My Vietnam military experience was spent as a section leader for the Fire and Direction Control for a 105 mm towed howitzer unit. We did the calculations for howitzers and directed fire to prescribed targets. One of our jobs was directing Harassment & Interdiction fire.
“In 1965, the U.S. military in South Vietnam began conducting what officials called harassment and interdiction missions, or “H and I” fire. Harassment and interdiction fire involved the shelling, by artillery and mortars, of known or suspected areas of Communist activity. In the northern province of Quang Ngai, where the Vietcong controlled most of the countryside, that meant almost the entire province.
The bulk of H and I fire fell on river crossings, footpaths, trail junctures, gullies, ridgelines, or where river valleys left the highlands and entered the coastal plain. These landscape features acted as North Vietnamese and Vietcong lines of communication. American artillery batteries also regularly shelled the likely approaches to the U.S.’s divisional bases, fire support bases, and night defensive positions.[1]
Occasionally, H and I fire was truly random, striking a rice paddy, a riverbank, a grove of trees, or a hamlet.[2] American commanders justified H and I on the grounds that it kept the enemy off-balance, deterred Communist troop movements, terrorized the Vietcong, and enhanced the defenses of U.S. and South Vietnamese bases. Like the intensive U.S. aerial bombardment of the South Vietnamese countryside, H and I fire became a ubiquitous feature of the Vietnam War. The U.S. never abandoned its use, even though its effectiveness as a counter-insurgency tactic became increasingly suspect.” Continue @ ecointheknow.com/
I have often equated the random killing of Black men to H & I fire, the purpose of H & I’s were to keep the enemy on the edge and afraid. The killing of Black men with seeming impunity meets my criteria of Harassment and Interdiction, as mothers and fathers give their children the “The Talk“; as Black professional athletes cringe before the TV camera with tears in their eyes; as White Supremacist continue to justify murder; as White Supremacist claim there is no such thing as White privilege; and as Black men continue to be murdered.
Recently, I ran an analysis by a YouTube personality called “Prof Black Truth” who more specifically outlines the insidiousness of this crime. As the riotous uproar of police accountability continues the Prof looks at the issue much closer as he looks at the obvious collaboration between the judicial system and the police. Yes, I said collaboration. Take a look at his analysis, not his braggadocio. All of us, Black folks, in particular, if Black Lives Matter we need to hold all of our public officials and elected officials to much scrutiny.
TRADOC G2 Handbook 1.08, Irregular Forces
1.08 IrregularForcesTRADOC_G2_Hdbk_1.08 20dec10
Training Circular No. 7-100.3: Irregular Opposing Forces
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