The mood in the room was celebratory recently at a hotel in Arlington, Va., where the veterans of the failed Iran hostage rescue mission gathered to commemorate the most successful military failure in U.S. history.
It was the 30th anniversary of "Eagle Claw," the fearless attempt to rescue 52 Americans being held hostage in Tehran. The raid ended in disaster after a helicopter collided with a transport plane at a secret rendezvous point in the Iranian desert, leaving behind the burned remains of eight American servicemen, and much of this nation's pride in our post-Vietnam military.
Back then the mission was big news. The Philadelphia Inquirer assigned a crack team of reporters to find the men who took part and reconstruct exactly what happened. The team made heroic efforts to track down the participants, original members of the Army's top-secret Delta Force unit, and met with limited success.
They did find some of the men, but this group is tight-lipped. The reporters extracted no more than one brief utterance from a participant, which, if I remember correctly, was a crude version of the expression, "Bug off."
The media have long since lost interest in the story. There were no reporters at the reunion, but most of these daring, clandestine raiders were present. They have grown grayer and thicker. Most of them are now retired, among them Gen. Pete Schoomaker, former Army chief of staff; Lt. Col. Louis "Bucky" Burruss, the unit's former deputy commander; Maj. Logan Fitch, a Delta squadron commander; Air Force Col. John T. Carney Jr., who scouted out the desert landing strip weeks before the mission; and Bud McBroom, the legendary CIA pilot who flew Carney in and out. Most looked slightly uncomfortable in tuxedos and their old dress uniforms. These are not formal men.
They all remain intensely proud of the effort, despite the fact that for most of them it was the low point in their military service. They failed. The hostages, some of whom also attended, went on to endure another nine months of captivity. For the frustrated raiders, pictures of Iranian mullahs poking triumphantly at the charred remains of their dead comrades are an enduring humiliation.
So why a lavish banquet to remember it?
One big reason is that the disaster spurred creation of the most able, sophisticated Special Operations community in the world.
In 1979, when Delta Force was created as America's answer to a rash of airplane hijackings, the unit was a poor stepchild. Most in the conventional Cold War chain of command regarded these stealthy, handpicked, so-called super-soldiers as a nuisance, at best a collection of poorly supervised mavericks useful only in the rarest of circumstances. The failure of their first big mission was not their fault — the raid broke down trying to deliver Delta Force to Tehran — but it did little to dispel the group's rogue status.
Today the Special Operations Command, led by Adm. Eric Olsen (who was in attendance), is on a par with the U.S. military's six geographic regional commands. It is made up of highly trained specialists from every branch, equipped with the most sophisticated weaponry and agile transport. It is arguably the most important part of the ongoing war against Islamist extremism, the primary reason those who plan attacks on the United States and its allies spend their days peering over their shoulders, and wherever they are in the world, relax at their own peril.
The Desert One disaster was a powerful wake-up call. It had taken five months for the U.S. military to patch it together, and even then it was a Rube-Goldberg-esque affair. Those who still fault President Jimmy Carter for not responding more aggressively rarely note that there was then no standing capability for delivering a small force of men to Tehran, more than 500 miles from friendly turf, much less a way to extricate them once they finished.
The plan cobbled together in secret had so many moving parts that in retrospect it seemed destined to fail. Even the men who undertook it gave themselves less than an even chance. All the more reason to respect their courage.
There's another way the mission has proved a long-term success. It prompted the formation of The Special Operations Warrior Foundation — www.specialops.org — now headed by Carney, which sends the children of fallen special operations soldiers to college. It was established in 1980 to provide scholarships for the children of the eight airmen and Marines who were killed during the mission.
Today, after a busy eight years in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the foundation serves a sadly expanded roster of fatherless children that numbers more than 800. The 30th anniversary dinner was sponsored by the foundation, which has raised millions in the effort, and which has a remarkable track record not only of paying for a college education but of working closely with the eligible families, providing guidance and support to encourage their children to take advantage of the program.
Among the retired soldiers and hostages at the Eagle Claw reunion were many of the foundation's successful graduates, each a living tribute to the memory of their fallen fathers, and to the loyalty and determination of the units they served.
Which is why when we raised our glasses in salute, it was not just to mourn, but to celebrate.
Mark Bowden is a journalist and author of "Guests of the Ayatollah," an account of the Iran hostage crisis. He can be reached at mbowden@phillynews.com.