[applause] good morning everyone. I would like to welcome you to the National Defense university. I was a senior in high school when nixon did the great linebacker bombing offensive of christmas 1972. Not much better, only slightly. Today i want to talk with you guys about the air wars in vietnam. Given that i was not there, most of you guys were, if i am wrong, please shout out a correction. We have the air boards on vietnam because it is plural. There is no single airport in southeast asia. There are a multiplicity of air wars, disorganized, uncoordinated, not related to one another. No one single guy in charge. Of course, that is part of the problem. What im going to do is talk about the various air wars that existed there. , 8the way, all of them million tons of bombs in southeast asia. That is roughly five times the amount of bombs dropped by all allied air forces in world war ii. Im going to speak mostly about the air war over the north. The reason im going to do that is because