The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1422: The Grenada Invasion w/ Thomas777

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

52 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.Thomas and Pete talk about the impetus for the US invasion of Grenada on October 25, 1983. This was episode 966.Thomas' SubstackRadio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Buy Me a CoffeeThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekinao show. I'm going to take a little break from the World War I series today, being that this week is the 50th anniversary of the 40th anniversary. Sorry about that. Of the invasion of Grenada. So Thomas wanted to talk about that. And yeah, I was eager to hear about it because being as old as I am, I remember. exactly where I was the day that it happened and it came across the radio, not even the TV, not the internet, the radio. So take it away, Thomas. It's an important development.

In the epoch, as you remember, there was a lot of people, I mean, Reagan was negotiating a hostile Congress at that time. And in addition to that, there was just sort of the traditional kind of opponents of the Reagan coalition who viewed any kind of direct action anywhere on this planet against Soviet proxies

to be somehow an escalation of of hostilities that ran risk of of sabotaging you know the the delicate balance of power and even people had a more charitable view

there's kind of just like the dismissive kind of bumper sticker logic of oh that's just because Reagan had to had to chalk up a victory after the bombing of the marine barracks and it was just a flex on the Soviets that's really the wrong way to look at it for all kinds of reasons and unlike today any military deployment whether it was open-ended or very limited by you know clear mission parameters it had it had consequences um that um were pretty potentially, you know, global systemic in nature. You know, people weren't, people didn't flippantly make these decisions.

And in the case of Grenada, the only way it can be understood is within the same kind of paradigm of escalation that had already been underway since detain ended. And America had taken a series of military losses. I mean, that's just America, the entire Western alliance, you know, the United States, NATO, and allied states, they can't be denied. I make the point to people again and again, that America was losing the Cold War in military terms when Reagan took the oath of office.

That wasn't Neo-Connish, Team B propaganda, that wasn't just silly John Bertrand type stuff. I mean, that was inarguable. And it was an odd period of transition conceptually as regards how military matters were contemplated. This is when the revolution in military affairs was underway, like, literally, like, the kind of, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the research that led to the technology that ultimately facilitated it and resolved some of these uncertainties was literally then underway. But it wasn't yet clear, you know, what kind of the new force structure should be to combat Warsaw. pact. You know, this was, 1983 was exactly a decade after the draft had been abolished. The military

was still adjusting to that. There was a fascinating paradigm underway by which strategic nuclear parity had been accomplished by the late 70s. You know, that was the first time it could truly be said that there was like genuine parity between NATO and Warsaw Pact in terms of strategic nuclear forces in being now that had the effect of suddenly making conventional forces a lot more relevant okay i mean in the opinion of somebody like me they'd always been relevant they never become not relevant but in the minds of war planners and other people um you know directly connected to executive decision making this was a game changer so a conventional arms race kicked into high gear at the same time that you know deeper parodies were

emergent in order to sort of break the nuclear stalemate owing to you know um parity of of capabilities and firepower as it were between strategic nuclear arsenals so all kinds of things were underway um and most significantly you know again the communists were winning the war militarily, not just on the periphery, but increasingly in theaters that, if not, part of the core, you know, essential theaters that America was committed to defending, no matter what, you know, those territories immediately adjacent. And contemplate, too, that, you know, obviously that Truman Doctrine was dead. after the fall of Saigon.

But there just wasn't a political will to really meet the challenge posed by communist insurgents acting as the direct, you know, proxies of the Soviet Union. You know, and since throughout the entire preceding decade, you know, there'd been a There'd been one comedy's victory after another, just chocked up. The Sino-Soviet split, of course, which, as people know, who've watched our content on historical matters, was very much a master's stroke by Mr. Nixon and Kistinger, such that they were the ones who facilitated it. And I think they played an essential role in facilitating it. that neutralized in immediate terms,

the immediate strategic benefit conferred by Moscow's victory by proxy in Vietnam, but it didn't, but not completely. And particularly in terms of credibility, you know, this was a huge, this conferred tremendous credibility on the Soviet Union in the developing world, and that's the population,

mattered in this regard um the USA and the people who know look at China with reservations ended up in the United States case the reservation at least you know back democratic Campuchia which was the Khmer Rouge regime against Vietnam which had somewhat further hamstrung Soviet freedom of action however Hanoi didn't return the serb by simply assaulting Campo Chia deposing the Khmer Rouge occupying the country over a decade. In 1971, the U.S.S.R. strongly backed India and the Indo-Pakistan War

as a hedge against the people's republic of China. The tensions that provoke that conflict itself derived in a large part from the, was called the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation. It was a loose treaty in the sense that it didn't outline express conditions

whereby the Soviet Union or Warsaw Pact would deploy in direct defense of India. But it expressed in pretty unambiguous terms that India was now within the Soviet sphere of influence and that threats to the sovereignty of it and its basic security would be met with force. So, I mean, basically, this was this was a Soviet Union boxing in China on the subcontinent and declaring of China deployed at scale against India. You know, they'd be met that there would be a, there would be a Warsaw Pact response. you know and um on the heels of that there was a the situation in angola a communist insurgents supported by a Cuban contingent that at its height you know

reached about 50,000 combat troops and ultimately due to the South African defense forces into the into the in lieu which I believe was the intent of the communist all along but be as it may um the reason my Colonel Callan for those who know the lore of Angola and these crazy mercenaries. I mean, I'm not saying that punitively. These guys had tremendous balls and they were they were real warriors. But you know, you had that London was running around, you know, corralling these mercenary types and these, these dirty dozen types into these kinds of suicide missions literally because there just wasn't, I mean, the UK was tied down in Operation Banner in Northern Arkansas.

Ireland, which was going to hell at the time. But, you know, there wasn't the political will for some kind of general intervention in Africa, you know, by the United States, by the UK, by France. And it's not clear how that would have been tolerated on the ground, even by nominally friendly elements. You know, these were not, these were not reliable allies, as it were. But, and then finally, I mean, the nail in the coffin, of course, was, you know, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But probably the most significant for our purpose, is, and this relates directly to the Grenada, the Battle of Grenada, was kind of the jewel in the crown of Warsaw-upact victories by proxy in this period of supposed detente was the victory

of the San Antonio East and National Liberation Front in Nicaragua. You know, and as we discussed, I think, on a previous episode, the interdependence, the complex interdependence between Nicaragua and East Germany as well as the Soviet Union was tremendous. It was zealously cultivated by like a year just yeah like a year after the at the revolution being consolidated Daniel Ortega you know who was the the chief executive of the San Anaster regime he received enough material from East Berlin to equip an army like literally really an army, you know, like 45,000 uniforms, 10,000 battle dress uniforms, you know, thousands of binoculars and compasses, you know, thousands of, of rifles from the, from the

DDR and the Soviet Union, you know, and, and of course, the core of this effort, there was a, the military aid effort was a training course for San Dneesda officers that lasted up to three years whereby Nicaragua and officer candidates would be flown to East Germany, you know, and trained on the island of Rugen, basically in, you know, what was then cutting edge like Warsaw Pact tactics, okay? And I mean, obviously what they were doing, what the Warsaw Pact was doing was they were trying to rectify the geostrategic imbalance that always, no matter what other variables were present, always, always, you know, had Worsopac's off-packs in a precarious situation, only to the fact that America could deploy within,

within decapitation range of Moscow. Okay, America could literally deploy, and as regards conventional forces, I mean, they could literally deploy, you know, like on the inter-German border, you know. So, an event of war, this, this, the, um, the, um, war itself pact is always, they were starting from the onset of potential hostilities. They were basically fighting, like, when almost, amounted to like a rearguard action, like even, you know, even before they'd taken a single casualty, you know, and this had to be, this had to be remedied. Um, if, uh, if the strategic

balance conventional or, uh, otherwise was going to be swayed in their favor. And obviously, the only way this was going to happen is if, you know, real estate, coveted real estate in, in the Americas could be, you know, turn to red. And not just turn red, but, um, flipped and transformed or cultivated as reliable, you know, client governments. And in the case of Nicaragua, this was definitely happening. Okay. Now, I think of an idea of why this was so critical. I think we talked before about the dual-track strategy of how Reagan's people

negotiated to get intermediate nuclear forces out of Europe, you know, beginning in 1979. And the INF Treaty was finally realized in 1987. But, you know, the platform that was kind of the center of that issue was the Pershing 2 platform, you know, as well as these ground-launched cruise missiles that, you know, were nuclear capable. I mean, the reason why America slash NATO had the kind of bargaining power they did is because there was no, the Soviets had no remedy in kind. You know, it's not, there's no way they could threaten to deploy that had similar, that has similar implications. Okay. That all of that would have changed, you know, if, if worse off at client regimes and the Americas.

could have been established. Now this brings us to Grenada. What exactly is Grenada? Grenada consists of the island of Grenada itself and two smaller islands Carriacou and Petit Martinique. And there's several smaller islands apparently

that lie to the north of the Maine Islands and are part of the Grenadines. It's located northwest of Trinidad and Tobago and northeast of Venezuela and southeast of St. Vincent. It's a tiny place. It's 134 square miles. As of the 2020s, I think its population

is estimated to be around 125,000 people. But what it does, have is it has um proximity to um not just uh you know the americas the continental land masses of the americas but it's also situated if you look at a map the america the u.s fleet the u.s. Atlantic fleet to reach the open ocean um if uh if one could establish you know a um a naval presence um around Grenada, basically the Atlantic Fleet would have had to fight its way out and the way that the Soviet Navy was burdened with the fact that, you know, they were boxed in by the Greenland, Iceland, UK gap. I don't have like a visual map I can call up, but look at the map and you'll

see what I mean. But beyond that, you know, the issue, well, we'll get to what the we'll get to what the kind of key strategic value wasn't grenada a minute but just to kind of wrap up on its its political heritage um grenada had been uh it had belonged to the british empire it was seated to them under the treaty of paris in 1763 um except for a brief return to french rule in the early 1780s um it it remained uh you know a british uh uh territory until uh 1967 um it was granted full autonomy or its internal affairs and then full independence was um was declared uh in february 974 okay um the newly independent grenada joined the commonwealth of nations you know with uh with queen elizabeth as their as the nominal head of state um and

And five years later in March, 979, a Marxist-Leninist movement spontaneously emerged, calling itself the new Jewel movement. Overthrow, overthrew the ex-end regime and a bloodless coup d'etat. Established what they called the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada, headed by a man named Maurice Bishop as the prime minister. Now, Bishop was arrested and executed by members of the People's Revolutionary Army shortly before the assault at Renata. Now, one who was paying attention at the time when men in executive roles in these kind of lesser socials, Soviet client regimes, be it Afghanistan, or be it Angola, or be it Grenada, when they were suddenly non-seremoniously executed, that tended to indicate some sort of, they were indicated in some

sort of internal crisis within the, you know, the, within the regime itself. more often it indicated an intention by the Soviet Union to alter the policy course in some profound and dramatic way. I believe that's got to be considered when we talk about, you know, like why Reagan ordered the invasion when he did. Now, what was most significant, I want to take us back a minute to, what the kind of prevailing military wisdom is. You'll see where I'm going with this. You don't understand why it was critical to assault Grenada. You've got to understand what the state of strategic thinking was.

Okay. As the Daytona era, or at least the fiction of it, got underway in earnest, you know, in 1974, 75, 76, what emerged is kind of like the dominant land warfare doctrine in the U.S. Army and in NATO generally. was what came to be called active defense, okay? I think this was basically sound, okay? And which is interesting because it, it, what developed subsequently, I think,

can only be understood to be like the dialectical progeny of the entire body of theory of active defense, coupled with, you know, the emergence of, as I said, like some of these revolutionary command and control technologies that you know are under development but not yet utile and certainly not yet deployable um but it's it's a tendency of any kind of like bureaucracy to that they're going to shun everything that came before without recognizing the the essential relationship they're in um the of as progenitor i mean but the other effective defense is that blitzkrieg doesn't rely it all upon overwhelming numerical advantages it doesn't even call for conditions of parity for the

work um all it calls for it is to require breakthroughs in the main line of resistance and one can do that by skillfully massing um firepower at the scherpunct and then once a breakthrough is accomplished you'll rapidly exploiting it, and doing everything with anyone's power to lay waste, to the enemy's organizational capability behind the lines, and essentially kill his ability to continue operations. The criticism of this was and is that... Blitz Creek is only locally effective or that, or that style of assault is only locally effective. Because what it does is it leaves reserves intact who are not attritioned yet.

And thus it, you have like an overburdened, overtaxed, exhausted assault force. It's locally victorious, you know, and then it's charged with, you know, defending, um, in situ against, you know, fresh reserves. That's fucked up thinking for a lot of reasons, some of which are kind of outside the scope of what we're talking about today. It's no secret that being sick, frail, and weak makes you easier to antagonize and manipulate. Even worse, it forces you to rely upon a system that seeks to keep you that way.

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start investing your health for the long term. Thank you. Let me ask you something. Wouldn't the doctrine of Blitzkrieg, wouldn't it demand more space than what, 14 square miles or something like that? Blitzkrieg, you're trying to constantly move the line. You're trying to constantly move where the line is so that everyone's kept discombobbled. Yeah, ideally, I mean, ideally, ideally the battle space is vast. I mean, comparatively, but that's not essential. I mean, the, what changed in, the reason why this kind of disdain for the whole concept of active defense, what ruled the battlefield from, I mean, even by the 1970s, even by the era in which this was under discussion in active policy terms, if you could, if you could annihilate command

and control and, like, leave the enemy, like, blind and death, I mean, you could, you could just, they kill him at will. It's like this idea that like, oh, I, you know, I accomplished a break, I broke the mainline of resistance here at this point of attack, but like now I'm going to be fucked because somehow, you know, there's a, there's, you know, there's reserves in

three directions within like 300 kilometers. You know, it's like, that's great, man. They're like blind in death, you know, and I'm not, you know, I can take my time and kill all of them. And that's exactly what happened in 1999 Gulf War, for example. But be it as it may, this all came about this entire kind of like reevaluate.

I mean, America had like a staff system that they borrowed from, you know, the Prussians and then the Germans. But it didn't, it didn't, I mean, in a command capacity, it operated like as intended, but it didn't really operate like the way like a European staff system traditionally did in terms like literally studying war, you know, like 24-7. that changed a bit as the Vietnam were wound down. The U.S. Army in particular, particularly, again, as conventional forces became relevant again, I mean, I think it was ridiculous to people suggesting that they weren't relevant. But within the bounder rationale of what policy planners and military brass were thinking at the time, that's what I'm speaking of, they, you know, people started thinking a lot about, about Army infantry and like better ways to align it with emergent command of control technology

and the organization facilitated they're in like with respect to like real world conflicts as they would probably emerge okay um US Army training and doctrine command under the direction of a guy named General DePuy was foreign in 1970s to study precisely like these issues and to produce updated doctrine, you know, in a consistent way, you know, that they could keep up with kind of the technological curve and other things, you know, as well as, you know, as well as data from like then active, like, battle spaces all over the world. He, uh, and DePue was a big, I mean, he was a huge, like, advocate of active defense, okay, um, that's one of the reasons I find him. Him and William Odom, nobody, nobody, nobody, um,

put shade on Oda. these days, who knows anything, but they're both, but they do deploy, and both of them, I think, were guys who really, really deserve more credit than they're afforded. But in any event, the, what, what Tredoc training and doctrine command, what essentially concluded, by the end of the 1970s, you know, by the late 70s, very, very, very early 80s, they included there was really only too many possibilities for future conflicts, okay, where America was actually going to deploy to fight, all right? Either obviously like a major armored conflict in Europe, or, you know, a primarily or a fight on the periphery in any number of locations around the world. That was

primarily going to be like an infantry fight. Okay. The latter called for a force structure that America didn't really have at the time. Because America, even today, is like, always trying to fight, like, World War II. When America's forced structure today, literally makes zero sense. Like, it wasn't quite that irrational then, but, you know, the,

you do see footage, especially early on, guys deploying to Vietnam, you know, like, wearing, like, BDU's, like, fit for Europe, like, carrying, like, canned rations and shit. It's like, that's not how you fight in the jungle. You know, like,

You don't just decide you're going to fight World War II everywhere on this planet no matter what. You know, that's completely fucked up. But what deploy and Tredoc did what they did put in motion, I led to the development of what was called the rapid deployment force. In time, this was the seed of CENTCOM. Okay. And I mean, it was problematic. Because believe it or not, there was not,

there was not like a rapid deployment capability. You know, I mean, there was like the Air Cav, you know, there was like the fleet marine force. You know, there was, there were special forces who were like very game and very tough guys, obviously. But there was not this single command or like series of commands that could collaborate for mission oriented purposes, you know, and deploy, you know, some kind of like rapid reaction force. That's why at the Battle of Kotang, you know, where the U.S. fought the Commit Rouge, and 75. Initially, the Joint Chiefs, they were going to use a bunch of a bunch of a bunch of a bunch of air force like ground security police to carry it to pull it off. You know, then they're like, no, like we should, you know, let's let's give it to like Marine Force recon. You know, and then like

what was finally decided upon were these, were, was Marine Corps infantry like based out of Okinawa. But I mean, and those guys kicked serious ass, but that's not, but the point is, like, they had no idea how to, like, respond immediately to, you know, some kind of, um, some kind of crisis situation that, you know, that, um, that, that, that called for, like, a scale down, like, you know, infantry response. You know, and this was the mid-70s. It wasn't like the 1950s or something. Like, it's crazy. But, um, the, and something else, too, that is timely as well for, discussion. Something that really changed people's thinking was the the the Ramadan war in 1973. Like we've been talking about a lot lately owing, of course, you know, not just to the passing of its anniversary, 50th anniversary, but, you know, because of the ongoing hostilities in Palestine. But that 1973 war, you know, between Israel, Egypt, and Syria, it demonstrated a new lethality of conventional weapons, okay, like especially, especially things like anti-tank guided missiles, like stuff that people they've granted these days on the on the battlefield like this stuff was new like tank something became like super vulnerable you know um the the inventory suddenly had like massively improved defensive power you know um and when you consider that you know

will war three in europe was going to be an armored an armored clash between nato and warsaw pact like this changed things you know um so the deploy started the deputies started um He instigated the process of rearming, you know, heavy divisions with weapons, you know, that were, that, you know, the army viewed as being on the edge of the, on the cost of the technological curve that would, like, dramatically improve their firepower. And like, and congruous with what's kind of conventional, conventional, um, Prussian thought, which is, you know, the source of Blitzkrieg thought. DePois's view was that fire, like war is going to be one or lost almost immediately. Like, especially World War III, like the Army injury field manual 100-5, which was published under his tenure. It said literally, quote, the U.S. Army must above all of all of us prepared to win the first battle of the next war. you know the ethos was firepower wins wars um you know and uh bringing firepower to bear immediately

you know upon first contact with the opt for and like utterly devastating him you know like that that's that's what um that's what wins future battles that's what wins wars you know like these things are won or lost like rapidly and and often and um often in first contact and And that's not wrong. Okay. Everybody's going to pull out like what aboutism or what ifism. I'm not talking about asymmetrical war, and neither was he. I'm not talking about political situations like Northern Ireland.

I'm not talking about situations where, you know, you've got this, you've got this, you've got this insurgency like in South Vietnam, you know, that's hundreds of thousands strong, you know, that has massive support of the civilian population. We're not talking about that. like we're talking about forces that are basically similarly situated in terms of you know destructive power they can bring to bear you know like facing off in the most conventional of terms okay like that's what we're talking about and within that paradigm like the point was absolutely correct um one uh but again um what took this out of favor and um and interestingly you know, everybody knows I'm like a huge Russell Stolfe accolite. You know, he wrote, he was a naval war college guy and he wrote a fantastic biography Adolf Hitler. And he was involved in policy circles in the 80s with writing about the need

to, you know, increase our conventional deterrent and emphasis on conventional forces in beings generally and deemphasize nuclear weapons. You know, not not just because that for strategic reasons, but, you know, for ethical ones as well. You know, but he, you know, his book, Hitler's Panzers East, in his view, what lost World War II for the Vermacht was that Hitler did exactly that. Hitler said, you know, I'm going to rely upon conventional siege doctrine and I'm going to kill Ivan's reserve. before we proceed any further. And by that point, it was too late.

By that point, Moscow had been fortified. When instead, if Moscow had been annihilated, those reserves would have been blind in depth. It wouldn't matter. Is that why when Putin went into, I remember you saying when Putin went into Ukraine, that you said the first thing he should have done was just taken out Kiev?

Yeah, with massive firepower. You know, like throwing like everything he had at it. And yeah, just the single drive for Kiev. Yeah. But in any event, this is what brought active defense out of favor in terms of what in terms of what came to be called Air Land Battle, which guys who I've been blessed, like, some guys who were like in the service like during this era I've like reached out to him and I'm in season two of the the mine phaser pod, which we're beginning recording on Thursday. I'm fucking very stoked. I'm going to see how I get some of these guys who appear either on mind phaser or just on like one-off things and kind of talk about like what the situation was like during this era during like the you know the during like the active defense era and like the air land battle era like late 70s like early 80s but in the event um regardless of uh regardless of how when would bring it back the reason why I went off in that huge tangent what the concern was as on Grenada as of October 25th, 1983, the Bishop government, the Morris Bishop government,

it had began constructing this massive airport, the Port Salines International Airport. Initially, with the help of the United Kingdom, obviously because, you know, it was still a British colony, even if, you know, the government there was not a regime, they particularly, approved of but very quickly um cuba libyra algeria um began contributing to its construction with cuba like very much taking the lead um why cuba or why why why grenade it required this massive airport was never clear um according to the pentagon um grenade was constructing facilities um the centerpiece of which would be a nine thousand foot runway which could accommodate the heaviest Soviet transport aircraft, like then deployed.

You know, and as we were talking about, whether one accepts active defense as a doctrine or not, obviously was critically important at war, especially by, you know, the era in question, was the ability to rapidly reinforce, you know, forces in the battle space. pretty obviously Grenado is being set up as a staging point to rapidly reinforce Nicaragua and like anywhere else that, you know, Soviet clients were in, you know,

were beleaguered or like at war, you know, and essentially, you know, this was kind of the first phase in rectifying, you know, the, the geostrategic imbalance that we talked about vis-a-vis NATO in Warsaw Pact. And, you know, like I said, I'm not something like big Reaganite. And I, ironically, I get accused of being some like Reagan fanboy or some like conservative or, I don't even think the Cold War's been fought. Okay.

I'm like a yakiite, like, you know, bad guy, you know, in the minds of a, in the minds of a Yankee doodle motherfuckers. So, like, I don't, I don't know how to be going to say I'm like some conservative or like whatever. but in i'm speaking in just factual terms it was not outside the realm of possibility in fact it was quite quite probable considering the strategic landscape of 1983 and considering the military victories that were being racked up by marxas lenin estates and their and their um and their clients you know um envisioning um envisioning a world where the political map was basically you know we're basically that we're political affairs only orbited around the Soviet Union and its allies. Even states that weren't, you know, formally allied with it, you know, were basically, um, cowed by its ability to project power.

And, um, you know, the America would kind of remain just as a sort of like garrison state, um, amidst a hostile, uh, amidst a hostile world, like essentially led by, you know, the Soviet Union and populated by these kinds of like, these kinds of like, you know, friendly impoverished, you know, like Stalinist regimes. That was a very real possibility. You know, like the natural state of the world is like poor and dysfunctional. Like why people don't understand that like that was a very real possibility. It wasn't something like red dawn fantasy. I think maybe it's because they didn't live through the epoch or because they, they think that like value added capital is like grows on trees but this was i mean this was this was a very serious thing okay um however one feels about

the players involved or anything else but um it was absolutely essential that the soviets not develop the ability to you know um to uh to rapidly build up and or reinforce um you know uh their their their allies on on on on on the american continents and i'll say too like in ethical terms you know it used to be um it like the common refrain against the cold war hawks was always like oh this is an illegal invasion i mean the uh the executive can do what the hell he wants with within the you know within uh within the america i mean that's the monroe doctrine and honestly that's about the only that that's about the only um that that's not the only war in peace command activity that i think should be indisputably viewed as legitimate pretty much in all cases i mean if you can't if you

can't deploy um to protect the american continents i mean where where can you deploy legitimately like i don't i don't um i don't i don't get it but um that was the um that that was the cause of belly for Grenada and this idea that I mean this is a major operation you know it um and uh resistance was uh remarkably stiff um you know I mean this idea that oh this was like wag the dog like Reagan just you know wanted to distract people it's not during the Cold War that's not how things were done because it you could find yourself in World War III if you did that and also I mean like it's just not you know it's it's it was not a 24 hour media cycle it was not the same world, quite literally.

So I try and emphasize that to people. But the order of battle, the invading force, all told, combat was resolved mostly after four days, but about a week total. I mean, again, the initial deployment was 1900 men on the American. I mean, and then all it, but by the end of, um, all the kind of mopping up of remaining resistance, there was a, there was just under 7,000 troops to put to the island. I mean, that, this was a major. And I mean, the fact that, um, the fact that the, the initial, um, assault force had to be reinforced in this way. He goes to show you that, I mean, this was, this was real war. You know, um, the invading force itself for the assault force, uh, you can, you know, you know,

insisted of the first and second battalions, the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, 80-second Airborne Division, elements of what was the rapid deployment force, like we talked about a minute ago. The U.S. Marines, U.S. Army Delta Force deployed on Grenada. So did two of the SEAL teams. I would imagine the guys deployed in, or who are based out of Virginia. like there's a there's a lot of special ops dudes and stuff who like follow my platforms i'm sure they'll wait if they want to weigh in and tell us like you know with who the seals were who who assaulted grenada that would be dope um but it's the u.s marines as was detailed in that great documentary um heartbreak ridge i think ridge is an awesome movie yeah yeah it was so much fun

yeah yeah it's genuinely like really funny man like it's a good war movie, but it's just, uh, yeah, I don't know, man. Like, yeah, yeah, like, it's, uh, I got a kick out of it. Um, do you think it was an insult to, um, have them be so out of shape and out of order when he showed up? No, because like the, because it, like made those guys look like bad asses as first of all. They were just like, they were just like, they were just like they were fuckups because they were like, you know, they were like guys were like getting drunk and chasing women and acting like idiot. It's like it didn't make them look like a bunch of like pussy's or like fucking leas or like it. I mean, I'm sure that.

the military in the very early 80s was like all screwed up i mean like that's like you know um and i mean anytime you get a bunch of young guys on deck like they're they're without proper leadership they're going to act stupid i mean like that's so no but i mean i'm not i'm not a military vet and i'm not sensitive to that kind of stuff i just thought i just i just think that's like a dope movie and i'm not i'm not a huge clean eastwood fan um i i mean i've got my own issues with him but i but i some of his films i really like and that's one of them i mean i obviously i love the outlaw josie wales because you can't fuck with that but um but no i heart heart break ridge is awesome and i'm glad too like um it's uh you know around um a 19 men lost their lives a bunch of them

were marines and i mean that's sad man like i i i um i'm not something like model in person i mean i dead dying is life i mean life is about dying like but it you know you don't you don't you don't you don't you don't hear about guys who die at places like grenade or kotang and like they were just young dudes, man. They were like rock and roll dudes, like doing their thing. And, you know, and so I, I like that the movie, like, was, you know,

like, for those guys, you know? I think that's cool. But, um, the, uh, all told with Jamaican forces and, uh, what's called the regional security system. Like these, these little islands, like in the Caribbean, they've got their own, um,

kind of like, like, like infantry cable force. You know, like, um, And those guys, those guys coupled with all U.S. forces, you know, by the seventh day of operations, total 7,600 troops. On the communist side, there was, you know, about 1,300 grenade and government forces, 8,000 personnel carriers, two LAVs, around a dozen anti-aircraft guns. And these Cubans, there's 800 Cubans in the island. island who put up like ferocious resistance and uh the Cubans claimed oh they were construction

workers and they had AKs because we know we knew the imperialist might try to invade us so like you know we we issued AKs and ammunition for like personal self-defense which is ridiculous but um and there was also these this North Korean guy was captured on the island who claimed to be a diplomatic representative there was Czechoslovak's Czechoslovak's and the island there was there's these east germans you know like obviously this was like you know um there there's there was an entire um kind of like menagerie of like warsaw pack types just like hanging around there you know and i guess um i guess i guess i guess you hire a cuban construction firm they send like a thousand guys aren't with a k's but like it um you know the um but it's also too

um it's also uh You know, like I said, man, like America, that degree to which, I mean, now it's like it doesn't matter and like nobody's actually engaged with anything. And like, you know, there's not the Cold War. Like, it's impossible. I think, I don't even think people can see, conceptualize it like being, like the national psyche being devastated by like lost in a war. But I mean, after Vietnam, like, the country was Fubar. you know the the very real sense that

the communists were winning in battlefield terms was wreaking havoc on the national psyche the fact that it wasn't clear if if the political will was there for America to respond you know to direct challenges of like a non like nuclear nature you know so like Renata too

like in addition to I mean like said i think i think it absolutely was tactically essential in order to remedy um a burgeoning um clear and present threat in in you know in an essential theater but it it's also uh america demonstrated that it had you know it had the ability and the willingness to deploy at scale and um and engage you know in direct combat um and that was huge you know because that was not that was not That was not a foregone conclusion, you know. So I take very strong exception to people. And again, I don't, I don't know how people can think this, but, you know, they like, they, they like to criticize me by saying I'm some kind of like conservative apologists or whatever.

It's, but I, you know, I don't see how anyone can suggest that, you know, the Reagan White House is assaulted Grenada like for fun or because they had nothing better to do or because it was some, it was some wagging the dog sort of, um, media coup. And again, it's not, it's not the way things worked in those days. I mean, yeah, like a lot of, um, like, like a lot of, like what happened politically, particularly in, um, in Cold War terms, definitely happened, like within the kind of media panopticon, but it was not the same as today. Like, you just went about things differently. You know, like it wasn't, you didn't say like, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to deploy 7,000 men and blow the shit out of Grenada and potentially, you know causing international incident there's actually so we're on the ground there just because

like I want my poll numbers to come off like that's not and we're not talking about we're not talking about an operation where like a few drones get like sent over you know to like get to get sent over to like Chad or something you know and like nobody and like it has no consequences

even if even if there's you know civilian attrition or something but it's um yeah yeah that's um so that's um that's important that's about uh that's about all i got in grenada man i just wanted to i realized there but i wanted to make sure that we addressed it at least in some like real capacity and if you want to do another one off about the israel palestine situation just like a deep dive

i mean like we talked about before we went live just let me know and i'll be able to do that um i'm feeling a lot better now honestly like i i i don't want to bore everybody to death by like biching about my health, like some old woman or something. But I, for some weeks, man, I was, like, feeling really rough. And, like, just I not as much was getting done as I would have liked. So, but yeah, yeah, that's where we're at. All right. That's awesome.

I love talking about something that I was actually, like, a lot. Yeah, yeah. Old enough to, old enough to remember. No, that's awesome, man. No, the early 80s are fucking are dope too. They're just, like, cool. And, like, I, there's, like, certain epochs that I get obsessed with me. And I'm like, uh, the, like, the, like, the, like, the very,

early edies is one of them. Remind everybody where they can find your work. Yeah, man. You can always find me on my website. It's Thomas 777.com. That's number 7, H-M-A-S-7777. You can find me on X at Rio, capital, R-E-A-L underscore, number seven, H-M-A-S-777. You can find me at Substack.

That's what the podcast is. we'll launch in season two in a matter of days it's uh real thomas 7777.7.7.com you can find me an instagram too and i you might you may just verbal find me like out wandering about me and you never fucking know um but yeah that's where i'm it all right man a pleasure as always thank you yeah likewise thanks