Unequal foes.

Most of our guys wounded in a “Ball Game”, firefight, had every chance of getting medical aid quickly and so had a greater chance of surviving, and no matter how badly wounded. However, at best, a wounded VC grunt may reach his nearest jungle base or friendly village, but they were often miles from his A.O, area of operation. Many VC grunts died because they could not get treatment quickly enough, and obviously, that suited our side just fine. Also, the possibility his buddies would come to the rescue of a wounded or trapped VC grunt was almost nonexistent.

In addition, an American unit could correct its foul-ups most of the time even with unit casualties or expectants, but when the Charlie fouled-up, in the most part it was always fatal for they knew they were far inferior to us in arms, equipment, and numbers. So they compensated for this downside by the use of strategy and precise planning, and those who understood the benefit of such proper tactical thinking knew that although the VC would sometimes foul-up, they never made the same foul-up twice.

Unfortunately, some on our side considered such VC precise planning with rehearsals, and the use of “mock-ups”, tactical models, a waste of time, or proof of cowardice, even a lack of discipline and ignoring the fact our better trained used the same proven as effective tactical planning method. In addition, there was another wrong-headed way of thinking on our side by some in a leadership role. In that, they despised the VC for not standing ground, and it was due to dimwitted notions such as "The pajama boys run when they see us” or “They are afraid to fight, so they settle for shooting at us from ambush.”. Well now, as Special Forces will tell, that when small in number facing a large force it is better to piss-off rapid and possibly ambush later, than just stick around and get slaughtered.

Therefore, guerrilla and small force tactical strategy is always based on ambushes, quick attacks, and brief skirmishes, for it is virtually impossible for such forces to engage in big battles. When they do, they suffer very heavy losses, and even in small actions, guerrilla and any small numbered forces face an acute danger of subjected to annihilation when facing superior numbers and / or bombs and other air delivered ordnance, for an Air Force can reach almost any point of a battlefield within a short space of time.