Sunday, January 6, 2019

"Technology" in place of a real wall

We tried that once.  I was in Thailand back during the war.  We tried to close the Ho Chi Minh trail.  It was a real foot path, running from North Viet Nam, down thru Laos, to South Viet Nam.  The Viet Cong got all their supplies back packed down the trail.  It took a lotta comrades with back packs to equal what we brought to our troops using a single Army truck.   The trail ran under triple canopy jungle all the way.  You could not see it from the air.  The jungle canopy was so thick that when we dropped 1000 pound bombs we could not see the leaves even ripple when they exploded on the ground. 
   So, we dropped sensors up and down the trail where we thought it ran.  We brought in a squadron of big four engine C121 Super Constellation  recon aircraft to fly up and down the trail reading all the sensors, which were mostly microphones.  The plan was to have the Connies call in air strikes when ever they detected anything on the trail.  All they ever picked up was some monkeys, screaming at each other, and some water buffalo crashing thru the underbrush.  Never detected any comrades for us to bomb. 
   Now I am hearing Democrats on TV saying that "technology" is better to secure the southern border than a plain old wall.  Every time I hear that it reminds me of closing the Ho Chi Minh trail with "technology". 

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