Quote:
Originally Posted by B.T.
Rae, I have a question here:
If the high ranking officers and the General-staffs know about the idea to leave Europe in the near future, would those ideas be communicated to the lower ranks? And if not: I can imagine, that at least some rumours may occur amongst the troops.
Do you think, the American forces in Europe would do a good job on their "Poland Summer Tour", or would, at least a major part of the units, try to avoid sincere fighting. If the soldiers know about the plan to withdraw the troops from Europe, I can imagine, that a lot of individuals (and even some of the higher rankig officers) try to:
1. survive and
2. try to keep the troops in shape for the return to the American Civil War. And that means: If I (General XY) perform well in the raid into Poland, I might loose a lot of my battle-experienced veterans, who could be a high valued asset, when I come back to the States (where I might end up as one of the movers, and may become a lot more influential!).
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Those are some really good questions, B.T.
I'm not sure if word would be passed down to the troops. Perhaps. I've heard from quite a few veterans of the '70 Cambodia operation who were really happy to be finally going after the NVA, even though most folks at the time were taking Nixon's promises of a an American withdrawal from Vietnam in the not-so-distant future pretty seriously. By most accounts, the American troops that took part in the invasion performed quite well. We're talking about a good percentage of these troops being draftees fighting in a war at the apex of its unpopularity back home. In one incident, an American unit was only 5-10km from a major NVA HQ area but were told to stop short of this high-value target so as not to cross over an invisible stop line Nixon threw in after the invasion kicked off due to public outcry over what most Americans saw as an escalation in a war he'd promised to wind down. Most of the troops were still raring to go, despite the risks such aggressiveness usually entails.
I'm sure that a lot of American soldiers in Poland wouldn't be too keen on risking their lives in what would likely be America's last big battle in Poland, but I also think the majority would fight hard when asked. In a lot of cases, I think an offensive operation would actually be welcome to most of the troops. Many of them would have been sitting in cantonments since the previous summer. If met with initial success, I think enthusiasm would grow. There's a kind of euphoria that occurs when an army starts pushing forward again after a long stalemate. I think of the Allied breakout from Normandy, or the Soviet Bagration offensive in the summer of '44. In every account I've read, soldiers were happy to be on the move, pushing back their enemies.
I think that when given the option of sitting around in a firebase getting pecked to death by little raids and random rocketing, and being out in the field trying to take it to the enemy, the majority of troops would pick the latter. Yes, you'd lose some experienced troops, but, the lift in morale among the survivors (also, by now, experienced troops) would hopefully carry over back to the States. The alternative would be to return with a downtrodden group, one more likely to succumb to large scale desertions and perhaps even mutinies.