Col Anthony Wood, USMC (Ret.), "Saigon and Contingency Planning"

(NOTE: there were microphone feedback issues on our side that we were not able to completely eliminate in post-production, but Col Wood's audio is loud and clear throughout.)

The end of 2021 is almost here, and #TeamKrulak was grateful and excited to have a fantastic guest on its final #BruteCast of the year. We were joined by Col Anthony A. Wood, United States Marine Corps (retired), whose service in uniform extended over three decades. In addition to commanding infantry and reconnaissance units at many levels, his wide-ranging career impacted a number of forward-thinking Marine Corps efforts. On assignment to Marine Corps Headquarters he served as the principal author in developing the US Navy and Marine Corps “Maritime Prepositioning Concept”, and then supervised the implementation of a national strategic response capability based on forward positioning three squadrons of specially configured ships filled with the supplies and equipment to support Marine Brigades.

While serving as Chief of Staff for Marine Forces in the Pacific, Col Wood was dispatched to Russia in 1993 where, over a three-week period of negotiations, he successfully concluded a major tension reduction agreement and multi-year exercise program with senior Russian military leaders in the Pacific theater. His last Marine Corps billet was as founder and first Commanding Officer of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory from 1995-1998, where under his leadership the laboratory spearheaded the four-year series of Marine Corps Sea Dragon experiments designed to recast military capabilities in a mold appropriate to emerging counter terrorist requirements.

But in this episode, he focused on a story from the earlier part of his career. In January 1975, as North Vietnamese forces closed on Saigon, Major General Homer Smith, United States Army, the Defense Attache in Saigon, transferred then-Captain Wood to the Defense Attache Office where has was directed to join the newly formed Special Planning Group with the mission of secretly developing a plan for the evacuation of Saigon. In the course of that operation he worked with a group of over 100 American civilian volunteers who assumed great risk to remain without protection and evacuate over 5000 persons from the collapsing capital to the safety of waiting Marine helicopters. A fascinating story in its own right, the evacuation also holds a number of lessons for contingency planning that remain highly relevant in the present day.

Col Wood referenced the Marine Corps History Division publication U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Bitter End, 1973-1975 several times in his presentation; you can find a digital copy of the book here: https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/U.S.%20Marines%20in%20Vietnam_The%20Bitter%20End%201973-1975%20%20PCN%201900310900_1.pdf

Intro/outro music is "Evolution" from BenSound.com (https://www.bensound.com)

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