Red Dogs
I was 17 when I joined the Air Force in 1964. It didn't take me long to find out that I could go to this place called Vietnam and be paid quite handsomely in return. They were called Red Dogs, a mechanism that hid the fact of the involvement of our troops. (Officially, our troops were in Thailand.) I think my pay was probably $50 a month or maybe every other week, but whatever it was it was a pittance. The Red Dogs paid $16 a day per diem, $100 hazardous duty pay, and TDY pay. I was pretty gung ho and, besides, the picture that was being painted was not one of guerilla warfare but of a tropical paradise where we would be living like kings.
I don't ever see the Red Dogs discussed but I keep things like that and the Gulf of Tonkin resolution constantly in mind when the talking heads make claims, excuses, and explanations for their actions; why they are helpless to do otherwise. The "you made me do this" rationale for the resent unprecedented actions would hold no mettle, especially so coming from this cast of characters. So, also, Israel's Battered Wife defense for the inhumanity it has unleashed in Gaza. . The upside to the discovery of the abuses - Johnson's and Nixon's - is that guardrails developed over time. It may take a repeat of the sort of sacrifices we made back then but when this plays out - and this is me being optimistic - we need to ensure that this behavior cannot be repeated.
