We are honored to publish the video of the oustanding Masterclass lectured by Lieutenant Colonel Donald Snedeker of the US Army. An event hold within the framework of the Master’s Degree in Military History of INISEG, your International Institute for Studies on Global Security, and FUINMA, the International University Foundation of Madrid.
In this exciting lecture, Lt. Col. Donald Snedeker recounts both his battelfield experiencies in Vietnam and the strategic and tactic use of armored vehicles by South Vietnamese, American and Viet Cong forces during the conflict. Colonel Snedeker’s conclusion, as per his own experience commanding armored units in Vietnam, is that this kind of offensive/defensive equipement was initially misused by the Army due to a lack of understanding and confidence on its performance in a terrain and a climate such as the ones in Vietnam.
After 1969, however, the operations in which armored units where properly used by the US Army and the ARVN forces achieved outstanding results and effectively helped reducing casualties in combat. Our guest also provides detailed information about the deployement of Australian and South Korean forces in Vietnam and the correct use they made of their armored vehicules since the beginning of its military involvement in the conflict.
Lieutenant Colonel (U.S. Cavalry, Retired) Donald C. Snedeker graduated from the US Army Command and General Staff College in 1982, the German Armed Forces Staff College in 1984 and the US Army War College in 1992. In 1969 he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant of Armor and arrived in Vietnam. He served in combat until October 1970 as an Armored Cavalry Platoon Leader, Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol Platoon Leader and as a Squadron Staff Officer.
Subsequently, he served as an Armored Cavalry Troop Commander on the border between West and East Germany. He served as a member of the Armored Reconnaissance Scout Vehicle Task Force that selected the M3 “Bradley” as the future, at that time, scout vehicle for the Army. He was assigned as the speechwriter for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Adm. William Crowe and Gen. Colin Powell).
Col. Snedeker also led teams as part of conventional and nuclear arms control treaty inspections in the URSS and Warsaw Pact countries. He retired in 1992 as a Lieutenant Colonel and since then has authored two books, The Blackhorse in Vietnam and Blackhorse Tales. (Click on the hyperlinks or the book covers to purchase them in Amazon.)
Col. Snedeker received the Bronze Star “V” for valor, the Federal Republic of Germany Federal Service Cross in Silver and the US Army Armor Association’s Order of Saint George in Silver, among other awards and condecorations.
Blog GRIP will keep publishing a selection of Masterclasses and lectures on military history and military conflicts, with a special emphasis, albeit not exclusive, on the Vietnam War (the Second Indochina War), direct consequence and legacy of the First Indochina War, a conflict taught by Professor Juanjo Alarcón in the Master’s Degree in Contemporary Military Conflicts, whose video presentation is also available on Blog Grip. Incidentally, Prof. Juanjo Alarcón is the host of these lectures.
We really hope that this series of selected lectures may spark your interest in the topics presented in each one of them. And since they are all part of the Area on Security and Defense and the Master’s Degree in Military History of INISEG, we provide you with the links to INISEG’s academic offer directly related to the lectures we publish:
