(Via Milinet)
Washington Post
May 4, 2000
Pg. J5
Military Matters
By Steve Vogel, Washington Post Staff
Remembering Failed Iranian Mission
"T.S. Eliot once called April the cruelest month," Gen. Henry
Shelton
reminded a crowd of 200 who gathered on a cold, rain-soaked day
at
Arlington National Cemetery last week. April 2000, as Shelton
noted,
had its share of sad anniversaries for the U.S. military.
Most of the attention focused on the 25th anniversary of the
fall of
Saigon on April 30, 1975. But another sad day in U.S. history
was
remembered at the Tomb of the Unknowns on April 25, the 20th
anniversary of Desert One.
Eight Americans were killed April 25, 1980, in the botched
attempt to
rescue 53 U.S. hostages who were being held by Iranian radicals
at
the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
President Jimmy Carter had ordered the rescue attempt after six
months of frustration over Iran's refusal to release the
hostages.
The operation, named Eagle Claw, was not a simple one.
Helicopters flying from a carrier in the Persian Gulf were to
ferry
Delta Force commandos to a location outside Tehran from which
the
rescue would be launched. First the helicopters would have to
rendezvous for refueling with C-130s flying from a base in Oman
at a
spot in Iran labeled Desert One.
A swirling sandstorm and mechanical problems forced two
helicopters
to drop out. As the forces gathered at Desert One, a third
helicopter
developed a hydraulic leak. Deciding he no longer had the force
needed to succeed, the commander, Army Col. Charles Beckwith,
scrubbed the mission.
Matters turned disastrous shortly after that when one of the
helicopters collided with a C-130 transport plane loaded with
fuel.
Eight men died in the resulting fireball. The rest escaped, but
the
mission's failure spelled doom for the Carter administration and
forced the military to rethink how it conducted joint
operations.
The focus last week at Arlington was not on the failures.
"When I think about the sheer audacity of the Eagle Claw
mission,
when I consider the enormity of the task . . . when I examine
the
political situation at the time in both Iran and America, and
when I
reflect on the results--both positive and negative--I am awed,"
Shelton, who is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told
those
gathered. "I stand in the company of giants and in the shadow of
eight genuine American heroes."
Relatives of many of those killed were on hand for the ceremony,
sponsored by No Greater Love, a Washington-based nonprofit
dedicated
to caring for the families of Americans who died in service to
the
country.
Many veterans of the Desert One operation also attended, and
they
escorted family members as they placed roses on the common grave
of
three of the casualties. Nearly a dozen former hostages saluted
the
sacrifices made on their behalf by placing U.S. flags on a
remembrance panel.
The eight servicemen honored included three Marines: Sgt. John
D.
Harvey, of Roanoke; Cpl. George N. Holmes Jr., of Pine Bluff,
Ark.;
and Staff Sgt. Dewey Johnson, of Dublin, Ga. The five Air Force
personnel honored were Maj. Richard L. Bakke, of Long Beach,
Calif.;
Maj. Harold L. Lewis Jr., of Fort Walton Beach, Fla.; Tech. Sgt.
Joel
C. Mayo, of Harrisville, Mich.; Capt. Lyn D. McIntosh, of
Valdosta,
Ga.; and Capt. Charles T. McMillan of Corryton, Tenn.
Lauren Beth Harvey--at 21, the same age as her father, John
Harvey,
when he died at Desert One--read the No Greater Love "Pledge of
Peace."
Shelton compared the Iranian mission to the 1804 raid on Tripoli
led
by Lt. Stephen Decatur. "Just as the Tripoli raid was the most
daring
act of its age, Eagle Claw was one of the most daring acts of
our
age," Shelton said. "That it did not achieve its objective does
not
detract in any way, in any measure, from the heroism of those
who
tried."
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