As Keen Sword grows, so do Japan’s security ambitions

IWAKUNI, Japan — The USS George Washington strike group may be the United States’ most potent example of military power in the western Pacific Ocean — but for now, a Japanese admiral is directing its positioning at sea.

The Japanese have long taken positions of command during Keen Sword, a U.S.-Japan biannual exercise that began in the 1980s. However, U.S. officials say they think this is the first time that a Japanese officer has been the sea combat commander in a “free play” Keen Sword this large and complex.

The free play scenarios, as opposed to structured exercises that rely on preplanned positioning, tend to mean more surprises from the forces playing as the enemy.

“[Free play] puts you in dangerous positions you may not put yourself in, if you were given the opportunity to move around,” said Rear Adm. John Alexander, who in October was named the carrier strike group’s commander.

The Maritime Self-Defense Force’s more prominent role in the biannual exercise mirrors the Japanese government’s ambitions for a larger role on the world’s security stage, particularly in the tense Asia-Pacific region.

When Keen Sword was first held, under the Cold War world order in 1986, Japan trained mainly to protect its shores, while helping the U.S. monitor Soviet activity. Reaching far beyond its home islands was generally considered both unnecessary and taboo. Japan’s post-WWII constitution requires the nation to “forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation.”

Japan left offensive strike power to its U.S. allies, while it concentrated on more defensive-minded measures. That remains largely true in Japan’s training and procurement, but recent moves suggest that Japan isn’t willing to rely on the U.S. as heavily as in the past.

Japan’s faltering economy and a government perceived as ineffective led to a landslide 2012 victory for the Liberal Democratic Party and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has long wished to bolster Japan’s defense.

Meanwhile, North Korea’s emerging nuclear program and China’s claim on the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands have presented potential flash points in the region.

Abe has repeatedly chastised China for attempting to use force and coercion to gain territory in the region. Each country has increased sea and air patrols near the uninhabited islands.

Last year, Japanese troops traveled to California for training with U.S. Marines on retaking invaded islands.

At a sea exercise involving the USS Germantown and the Marine 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion, U.S. personnel taught their Japanese allies “everything that goes into tactically planning an amphibious assault,” according to a military press release.

Next year, the Japanese will acquire amphibious assault vehicles, an opening step toward the assembly of a Marine-like force.

The Japanese government also plans to introduce legislation next year codifying a re-interpretation of the constitution, which would allow it to defend its allies in combat; currently, it cannot legally defend a U.S. ship fired upon by a common enemy.

That re-interpretation has been heavily criticized in public polls because of the method used and concern that it will push Japan into unnecessary wars, despite government assurances that the right to “collective self-defense” will be employed only if Japan is threatened.

Japan’s actions are a logical course of action to keep China from growing aggressive, said Edward Luttwak, senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who recently discussed regional strategy with Japanese officials in Tokyo.

“First people try to reinforce themselves, to increase their ability to operate — in the case of Japan, to remove obstacles to collective security,” Luttwak later told reporters. “You do low-cost things like that, then you start building a little more force. But then you really do alliance [building].”

Japan is reaching out to countries throughout the region, several of whom have territorial disputes with China, to forge closer security ties.

However, its closest relationship remains with the United States. Military officials say they expect Keen Sword, which included about 30,000 Japanese troops and 10,000 total U.S. personnel from all four military branches, to continue growing in complexity.

“We work with them all year, but then at the end of the year we have a large, complicated, difficult scenario where we’re challenged in all aspects of our warfare areas,” Alexander said. “It’s the equivalent of a Super Bowl training exercise.”

slavin.erik@stripes.com

Twitter: @eslavin_stripes

Bill Mauldin's cartoons to be auctioned

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two dozen original editorial cartoons created by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and World War II veteran Bill Mauldin are set to hit the auction block for the first time this week.

The drawings are part of a massive collection of cartoons Maudlin had stashed away in boxes and file cabinets over a decades-long career that started on the battlefield with Stars and Stripes and included stints at the Chicago Sun-Times and other American newspapers and magazines.

Mauldin is credited with using edgy humor and his Willie and Joe characters, fictional GIs who slogged their way through Italy and other parts of Europe, to lift the spirits of infantrymen by poking fun at officers and idealistic enlisted men who had yet to experience battle.

A native New Mexican, Mauldin enlisted in the Army in 1940 and spent his share of time in muddy foxholes, being shot at day and night. There were two choices: Go crazy or relieve the tension with some sarcasm.

"That was the thing about Dad. He didn't draw these from some office in New York," his son, Nat Mauldin, said of the wartime cartoons. "He drew them there — in the middle of it."

"They knew that this guy was three foxholes over," the younger Mauldin said of his father's fellow soldiers. "It's incredible what he did for the morale of the infantrymen in the war. It was an enormous contribution."

In 1945, Mauldin won his first of two Pulitzer Prizes for distinguished service as a cartoonist.

After a long career, Mauldin died in 2003 in a California nursing home. He was 81.

An original Willie and Joe cartoon from 1951 will be among those sold later this week as part of a major comic art auction in Beverly Hills, California. Another offering from 1974 depicts former President Richard Nixon backed into a corner.

Heritage Auctions is offering the items on behalf of the estate.

Ten more cartoons will be auctioned early next year in New York, and Mauldin's family plans to donate much of the remaining collection to the Library of Congress — where most of his WWII cartoons are already housed. Other museums and historical societies will get a share.

Biographer Todd DePastino said Mauldin's work went beyond boosting soldier morale. It offered a glimpse into life on the front lines at a time when Americans were shielded from many of the horrors of war. His later work centered on issues still relevant today — civil rights, privacy and government overreach.

Mauldin would absorb everything going on around him, from the look in a politician's eye to the timbre of someone's voice.

"He was just awake and aware and alert at all times and would filter everything through this prism of his genius that would get expressed in these wonderful cartoons day in and day out," DePastino said. "It's a rare genius that can do that."

Mauldin's family spent years cataloging an estimated 5,000 cartoons. It's only now that the collection is emerging from storage in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the cartoonist once lived.

The monumental task of deciding which cartoons to auction was unknowingly settled by Mauldin himself decades ago when he hand-picked some drawings for a gallery show.

"They were already separate from the rest. And they're really good," Nat Mauldin said.

The family said the goal is to bring the historic cartoons out of storage so they can be seen by others and used for research.

As for how much money the cartoons might bring, experts have no idea. Never before has the work of Mauldin, one of the 20th century's pre-eminent editorial cartoonists, been auctioned.

AF secretary wants to recruit more women, open combat fields

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii — Although women comprise about 20 percent of the Air Force, the service needs to increase that ratio through better recruitment and retention policies and by opening combat-related fields to women, the Air Force’s top leader said Monday.

“Of all the military services, we have the highest proportion of women as compared to the others,” Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told a news conference that also included Gen. Lori Robinson, who became the first woman to lead an Air Force major component command when she assumed command of Pacific Air Forces last month.

Hawaii was James’ first stop on a 10-day tour of Pacific bases that will take her to Guam, Japan, South Korea and Alaska.

“The not-so-good news is that I don’t see why we can’t do better on that overall percentage,” said James, who became secretary 11 months ago. “If we’re upwards to 20 [percent] today, why can’t we be upwards to 30 percent in the years to come?”

At the same time, however, the Air Force is in the midst of cutting its roughly 690,000 active, Reserve and National Guard airmen and civilians by 20,000, she said. The cuts are “principally” active-duty airmen and “to a lesser degree” from the Reserve and National Guard, with several thousand civilian jobs being cut during the next five years.

“We’re coming down in all of our components, and we’re trying to do it in a very systematic way to reshape our force and make sure we have the right people in the right jobs going forward,” James said.

The Air Force has been using incentives to induce airmen to voluntarily leave when possible, but it’s also forced out others, she said.

The Air Force downsizing “will touch airmen in every region,” James said.

“But with that said, because this is such an important region, we man at 100 percent here in the Pacific,” she said. So regardless of whether Pacific theater airmen leave voluntarily or are forced out, their positions will ultimately be refilled, she said.

“I project that the downsizing should be done on the military side certainly by next summer, which is good news because I want our airmen focused on their families and their jobs and their own development and not worrying about the uncertainties of the future,” James said.

The Air Force faces a quandary in losing women after they’ve served about seven to 10 years. The attrition rate for women is twice as high as men at that mid-career level, she said.

“So we need to bore down and figure out why that’s happening and how can we turn that around,” she said, turning to face Robinson, whom she had nominated for the PACAF position. “Because, of course, to produce more Gen. Robinsons in future years, you’ve got to make sure that we retain some of these terrific women.

“I’m not satisfied that we have enough in the senior ranks at the moment. We’re probably better than the other services at the moment, but that’s still not good enough.”

The Air Force currently doesn’t allow women to hold the positions of combat rescue officer, special tactics officer and special operations weather officer, along with several enlisted positions: combat controller, tactical air command and control party, pararescue and enlisted special operations weather. The Air Force has stated it will open those fields to women at the beginning of 2016.

James said the Air Force is working on “gender-neutral standards” for those fields.

“That is to say, whatever the standard is, it will be the same for men and women, but then let’s see if we can’t open it up and let qualified applicants compete,” she said.

James said her three priorities have been taking care of personnel, assuring combat readiness and making every dollar count.

To achieve that third aim, the nation needs another round of base closures and realignments, she said.

“I’ve had a whole part of my career in the private sector, and I can tell you without question, a business would never spend money on leases or on buildings that were no longer needed at the expense of reinvesting those dollars in their people and their technology and in their future,” she said.

The Defense Department estimates it has about 24 percent excess capacity worldwide, she said, representing a huge outlay of money each year for building maintenance and leases “that we don’t need for the future.”

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told a group of troops Sunday that he was going to ask Congress to establish a base-closure committee.

Congress has expressed little desire to undertake another round of closures because they ultimately mean the loss of jobs in the districts they represent.

But the Defense Department will again face forced sequestration funding cuts for fiscal year 2016, which begins next October, unless Congress and the White House can agree on a deal to provide needed revenues. The projected cost savings from base closures could end up being a part of that deal.

Pentagon officials have said another round of cuts in personnel and equipment will affect readiness.

“Sequestration remains the law of the land in FY16, and unless Congress passes a new law to eliminate it or change it or lift it, we will be back to where we were, and that concerns me a great deal about our current readiness,” James said.

olson.wyatt@stripes.com

Twitter: @WyattWOlson

John Downey, judge and longest held POW in US history, dies at 84

(Tribune Content Agency) — John T. Downey, a renowned Connecticut judge and former CIA agent who had the distinction of being the longest held prisoner of war in American history, died Monday at age 84.

Those who knew him said he was a remarkable man, who was accomplished, caring, compassionate and humble. Chief Justice Chase Rogers said Downey's life story "was perhaps the most inspirational of anyone I have ever met."

A Wallingford, Conn., native, Downey graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall — then Choate School — in 1947 and Yale University in 1951. He was a member of the football, wrestling and rugby teams at Yale and was inducted into the Choate Rosemary Hall Athletic Hall of Fame in 2004.

Downey joined the CIA after college. He was sent on an airborne mission over the China and his plane was shot down. He was taken prisoner in November 1952 along with CIA officer Richard Fecteau. He was sentenced to life and spent the next 20 years in Chinese prisons. When President Richard Nixon re-established relations with China in 1971, Downey's sentence was commuted. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger negotiated Downey's release on March 9, 1973, and Downey was reunited with his sick mother, Mary Downey. Three years after his release, Downey graduated from Harvard Law School at the age of 45.

His son, Jack Downey, recalled his father Monday as a patient and humble man who might have been a little "rabid" about Yale football, but who never dwelled on his years of captivity.

"For a lot of people, especially of a certain generation, he was this enormous, larger than life person," Jack Downey said. "But he never made it a big thing. There was very little fanfare. He would just tell me a story about it like he was talking about baseball."

Downey gave only a few interviews about his time in captivity, but discussed it in detail with People magazine in 1978.

"I felt like I was embarking on an unknown journey," he told the magazine. "There was no way for anyone to know we had crashed. The Chinese waited two years before they told anybody we were alive. The first couple of weeks scared the hell out of me — the possibility of being executed was very real."

Downey said in published interviews with The Courant that after awhile, his years as a prisoner became essentially boring. Jogging, up to 10 miles a day, and "picayune daily chores" helped him get through his long captivity. He tried to do some writing, but his work was confiscated. He attempted to befriend his captors and said he did not become hopeless. "God is merciful," he said. "I never got a feeling of hopelessness or being abandoned."

Still, he told The Courant, the long years in prison took a toll.

"My temper grew short. You toughen up a bit in prison, but you dry up too. In the later years I was keeping my own act together and that was all I could handle. I was pleased to be in solitary. I had days of no conversation with anyone. I never forgot how to talk, but I did develop the habit of talking to myself. I still do sometimes, like when I'm preparing cases alone in my study."

Upon his release and return to the United States, he delighted in drinking Coke and having ice cream with his bacon and eggs for breakfast. He said he refused to let the difficult years behind bars ruin his life. He had no regrets, no resentments, he said.

"That's something that's behind me. I got out when I was reasonably young and in good health. I know it's clichéd, but I tend to look forward. I don't waste much time glowering about the past."

One way or the other, life goes on, he said.

"By all rights, I ought to wake up every morning singing. But I stagger to that first cup of coffee and get bogged down in the daily routine like everybody else."

Downey was appointed a judge by Gov. William A. O'Neill in 1987 and became chief administrative judge for juvenile matters from 1990 until he retired in 1997. He continued to work part-time as a trial referee until this past winter. He was awarded the CIA's Distinguished Intelligence Cross, the agency's highest honor, in 2013.

Rogers called him "one of the greats."

"I am saddened to hear today of Judge John T. Downey's passing. He was truly one of the greats. Judge Downey was assigned to juvenile court for years, and I had both the honor and pleasure of discussing juvenile matters with him," Rogers said Monday in a statement. "He was always positive and thoughtful, and wanted to do the right thing to make the world a better place for young people in particular. His fellow judges had tremendous respect for him, and we were honored to call him our colleague."

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy ordered all U.S. and Connecticut flags in the state to half-staff Monday to honor Downey.

"Judge Downey was a remarkable man who not only served this state's judicial system with distinction, but also served his country with honor, risking his life and enduring two decades of hardship as a Cold War prisoner in China," Malloy said in a statement. "He has a clear reputation in Connecticut as a caring and compassionate leader, who to this day continues to be a role model for so many in our state. He is leaving a lasting legacy in Connecticut."

Downey is survived by his wife, Audrey Lee Downey, his wife of 40 years, his brother, William F. Downey, and his son.

Calling hours will be Wednesday from 4 to 8 p.m. at Wallingford Funeral Home at 809 N. Main St. and a burial Mass will be held on Thursday at 10 a.m. at Most Holy Trinity Church at 84 N. Colony St. in Wallingford.

©2014 The Hartford (Conn.) Courant. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The bloody battle of Khe Sanh: 77 days under siege

Marine Cpl. Steve Wiese watched in horror from a shell crater as several North Vietnamese Army regulars walked toward him, callously executing his wounded brothers in arms.

Wiese’s squad had been one of two from 3rd platoon that was decimated while on patrol a short distance from the base at Khe Sanh on Feb. 25, 1968. The patrol was looking for an enemy mortar position when they were drawn into a perfectly orchestrated crescent-shaped ambush.

As the NVA drew closer, Wiese pulled the body of a fellow Marine over his chest and played dead. Something distracted the enemy and they turned around and went in the opposite direction.

Wiese retreated meticulously back to the besieged American base. It took the entire day to trek back about 400 yards.

The engagement would be one of the deadliest days at Khe Sanh for the men of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment, with 27 killed, one taken prisoner and 19 wounded, according to survivors and official reports. Only eight of the wounded, including Wiese, were fit enough to return to duty.

While most have heard of the Battle for Khe Sanh, an 11-week siege in early 1968 that pitted three NVA divisions — about 20,000 troops — against a single surrounded and cut-off U.S. Marine regiment of about 5,000 and their supporting forces, few have heard of the men of Bravo, the “ghost patrol” and subsequent Marine retaliation for the slaughter.

Marking the 50th anniversary of the start of the war, a new documentary made by Bravo Marine and Khe Sanh veteran Ken Rodgers and his wife, Betty, “Bravo! Common Men, Uncommon Valor” offers a glimpse into some of the bloodiest fighting of the Vietnam War.

The film has also provided some much-needed catharsis to the survivors from Bravo, many of whom opened up for the first time.

“I don’t think anyone else could have [made the film],” Wiese, now 66, told Stars and Stripes from his California home. For years, he suppressed his experiences and was reluctant to tell his story. However, that changed when he sat across from the camera and Rodgers.

“I carry major survivor’s guilt,” he said. “I don’t understand why I’m alive and they aren’t. I don’t understand why I’m here.”

Securing Khe Sanh

Khe Sanh Combat Base was erected near the border with Laos in western Quang Tri province in 1962 by Green Berets. The base featured an airstrip and was atop a plateau “in the shadow of Dong Tri mountain,” overlooking a tributary of the Quang Tri River, according to official Marine Corps histories.

The surrounding area featured piedmont hills, uninhabited jungle with impenetrable undergrowth, mountain trails hidden by tree canopies at 60-70 feet above the floor, tall elephant grass and bamboo thickets. It was a natural infiltration route into the south and the densely populated cities on the eastern coast of Quang Tri.

United States Military Assistance Command Vietnam commander Army Gen. W.C. Westmoreland said that the base was strategically important.

The North Vietnamese hoped to establish a “liberation government” just south of the DMZ and they wanted to control the area to launch attacks into the south and sow unrest. If they wanted to push south from bases in Laos, Khe Sanh stood directly in their path.

In addition, by fighting in a generally unpopulated region, there would be few restrictions on tactics and weapons.

“Another factor favoring the decision to hold Khe Sanh was the enemy’s determination to take it,” Westmoreland wrote. “Our defense of the area would tie down large numbers of North Vietnamese troops which otherwise could move against the vulnerable populated areas whose security was the heart of the Vietnamese pacification program.”

The first substantial Marine units arrived at the base in spring 1966. The first attacks on the base happened a year later, and the NVA were repelled. During what would come to be known as the “Hill Fights,” the Marines secured three surrounding hills and built combat outposts. The base remained relatively quiet for the remainder of the year, according to Bravo skipper retired Lt. Col. Ken Pipes, then a captain. He arrived at Khe Sanh in September 1967.

‘Something was brewing’

All of the signs were there. The enemy was planning something big.

Patrols began making contact out in the hinterlands; Reconnaissance reported large groups were moving into the area and they were staying put, Pipes said. Recovered NVA documents and maps depicted all of the major approaches to the base. A disgruntled NVA first lieutenant who surrendered knew the entire plan and began talking.

“We did get intelligence,” Pipes said. “We knew something was brewing.”

NVA reconnaissance patrols turned into probes; sniper fire increased and ambushes picked up. The Marines stopped running patrols and improved their fortifications as reinforcements arrived.

On Jan. 21, 1968, “all hell broke loose” with hundreds of 82mm mortars, artillery shells and 122mm rockets slamming into the base. The Marines dove for cover in trenches and bunkers while a mess hall was flattened, the regimental commander’s quarters was hit, fuel storage areas were set ablaze and several helicopters and trucks were destroyed.

One of the first rounds hit the ammunition dump near the eastern end of the runway. It erupted in a series of blinding explosions. Mortars and artillery were sent into the air and exploded upon coming down, adding to the devastation. Tear gas was released.

“It was crazy,” Ken Rodgers recalled. “The Vietnamese were pounding us … Rounds were coming down on top of us; we were wearing masks, expecting an assault on the line.”

Navy Corpsman John “Doc” Cicala remembers someone calling for him. The 3rd class petty officer grabbed his rifle and left his hooch.

No sooner had he hit the trench line when he heard an explosion, he said. Next thing he knew, he was on his back looking up at the sky.

“I reached for my helmet and there was the tail fin of a mortar stuck in it,” he said. “I was out for a couple of minutes.”

He went on to the scene to find a Marine with his foot blown off, he said. He applied a tourniquet and brought him to the aid station.

“I kept quite busy,” he recalled. “It wasn’t a fun time.”

“I reached for my helmet and there was the tail fin of a mortar stuck in it.”

John “Doc” Cicala

The artillery barrage would continue for 77 days and nights. The men tried to stay underground as much as possible.

“Anyone who says they weren’t scared is lying,” said Wiese. “We knew we were going to be overrun and the whole world was going to end — but that happened every night. People were wounded and killed every night.”

The leadership tried to keep everyone calm as they watched the NVA dig trenches around the base and begin tunneling toward it.

“You have to maintain and present a confidence,” said Pipes. “We were pretty well-trained too.”

Pipes made the rounds day and night, sometimes offering “a quick sniff” of Jack Daniel’s to the men. He made sure they had ammunition. His efforts earned him the devotion of his men.

Some days only a few rounds would hit the base; other days would bring more than 2,000, Pipes said.

‘Ghost patrol’

On Feb. 25, the “ghost patrol” went outside the wire led by a fearless yet young and relatively inexperienced Lt. Donald Jacques. The patrol, which included Wiese and Cicala, reached two checkpoints before veering off course.

They saw three NVA soldiers walking down the road at 50 yards before jumping into the jungle. Against the advice of a defector turned scout, Jacques gave the order to pursue. Most of the men were cut down soon after.

“It was total chaos,” said Cicala. “Guys started dropping everywhere. All I could do was run around and try and take care of them.”

An NVA soldier popped out of a hole in front of Cicala as he rushed to aid a comrade. Cicala was shot two times in the chest. While he was down, a grenade landed between his legs. All he could do, he said, was curl up in the fetal position and wait for the end.

Cicala was too close to absorb the brunt of the blast, which went over him, he said. He dressed his own wounds.

Jacques ran up to the injured corpsman. “Get out of here, we’re all getting killed,” Cicala recalled him shouting. Jacques was hit in the femoral artery by machine gun fire less than 50 feet away, and he bled out.

Seeing no one alive, Cicala started crawling. The dead and wounded were left on the battlefield.

It took the rest of the day for Cicala to crawl back to base. When he arrived, he was in shock, repeating, “They’re all dead.” He left Khe Sanh and Vietnam after the battle.

Wiese stayed.

His squad had been wiped out, so at 19, he found himself in charge of a new one.

The battle-hardened Wiese was supposed to leave Khe Sanh on March 28, so he waited while the barrage continued.

When his time came, he recalled going to the airstrip. A C-130 landed and loaded the dead and wounded. There was no room for him.

The next day, no plane came.

On March 30, he had two choices: wait at the airfield or go on patrol with his men. He went, not wanting to be viewed as a coward.

Pipes led the patrol, which was designed to recover the bodies of fallen comrades and get revenge on a battalion of NVA. The Marines were outnumbered four or five to one.

They went outside the wire with a slightly larger force of 186, this time through heavy fog. Survivors call it the “payback patrol.”

As Company B approached the NVA trenches and bunkers, Pipes got on the radio.

“Be advised, fix bayonets,” Wiese recalled. “I was like, ‘Oh crap, we’re talking hand-to-hand combat.’”

It didn’t take long for the NVA to pin down some of the Marines, including Wiese.

Lance Cpl. Wayne Moore charged a soldier holding a machine gun and was shot dead as Wiese and his men watched.

Lance Cpl. Author Smith jumped into the enemy trench line with a bayonet and died fighting.

Pfc. Ted Britt did the same.

“We all jumped up and started screaming and charged the line,” Wiese recalled. “All along the line, everybody was jumping up. We killed a lot of NVA.”

Pipes was hit with a mortar fragment that went through his arm and lodged in his chest just a few inches from his heart, yet he continued to coordinate the artillery and air support. A sniper’s bullet finally stopped the captain; he was shot in the head and knocked unconscious. The bullet penetrated the steel of his helmet but was stopped by his helmet liner.

Official reports estimate the number of NVA killed at 115. Those who weren’t stabbed or shot were blown out of their fortifications with grenades, satchel charges or flamethrowers.

The Marines sent the larger force running down the hill. There were nine Americans killed in the engagement, including Moore, Smith and Britt, according to official accounts.

The aftermath

Payback marked the end of Operation Scotland I and the beginning of Operation Pegasus, which would end the siege with Marine and Army elements and South Vietnamese counterparts.

Pipes insists they didn’t need relief.

From November 1967 to the end of the “payback patrol,” there were 205 killed from all services and more than 1,600 wounded.

The Marines confirmed the deaths of 1,602 NVA but the number is believed to be as high as 15,000. Counting is difficult because the enemy often carried away their dead.

Within months, the base at Khe Sanh was abandoned by the U.S., and the NVA raised their flag over the pockmarked plateau.

Cicala remembers reading in Stars and Stripes that it was “strategically unnecessary to hold” while he was in the hospital recovering from his wounds. He was so angry that he remembers what page the article was on.

He said that the sacrifices made defending the base only to give it up have made him bitter, a sentiment reiterated by the Bravo Marines interviewed by Stars and Stripes.

“We always felt betrayed that so many guys died and then they just left it,” Wiese said.

The men of Bravo Company were forced to process these feelings and the horrors they had witnessed while coming home to a country that wanted nothing to do with them. They banded together with yearly reunions and constant contact. For many, it has taken decades to get over what they saw and come to terms with the post-traumatic stress.

“I get angry when people talk about glory and honor,” Cicala said. “The only thing that counts is keeping your buddy alive.”

Their bond has lasted a lifetime. Now, they face a new enemy in cancer, diabetes and other ailments they say were caused by exposure to Agent Orange. Wiese is fighting both.

Ken and Betty Rodgers said several of the men in the film have died since their interviews.

The film, in the works for years, stands as a testament to the men of Bravo. It recounts the battle, complete with interviews with over a dozen survivors, never before heard audio that brings the battle to life, after-action reports and photos.

The film was completed over the summer with sound and film editing by Vietnam veteran John Nutt from “Apocalypse Now” and “Amadeus” and four-time Oscar winner Mark Berger, who mixed the sound.

The Rodgerses are working to secure screenings across the country and are looking for a home for the film on television.

To this day, Pipes can rattle off the names of the men he served with like it was yesterday — Lownds, Wilkinson, Rayburn, Pessoni, Norman, Morris, McCauley, Gaynor, Horton, Quigley, Scudder.

“These were important men. If we don’t talk about them I’m afraid they’ll be forgotten and that would hurt my heart.”

Ken Pipes

They are forever on his mind, he said, and the film serves as a way to keep their memory alive. He sees it as immortality for the warriors of Bravo.

“These were important men,” Pipes said, his voice wavering with emotion. “If we don’t talk about them I’m afraid they’ll be forgotten and that would hurt my heart.”

burke.matt@stripes.com

Green Beret from Bay City killed in Afghanistan

BAY CITY, Mich. — A 31-year-old Green Beret from Bay City who served two tours of duty in Iraq has been killed fighting in Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon.

Sgt. 1st Class Michael A. Cathcart died of wounds received from small arms fire during dismounted combat operations in Kunduz Province on Friday, the Defense Department said.

Cathcart was a Bay City Central High School graduate and enlisted in the Army in 2001, The Bay City Times reported.

Cathcart was part of the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

His battalion commander, Lt. Col. Michael Sullivan, said in an email that the unit known as the "Bushmen" had "lost one of our nation's finest." Cathcart "died a true warrior with his fellow teammates at his side," Sullivan wrote.

"The Bushmen will always remember Mike's love for the hockey rink and his contagious smile," said Sullivan. "My thoughts and prayers are with the family of Mike in the coming days, weeks, and months ahead."

Cathcart served in Iraq in 2003 and 2005 and volunteered for Special Forces in 2007, according to a statement from Fort Bragg. He joined the 3rd Special Forces Group in 2009 as an engineer.

His many awards include three Bronze Star Medals, the Purple Heart Medal and four Army Commendation Medals, the statement said.

Cathcart's body was being transported from Germany to Dover, Delaware, Air Force Base, to be met by his mother, Jeanne Cathcart, and his sister, Trishia. A memorial service likely will take place at Fort Bragg, with a service in Bay City to follow, his mother told the newspaper. Arrangements had not yet been completed Sunday.

Cathcart came from a military heritage, his family said. His uncle, Steven Cathcart, served in the Army during the first Gulf War, and his grandfather, Mike Cathcart, served in the Army in the 1950s and 1960s.

Transparency clouds Osprey acceptance in Japan

TOKYO — In the morning of Nov. 8, an MV-22 Osprey transport aircraft appeared in the sky over Oshima, an island just off the coast of Kesennuma, Japan.

The Osprey from the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station in Okinawa Prefecture was taking part in the Michinoku Alert 2014 drill, an exercise designed to help practice the response needed should the island become cut off due to a massive earthquake. After the Osprey dropped off water and blankets, two people playing the roles of patients seriously injured in an ensuing tsunami were loaded onto the aircraft and transported to a Ground Self-Defense Force facility in the city of Sendai.

After Oshima was destroyed by tsunami and fire after the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, U.S. Marines based in Okinawa Prefecture provided assistance as part of Operation Tomodachi. The Marines cleared debris and were engaged in other disaster relief activities on the island.

Several hundred island residents came to catch a glimpse of the tilt-rotor Osprey on that day.

"I was really grateful that the U.S. military quickly came to help us after the island was isolated following the quake disaster," said a 74-year-old man whose home was swept away by the March 11, 2011, tsunami. "I hope they will conduct all the exercises they need to do, after ensuring their aircraft are safe to operate."

One year has passed since joint Japan-U.S. exercises using Ospreys started as part of efforts to reduce the burden shouldered by Okinawa Prefecture, which hosts the bulk of U.S. military forces based in Japan.

A growing number of local governments on the main islands of Japan have indicated a willingness to accept exercises involving Ospreys, and residents' resistance to the aircraft flying in their skies appears to be gradually fading. Despite this, the government will need to carefully explain the importance of operating the Osprey to cement acceptance of and support for the aircraft.

The first joint exercise involving Osprey on the main islands was held at the GSDF's Aibano Training Area in Shiga Prefecture in October 2013. Many civilians came to observe the aircraft displayed at an air show held in Sapporo in July, and at an air review ceremony held at Hyakuri Air Base in Ibaraki Prefecture in October. Last month in Wakayama Prefecture, an Osprey took part for the first time in a disaster exercise organized by a local government.

"Every time an Osprey flies over the main islands, the burden on Okinawa should be reduced," a senior Defense Ministry official said.

The government has been pushing ahead with carrying out Osprey exercises over the main islands because it thinks Okinawa Prefecture is bearing too great a burden by hosting 74 percent of U.S. military facilities in Japan.

As well as moving these exercises to other areas, the Japanese and U.S. governments will transfer all 15 KC-130 air refueling tankers from Futenma to the U.S. Marine Corps' Iwakuni Air Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture.

Local governments around Japan have started to discuss whether they will be able to help reduce Okinawa's burden. In June, the village assembly of Shinto, which is home to the GSDF's 12th Brigade, passed a resolution stating it "would accept training and other exercises involving Osprey aircraft if it contributes to easing the burden" shouldered by Okinawa Prefecture. Other municipalities that have adopted similar resolutions include Iwakuni city and the towns of Suo-Oshima and Shintomi.

According to a senior Defense Ministry official, Osprey "will fly in the skies above the main islands about two times a month."

A 63-year-old woman who operates a real estate agency near the Futenma base doubts whether this will have much impact.

"The aircraft have recently been conducting night flights above residential areas, which I have at times felt were dangerous," the woman said. "I appreciate the government's stance of calling for local governments on the main islands to accept more exercises, but I still don't feel that the number of flights here has decreased."

The Defense Ministry plans to introduce 17 Ospreys into the SDF from fiscal 2015 and is considering deploying them at Saga Airport in Saga Prefecture. The government also has decided to offer the GSDF's Kisarazu base in Chiba Prefecture as a maintenance site for U.S. military Ospreys. Given these developments, flights by Japanese and U.S. Ospreys over the main Japanese islands are certain to increase in the years ahead.

However, concerns over the safety and noise pollution generated by the aircraft remain deep-rooted in these areas. After the U.S. military notifies the Defense Ministry about movements of its Ospreys, this information is passed on to local governments concerned, but many details are not revealed to the public. To reinforce support for the Ospreys, the government will need to explain more carefully about the aircraft.

Question marks also remain about the willingness of the U.S. military to disclose information. One aircraft that took off from the Atsugi Air Base in Kanagawa Prefecture on Nov. 7 to join the Michinoku Alert exercise had to turn back to base. The SDF inquired as to why the aircraft returned to Atsugi but reportedly did not receive a proper explanation from the U.S. military.

A senior Defense Ministry official suggested such information had not always been readily forthcoming from Japan's ally.

"The U.S. side has a strong tendency to want to conceal flight information about the aircraft, so we will need to press it more strongly to disclose such details," the official said.

(c) 2014, The Yomiuri Shimbun

Why Putin's anti-NATO behavior makes sense to him, and many in Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin had an opportunity to lobby for easing international sanctions against his country last month when European and Asian leaders gathered for a summit in Milan, but for his most crucial meeting — a sit-down with German Chancellor Angela Merkel — he showed up four hours late.

He'd been in Serbia watching a parade.

Putin also missed the welcoming toast for a dinner of more than 50 leaders, striding in at the middle of the European Council president's opening remarks.

Putin has been behaving lately like a man who has lost faith in diplomacy, who is convinced that the world has realigned itself into a shape fundamentally hostile to Russia.

Key to the Russian leader's increasingly adversarial dealings with the West, analysts say, is the deep sense of betrayal Putin felt when NATO reneged on what Moscow believed was a promise never to extend into the former Soviet sphere of influence in Central and Eastern Europe.

Not only have the former Soviet republics of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania now joined the greatly expanded Western military alliance, but another former republic, Georgia, is in line for membership.

The Kremlin was outraged last month when Bulgaria signaled it was contemplating the purchase of European-made jets to replace its aging Russian-made fleet.

Bulgaria, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Twitter, had decided "to once again betray Russia … in favor of second-hand eagles."

Putin has been lashing out on both the political and security fronts, the analysts say, because he despairs of getting European or U.S. officials to consider the post-Cold War strategic realignments from the Kremlin's point of view.

He expressed his disdain for United Nations and Western views on his support for separatists in eastern Ukraine by ignoring their warnings that Nov. 2 elections for leadership of the occupied "republics" were a breach of international law and likely to intensify fighting. Fresh incursions by Russian armored columns into Ukraine were reported last week by NATO and neutral monitors of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

And on Wednesday, Putin's defense minister announced that nuclear-capable long-range bombers would resume patrols off the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

A proud nationalist committed to protecting Russians who now find themselves in neighboring countries, Putin may have given up on playing by rules written, in his view, by gloating adversaries who consider themselves the Cold War's victors and Russia's historic sphere of influence their spoils.

"Russia has been pushed into a corner, and that is a most dangerous situation," said Anna Vassilieva, a scholar of Russian and Ukrainian history at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Putin is "showing the world that he's in control," she said, "warning everyone not to think that the bear is asleep."

Ironically, the moves Putin has made to thwart Ukraine's drift toward the European Union have spurred a crisis of insecurity throughout the former Eastern Bloc and brought to Russia's doorstep exactly what Putin views as the most serious threat to his nation's interests: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski early this month signed into law a fundamental shift in defense policy that will redeploy forces from the country's western regions to its border with Russia. The move was cast as a necessary response to Russia's aggression against Ukraine.

War games last month in Poland and the three Baltic states that were once part of the Soviet Union brought 700 NATO soldiers and state-of-the-art armored fighting vehicles to Russia's northwestern border in what alliance officials said was a reminder to Moscow that any attack on members of the alliance would be fiercely repelled.

The alliance also staged joint maneuvers with Ukraine in the Black Sea in September. Angry about Western exercises so close to Russian shores, Moscow dispatched warplanes to buzz a Canadian frigate in international waters. Dozens of other airspace violations and menacing maneuvers along NATO borders in recent weeks have forced the alliance to scramble fighter planes at a rate three times that of previous years, officials report.

At a NATO summit in Wales two months ago, the alliance endorsed a new Readiness Action Plan, which will rotate thousands of troops through Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia "to respond to the changed security environment" created by Russia's intervention in Ukraine, NATO said when the plan was drafted.

Perhaps most unsettling for Russia, former ally Ukraine is now openly seeking membership in NATO, in search of reliable defense against its newly hostile neighbor. A majority of the deputies elected Oct. 26 to Ukraine's parliament ran on the message that force had to be met with force.

But the calls for beefed-up defenses from alarmed nations in what used to be the Soviet orbit threaten to undermine post-Cold War agreements, signed and informal, that promised respect for sovereign borders and restraint in deploying military forces in a threatening manner.

The confrontation between Russia and the West is the result of a "clash of perspectives," said Joshua Shifrinson, an associate professor at Texas A&M's Bush School of Government and Public Service. "The United States and its allies believe NATO can expand, that the Western sphere of influence can expand, and as long as conversations with the Russians and diplomacy continue that the United States can have its cake and eat it too."

Shifrinson has researched recently declassified documents that he says show that U.S. and European leaders, during 1990 talks on German reunification, offered assurances to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev that NATO wouldn't expand eastward.

"Once the USSR went the way of the dodo and the United States was the only superpower standing, it had strong reasons to see the deals of 1990 as having been overtaken by events," Shifrinson said.

But Putin genuinely feels encroached upon and done wrong by the West, a sentiment that is real whether justified or not, he noted. NATO extended membership to former Warsaw Pact allies Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999, and five years later inducted the former Soviet republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, as well as former East Bloc allies Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania.

The last straw for the Kremlin was Ukraine's plan last year to enter an association agreement with the European Union, which Putin saw as the precursor to joining the neighborhood's stampede to NATO.

"Russia did not have the right to dictate Ukraine's alliances. At the same time, can you imagine how the United States would react if Russian or Chinese forces suddenly set up in Canada or Mexico?" Shifrinson asked. "The desire to keep the West away from former Russian imperial territory and the former Soviet homeland is alive and well and supported by a wide swath of the Russian public."

The West's refusal to see the Ukraine conflict through Moscow's eyes threatens to leave the aggrieved Kremlin leader with a sense of having nothing to lose by flexing his muscle elsewhere, Kremlinologists warn.

Putin's seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region and his backing of separatist rebels occupying eastern Ukraine may be viewed in the West as aggressive empire-building, but in the Kremlin they are seen as a noble defense of Russians' legitimate rights and interests.

One of the most dangerous side effects of the ailing relationship between the West and Russia may be the U.S. perception that any overture to Moscow to defuse the tension amounts to capitulation to a bully, analyst Vassilieva said.

"In domestic politics, it's the one issue where Republicans and Democrats are passionately united," she said. "This is going to be used in the next presidential election, when the two parties will try to show who hates Russia more."

She blames Putin for allowing emotions to drive his foreign policy but holds the West responsible for going back on pledges to engage in a climate of mutual respect after the Soviet breakup.

"The West has crossed a red line for Russia," she said of NATO's absorption of former Soviet satellites on Russia's western border. "The West is using Ukraine as a proxy in the eyes of Russians. Ukraine is just a pawn in the big game of weakening Russia."

carol.williams@latimes.com

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