Here's one thing we haven't discussed.
The mythology around the invincible Ted Braden.

Note the mythology extends to WWII. I mean people just like telling stories about how Ted was able to stay alive in risky combat situations.

But look at the petty crimes he got caught for. Seems to me, that he was mediocre when it came to crime. How much other crime did he do that was not discovered? Unknown.

The story of him and wife Pat owning Mercedes is intriguing.
She says she didn't file for divorce because of lack of money.
I'm thinking there was a time when there was money.
Where did it come from? Other petty crime? Trucking insurance fraud?

Braden could be the mixture of competence in one area, and not great competence in another area.

The stories around Braden like to paint him as equally brilliant in everything he did.

He wasn't.

Even the macv-sog stories are a little overstated. None of the missions accomplished as much as they like to say they did.
Sure the guys took risks, And died and took casualties.
But taking risks and dieing...there will always be survivors at some level.
It's hard to say what is attributable to being "good at it"

The best way to stay alive is to not take risks. Or to do things that others think are risky (appearance risk) that really aren't.

Because if the risk is real, you eventually die. Or get caught and sent to federal prison...

it's interesting that Braden turned to petty crime.

I was wondering what other MACV-SOG turned to crime

in terms of numbers, it's a relatively small number of  people

here's an estimate of total numbers, from a macvsog kia/mia web page
He estimates 400-600 in recon/hatchet teams during the entire vietnam operational period.

And Braden was a team leader!

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12,000 were Special Forces Soldiers who served in Vietnam , other sources say 20,000. of that 12,000 only 2,000 served in Vietnam with SOG.   ---- And of those 2,000, only 400 to a maximum of 600 served in SOG Recon/Hatchet Forces


Commandos who were the SF troop Operators actually fighting in a combat environment with the other 1,400 being support during the 8 year period of their existence.

Of those 400-600 suffered more than half of all the Special Forces fatalities and eighty-five percent of the SF missing in action cases in the war. This yields 50 to a max of 75 Commando operators per year.

With three (3) operational units, CCN, CCC, CCS, each would have around 17 to 25 SF Commandos operators on an annual basis. (Based on the roster for Command and Control North Recon Company as of April 1971, there were 30 Recon Team with a total of 95 American SF assigned to teams; however, not were operational as some were in stand down or not operational.
During the early years, the teams running were much smaller as the missions grew, the teams requirements grew so it is not possible to know exactly or even approximately how man Americans served in Recon or Hatchet forces over the 1964 thru April 1972.  The first Recon team that ran a mission was inserted October 18, 1965. 

Taking this information, actual operations was, and assuming the last mission was ran the last day April 72, teams were operational for 6 and a half year.  In August 1970 a number of RT member were transferred from CCS to CCN, thus increasing the strength of Recon Company of CCN and reducing the strength for CCS.

I mention this as the 30 team reported in Apr 71 cannot be used as a data point to try and calculate the strength of Recon and Hatchet for each period of time and location.  I, therefore, conclude that the number would be between the calculation of 400 to 600 throughout the entire operational period.

Turns out an AOA indicator provides very useful info for general aviation pilots. My son owns and flies a two seat carbon fiber Aero Shark with two very up to date glass panels. He not only has an a AOA indicator on each LCD panel but also a voice annunciator that will give a loud verbal warning if AOA increases beyond safe limits given other factors such as airspeed. He bought the plane used from an Air National Guard F-16 pilot. The seller gave him a lot of useful tips about AOA, info that was omitted from my son’s basic flight training. My son told me if you stay on top of AOA you will never have an unintended stall.

377

Glass panels came along well after I retired so I don't have any personal experience with them or with AOA instruments either.  But wings do stall at essentially the same angle of attack which depends on the flap/slats configuration among other things.  For a specific configuration, the stall speed varies as a function of the aircraft's weight.  But as your son points out, if you keep the AOA below the stall AOA for your specific aircraft configuration you won't stall.

As I mentioned previously, the Navy pioneered the use of AOA indicators.  I have heard that the Navy tries to keep the wind over the deck at a given value and will adjust the speed of the carrier to maintain that speed.  So presumably the deck touchdown speed of an aircraft will vary depending on the weight of the landing aircraft.  That is, identical configured aircraft flying at the same AOA will touch down at different speeds depending on their weight.

remember
Braden was out of the military for a while in 1971
so any chance of FBI latching on to him, would probably depend on either
a really indepth investigation like they did to civilian clubs in the usa
(FBI didn't do that though)

or someone calling in a tip on Braden.
no evidence of <even redacted< tips on macv-sog players.

> The second issue that I have with Braden is that I have a hard time believing that his photos weren't shown to the stews. We know that he WAS investigated as early as Spring of 72 because a former MACVSOG member has described FBI agents interviewing him about Braden at a North Carolina drop zone. This seems accurate because of course he was a suspect. There should be no doubt that FBI agents inquired with the military about any ex-green beret types who could have done this and Braden's name surely came up. Braden was also a known rabble rouser at the time, due to his Ramparts interview where he exposed the info of MACVSOG running CIA ops in Laos illegally. However, I asked Larry Carr recently about Braden and he said it's a name he never came across at all in the case files. That was a long time ago and was before Braden was a "household name" in the Vortex, so maybe Carr just forgot about it.

I have a hard time believing this FBI interview story.
Braden, as far as I can tell, was never a suspect, nor investigated.
Be happy to find info otherwise.
I mean, I can easily find Sheridan was suspect #112