I think that is painting with too broad a brush.

Yes, it was, but Michel's anti-SAC bias shines throughout the book and is the
only negative aspect to his writing. I felt he could drop the anti-SAC attitude
and still make his point.

And, Marsh points out, the unresponsiveness of the SAC leadership to
the requests of the local commanders cost a lot of B-52 crews their
lives or freedom on day 1 through 6 of LB II.

Absolutely agree.

They had previously been able to take strikes and bring their
significant manpower to bear in restoring operations in days or even
hours. With LB II, the round-the-clock intensity meant that couldn't
be done.

Ed, the railyard at Kihn No was still out of action from strikes in November,
same holds true for the Thai Nguyen Thermal Power Plant. I don't disagree that
some significant damage was inflicted, but it was not significant enough to
impact the political leadership in NVN. They returned to Paris because congress
never went into session (most likely because they had recessed for Christmas)
and voted to suspend military funding. The NVN looked out the window, heard the
air raid sirons and said; "we're not getting anything for this". They didn't
look out the window and say; "my God, the damage is so horrible if it continues
we'll be destroyed, we must stop it."

But, in LB II, we escalated to a previously unused level of force and
in a very short period restruck almost every significant target in the
area.

and struck them again and again and again....

I've got to state that while participation doesn't guarantee
understanding, it does provide insight and a level of detail that
can't be gleaned from poring through micro-fiche archives of op-rep 4s
and unit histories written by a squadron Lt as an additional duty.

How about most of the sources Michel used (I even included his work)? Michel
did the same thing I did (plus conduct interviews). Are you saying his work is
suspect or does he get a pass "because he was there"?

It contains a few stories about Linebacker I and II seen
out the front window rather than from the back of the library.


I'm sorry Ed, but I'm still going to have to disagree that "being there" is any
more important to accurate fact collecting. In fact, in my case, and I've said
this before, if someone writes a book on Iraqi Freedom, I'll be the first one
to buy it, because I was so damn busy in my own little world that the big
picture swept completely buy me.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"