Just about sums it up- Thank you former President Carter:

[Half-Century Man]

18. I started my military service under him.

And it was a kinda weird time for the military, that transition from the freebootery of the Viet Nam era to the giant stick up your ass of garrison life (My father was in the service, I grew up on bases, I enlisted when he retired).

One of my fears...We know that the Republicans worked as hard as they could to interfere with or discredit Carter and keep his presidency to a single term. I know high ranking career military officers tend to by conservatives and republican. They frequently form close bonds with industries who make military equipment. Outgoing President Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex, and we were somewhat on guard through the Viet Nam era....The attempted raid to free the hostages held at the embassy in Tehran failed because the dust shields for the Huey helicopters were left behind. We knew the dust on the Asian deserts was fierce, we saw the Afghanis use it against the Russians. Classic military tactics are taught at West Point; using dust to obscure movement or as an anti-personnel choking agent is a classic military tactic. We planned to have 2 C-130s and 6 (if I remember correctly) Hueys in flying close to the ground and hovering at the LZ. How did we not account for the prop wash from 14 propellers in a small area? Was the decision to leave the dust shields behind the last gasp of the freebootery from Viet Nam, or was it a plan to make visibility so bad that the mission would called off that went horribly wrong?

Lets not forget the secret talks that went on between parts of our government and the Iranian Student Revolutionaries that got the hostages released the second Reagan was sworn in. Talks the President should have been privy to.