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Comment by lefstathiou | Hacker News Reader

My childhood best friend went into the Army to be a Ranger. He once told me that there is basically no higher priority event than a search and rescue mission. Down to a man, if you are captured, or at risk of capture, special forces and black hawks get called in with the ability to use any means necessary to get you out of there alive. He said it was an extreme source of pride for him personally to see how far they went to save their men on the ground and that this policy empowered you to fight harder and more confidently knowing that the full force of the US military was behind you (ie "no soldier left behind")

While I am no expert on these things, a few of the videos / articles / images I've seen of Russians fighters in Ukraine lead me to believe they don't feel this similar level of support from their armed forces, which could be contributing adversely to the outcome (from their perspective).

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See, e.g., the unbelievable heroics — and losses — in rescuing a shot-down American flier during (what we call) the Vietnam war, including a Navy SEAL who was awarded* the Medal of Honor for his astonishing feats in finally getting the guy out more than ten days after he was downed.

* For those who don't know: Recipients of medals for valor in combat (I'm not a member of that august group) don't like it when people say they "won" the medals, because all too often some of their friends died in the engagement; the preferred usage is that someone "received" or "was awarded" the medal in question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_Bat_21_Bravo

Sounds like there was something at play besides pure camaraderie and no-man-left-behind ethos:

> Hambleton had Top Secret access to Strategic Air Command operations and was an expert in surface-to-air missile countermeasures. The North Vietnamese Army may have possessed information about his presence in Vietnam and his capture would have meant a huge intelligence bonanza for the Soviet Union.

Why did you say "what we call" in reference to the Vietnam war?

Is there another name for it? Besides the obvious name of whatever the "enemy" called it at the time?

> Why did you say "what we call" in reference to the Vietnam war?

I guess I was thinking that HN is a very multinational forum, and I don't know what people in other countries would call the Vietnam War.

(I'm reminded of how genteel Southern ladies supposedly used to refer to the Civil War as The Late Unpleasantness.)

Apparently in Vietnam it's commonly called (what translates as) "Resistance War against America".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminology_of_the_Vietnam_War

Technically not a “war”

>a few of the videos / articles / images I've seen of Russians fighters in Ukraine lead me to believe they don't feel this similar level of support from their armed forces,

I'd mostly agree with the russian opinion (from what I've seen), but i certaily haven't seen it regarding the Ukranians. r/combatfootage r/ukkranianwarvideoreport etc.. Quite the opposite. I'd guess being trained by the us and uk has had an effect. As an aside, whenever ukraine forces pass, they always wave to each other.

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