From chrisica@email.msn.com Sun Aug 12 07:59:30 2001 Received: from mxu102.u.washington.edu (mxu102.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.15]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with ESMTP id f7CExT070674 for ; Sun, 12 Aug 2001 07:59:29 -0700 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by mxu102.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with SMTP id f7CExST28009 for ; Sun, 12 Aug 2001 07:59:28 -0700 Received: FROM cpimssmtpu01.email.msn.com BY mxu2.u.washington.edu ; Sun Aug 12 07:59:28 2001 -0700 Received: from chrisica ([63.23.117.166]) by cpimssmtpu01.email.msn.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.3779); Sun, 12 Aug 2001 07:59:03 -0700 From: "Christopher Robbins" To: Subject: RE: Battle of Thermopylae - drifting Tannish Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 11:00:04 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 In-Reply-To: <3B75B52C.4D56489D@mail.lemoyne.edu> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 12 Aug 2001 14:59:04.0306 (UTC) FILETIME=[540BDD20:01C1233F] John McMahon writes: >Immortalized by the late lamented Phil Ochs in his "The Marines Have Landed >on the Shores of Santo Domingo," something you *never* heard on the radio >in those days. Of the event itself Phil once quipped: "I was over there, >entertaining the troops. I won't say which troops." "Which troops", indeed, John? For there were three distinct contingents of "troops" involved in this matter, these being: 1) A rebel element of the Fuerzas Armadas dominicanas, which seized control of Santo Domingo on 24-25 April 1965 to reinstate Bosch (who was earlier deposed in Sep 1963) and distributed arms to almost everyone in the area it held; 2) A second element of the Fuerzas Armadas dominicanas, which controlled the rest of the country, opposed the rebels and sought American intervention to oust contingent 1 from the capital; 3) The American military units LBJ sent to realize that intervention, which sealed off the rebel-held area of Santo Domingo and secured a neutral zone while the talks went on for almost 4 months that led to the truce, the end of the rebel enterprise (hence of contingent 1) and the provisional government. There was a measure of undeniable combat involved in this operation for almost all the line units, and the sniper fire mentioned in Phil Ochs' song was well familiar to my own unit's mission. In a larger sense, however, the matter was effectively settled in a figurative "overnight". The original leader of the rebel military contingent fled to safety in Colombia before the end of April, Bosch himself was more a figurehead than a force (he was never reinstalled), and on 6 May the OAS voted to set up an inter-American peace force to control a neutral zone. Once the rebel held areas were reduced and sealed off, it was over, save a few mop-up chores outside the cordon, which a certain Spanish-speaking SF unit was charged to take care of. From then on it was all talk, Panmunjom redux, so to speak, and the truce cum largely-inevitable agreement was reached at the end of August. As the song seems to suggest, the Marines were indeed the first to go in, and with only about 500 guys initially, I think. Probably a battalion. It was in friendly-held territory as well, so it was no Iwo Jima. But there will be no disrespect for the US Marine Corps from this former Infantry officer, because I believe the more praiseworthy parts of its reputation are deserved. Even so, the 82d Airborne was the true hammer in this event, if in part simply by dint of its numbers. Actually our little hispanohablante SF unit may have had one of the more dangerous missions, that of finding and neutralizing pockets of resistance that were outside the sealed-off rebel zone. Phil Ochs (of whom this long-time guitar player was something of a fan, along with the K-3, the Weavers, the Limelighters, PP&M, Dylan, Baez, et alia) did not "entertain the troops" during the roughly ten months that my SF unit was there, at least not that I am aware of. Of course, the front-line troops are never the ones who know about or get to enjoy those sort of things. That's a rear echelon perk almost exclusively. But if he did get there, it was not going to be during the brief period of the fighting, nor was he (or much else) going to get into that cordoned-off area where the rebels were enclosed. And once the truce accord was reached and the provisional government in place (beginning of Sep), there were no more rebel troops that one could entertain, or at least none distinctively organized in a way that one could identify them or claim to have sung to them. So if Phil Ochs was "there, entertaining the troops" in the D.R. at some point during the occupation crisis, the "troops" he entertained would have to have been the "troops" of the above-mentioned contingents 2 or 3. Which is to say that in political terms (surely the intent of the quip) these were the same troops, or at least the troops on the same side of the political issue. Which is to say that the "I won't say which troops" allusion is spurious. It's a cute quip, though. For those who don't know the history. CRR NYC Chrisica@msn.com PS: Decipit frons prima multos. Experto credite. (This a frail, last-ditch effort for classical content). :-) .