way, ranging from the whimsical to the racist...
...has been disturbing its bi-monthly publication for some 18 years...
...And Nicaragua...
...Lucia, a black Caribbean island...
...Megee felt that the two main failures of the war against Sandino were inadequate intelligence and poor preparation for the "rigors of tropical campaigning...
...Once it had passed through the hands of the region's copy-editors and typesetters, however, the story became even more interesting...
...Security blanket, get it...
...In this case, Cuba went by the name of "Carumba...
...Warships of the United States and Britain-the old and new regional powers-stood offshore...
...Each man had three or four mules under his supervision...
...T HE PENTAGON'S CREATIVE IMAGInation has also been busily engaged of late in an even stranger exercise...
Vol. 19 • November 1985 • No. 6
