At the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Missouri River south of today’s Sioux City, Iowa, possessed a series of long, graceful bends and a relatively deep, narrow, main channel. But by the mid-nineteenth century, that meandering river began to disappear, replaced by an altogether different kind of river.
In the 1840’s and 1850’s, a wet precipitation cycle began across the Missouri drainage basin. Heavy winter snows, and torrential spring and summer rains, caused the Missouri to flood more frequently.
Agricultural settlement also fostered flooding. Continue Reading »
In August 1965, while General William C. Westmoreland’s finalized the details of his ground war strategy, 700 skytroopers from the 1st Cavalry Division disembarked from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Boxer at the port of Qui Nhon, South Vietnam. At the time, international military analysts considered the 1st Cavalry (whose troopers called themselves the “First Team”) to be the most technologically sophisticated ground combat unit in the world. The 1st Cavalry’s large contingent of helicopters, including the new UH-1 Huey and twin-rotor CH-47 Chinook, provided the skytroopers unprecedented mobility; and in modern warfare, mobility translated into killing power. 
On June 28, 1965, President Johnson gave General William C. Westmoreland the authority to commence offensive ground operations against the Vietcong and North Vietnamese across all of South Vietnam. Although Westmoreland now had a green light to wage a ground war, he still had not firmed up his strategy, or concept of operations, for the employment of U.S. troops. Nevertheless, the MACV chief did have an idea of how he wanted to use the ever-increasing number of U.S. combat troops then entering South Vietnam. In a telegram to the Commander-In-Chief, Pacific, Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp, Westmoreland revealed his understanding of the nature of the war in South Vietnam and how he wanted to deploy U.S. combat troops. 
On January 23, 1966, the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division, along with the Marines based at Chu Lai, began the first division-size search and destroy operation of the Vietnam War. In addition to 6,000 soldiers of the 1st Cavalry and 4,000 Marines, the operation involved four regular ARVN battalions, five ARVN ranger battalions and two battalions from a South Korean division. This large operation had initially been given the code name “Masher,” but President Johnson worried that that name would convey the message that the U.S. military was insensitive to the taking of Asian lives. Thus, at the request of the White House, General Westmoreland changed the name from “Masher” to “White Wing.”[1] 
Modern wars and military bases are synonymous. Bases hold the equipment, weapons, ammunition, aircraft, communications technology, vehicles, fuel, food, and clothing necessary to wage highly-mobile, technologically-sophisticated warfare. They are also the places where troops are housed, as well as organized, armed, and equipped for combat. And when battles erupt, soldiers sally forth from their bases to confront the enemy. Then, if all goes well, they return to the safety of their bases to rest and refit. Military bases are geographical weapons of war – as important to combat as fighter bombers, helicopters, and armored personnel carriers.
