Thanks to Bud for the link. Hoorah

Vietnam War MOH Recipient Looks Back

Northwest Florida Daily News | Jul 06, 2014 | by Lauren Sage Reinlie

In 1964, Ray Donlon, a 30-year-old Special Forces soldier, was sent into the thick of the jungle in Vietnam.

It was his first deployment, but he and the 11 soldiers on the team he was leading had been well-trained and well-prepared.

The soldiers were sent in as advisors to the South Vietnamese. Their job was to train and equip them to fight off the Viet Cong.

The men were excited, as young men are when they travel to a new country, a new culture, and they were filled with hope that they were going to be able to help people help themselves, the now-80-year-old said.

They knew the risks: they could be killed, or, perhaps worse, be captured and taken as prisoners of war.

“We all vowed to each other we would fight until the end,” he said.

On July 6, just six weeks after the team arrived, they faced that test. Continue reading →

50 Years Ago Today:

President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s daily diary for August 2, 1964 – In the early hours of Sunday, August 2, 1964, President Johnson received a message that North Vietnamese torpedo boats had attacked an American destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin. In the morning the President met with Secretary of State Dean Rusk and others to discuss the situation in Vietnam. At the meeting it was decided not to retaliate at this time, to strengthen the American patrols, and to issue a protest note to North Vietnam. Later that day, the President walked to church services at St. John’s Episcopal Church with Lady Bird Johnson. (LBJ Library/National Archives) Continue reading →

Army Wants a Harder-Hitting Pistol

Jul 03, 2014 | by Matthew Cox

The U.S. Army is moving forward to replace the Cold War-era M9 9mm pistol with a more powerful handgun that also meets the needs of the other services.

As the lead agent for small arms, the Army will hold an industry day July 29 to talk to gun makers about the joint, Modular Handgun System or MHS.

The MHS would replace the Army’s inventory of more than 200,000 outdated M9 pistols and several thousand M11 9mm pistols with one that has greater accuracy, lethality, reliability and durability, according to Daryl Easlick, a project officer with the Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Ga.

“It’s a total system replacement — new gun, new ammo, new holster, everything,” Easlick said.

The Army began working with the small arms industry on MHS in early 2013, but the effort has been in the works for more than five years. If successful, it would result in the Defense Department buying more than 400,000 new pistols during a period of significant defense-spending reductions. Continue reading →