Overseas Units and Family

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

During this flurry of activity with everyone concentrating on getting combat units into the country, equiped from pre-positioned stores and organised ready for combat, who was left to co-ordinate civilian evacuation?

Well they were certainly thinking about it.
http://www.dtic.mil/srch/doc?collection=t3&id=ADA217529

Shame there is no PDF available however the Abstract does discuss evacuations "prior to and after the start of a conventional war with the Soviet Union" (emphases added)

I was thinking of a parallel situation. Say tomorrow South Korea attacked the North without US approval. Even if US forces were not involved in any way do you think the Department of State (a purely civilian organization) would order an evacuation of Non Combatants. I think the order would be signed before any ROK forces made it 10km deep.

From my perspective any commander who has any sort of long term view would want to get civilians out of the way as soon as the authorization came down. From a CYA (cover your ass) and Logistical perspective, if a commander had a choice, why wouldn't he want to remove a resource drag which does not enhance his combat strength at all. If empty trucks are going back towards an airfield with planes that have empty seats, I would make sure those seats were filled.

[Legbreaker]

That's definately an interesting document. Would love to read it.

I think we all agree that removing civilians is high on the list of preferences - I'm just worried about who's going to be running that show as 99% of everyones attention is likely to be focused firmly on the enemy.
I'm not saying it isn't doable, just difficult (which is probably why that document even exists).