Night Falls....

I will always place the mission first
I will never accept defeat
I will never quit
I will never leave a fallen comrade

I will Always place the Mission First: Right away in this section it was evident that Moore's men followed this etho well. On pg 147 of my book, Moore talks about how they were going on their second night of no sleep. They were all pretty tired, but choose to stay a wake so that their mission would not be ruined by the Vietnamese attacking them. Many of them kept up a high motivation to defeat the Vietnamese. on pg 150 of my book, Specialist 4 Vincent Cantu recalled how he treated the night just like the day and had every intention to stay completely alert that evening.

I felt that Savage was a great example of a soldier who followed the Warrior Ethos. He took his platoon out at night and was determined to bring fire down on the NV when ever he heard them (pg 153). even at 3:15 am he was still out their with his men ready to fire whenever needed.

Moving into Chapter 12 the use of warrior ethos started to become entangled with one another. In the beginning of the chapter Moore says they all need to go on a recon to find Savage and his men (never leave a fallen comrade). While they are on their way to find Savage, they are attacked by the Vietnamese. Right away they have to put aside finding Savage to battle the Vietnamese.

A great example of never leaving a fallen comrade is at the end of chapter 12. Cantu had been drafted into the Army and only had a week left in Vietnam until he could go home. While he was hiding behind a tree he saw some one in camouflage taking photos of what was happening. Cantu was interested in seeing who this was and all of the sudden realized it was Joe Galloway who was a former friend from high school. Cantu quickly ran over to Joe and reminded him who he was and gave Joe mental support to get him through the battle.

Warrior ethos are a great way to keep soldiers minds on what needs to be done. I think that the first three one, I will always place the mission first, i will never accept defeat, i will never quit, all go together. If a soldier quits, he is not placing the mission first and is accepting defeat. if he doesn't place the mission first, he is basically quitting and accepting defeat. I think it's good that in the Warrior ethos we have I will never leave a fallen comrade. Many times in a high strung situation we tend to think of just ourselves. But having this etho, we are reminded that we need to look out for our buddy. If one of us goes down, we all go down, that's how a team works!

Fix Bayonets!!

First off, Wow!!!! These three chapters included a lot of situations that Lt. Gen. Moore's men went through. In chapter 8, the Storm of Battle, it seemed that the men were unfortunately on the defensive side for most of the contact with the Vietnamese. I did notice that the minute they were approached by the Vietnamese or spotted them, they were quickly able to re plan their course of action. John Herren got himself into a harsh situation. He all of the sudden saw a North Vietnamese standing on a bank not to far form him with an AK-47. Herren decided to fire upon him but when he fired a round from his M-16, but quickly realized that the trigger pin was not working or had fallen out. The north Vietnamese quickly took cover, so Herren choose to throw a grenade which bounced off a tree branch. Since he was not sure if the soldier had died or if there were more that way, he decided to retreat back to the LZ and then to meet up with another platoon. There were a few times that Herren had to think quickly on his feet. Initially he had to think what to do once he saw the Vietnamese soldier, which he quickly decided to fire upon him and then use a grenade when his M-16 didn't work. Since he was not sure if the soldier was still alive or if there were more that way, he choose to leave the area and stay safe. All of these decisions were made quickly and were probably the best options for him at the time.

X-Ray

The beginning of this section started with the situation of landing on X-Ray. Moore did a great job planning out how exactly he would land at the location. While they did not touch down at the same exact time they planned, they were pretty close. Moore listened to his men who knew about where they needed to go to to determine the best spot to land. Once they reached their objective, Moore was very good at initiating rapid fire and not being conservative on firing. The success on this objective was also apparent when they were the first to get to the location and attack. Others even mentioned how they were coming out that way and how Moore's men had already succesfully taken care of the location. This looked really good on Moore's leadership to follow through with his assignment and have a good outcome.