Dale Hanson

I think in some ways it showed up in the recon first because the adage that we had in SOG was, okay, you get in a firefight or something like that, and the adage was always break contact and continue mission.

So as much as you can, you overwhelm them, broke contact, E&E to get them out of the way, and then...

Continue the mission if you can, because your job is gathering intelligence.

And the fact that unless it was overwhelming force and it's eminent disaster for you, you don't call for an exfiltration.

You continue the mission.

That ethic didn't seem to carry over to the new guys, because so many of them would get in a firefight and then they pulled out and then went to A&D and got their bronze star or whatever, you know.

And we would, we had some missions that we are, it was so dense and so forth.

And you had to sneak repeat so much.

And yet you were so successful at it that you didn't have a firefight.

And then you come out of the thing and people would think, well, you had a dry hole and nothing happened, you know, because you didn't get in the firefight.

And it's like, we did what we were supposed to do and didn't get in the firefight, you know.

They could.

In other words, if they found something significant, they could radio the information.

They could send in a reaction force.

So they would turn it over?

Yeah, they could do that.

Yeah.

Things that needed to be acted on right away or they're going to lose their significance.

Perhaps something that stalled the enemy movement going south, wherever they were, that gave you an opportunity right there.

If you act right now, you're going to do all right.