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McNamara...Even if we send another 150,000 troops only a one in three chance we'll win. So lets send the troops. Circa 1965 or so.

I didn't put in quotes because it's not how he phrased it exactly, but it's what he said.

I was impressed by the ARVN Marine officer. One tough SOB.

Last edited by toltecgriz; 09/19/17.

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It's making me angry.

Photos and video compiled into this series is incredible.





Dave


Originally Posted by Geno67
Trump being classless,tasteless and clueless as usual.
Originally Posted by Judman
Sorry, trump is a no tax payin pile of shiit.
Originally Posted by KSMITH
My young wife decided to play the field and had moved several dudes into my house
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They worked on this for ten years. I'm reserving final judgment but it's been a revelation. On the other hand the guys who could rebut the context are dead. Or it may all be true. We'll see.

Last edited by toltecgriz; 09/19/17.

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Yeah don't get me wrong, I'm not judging too quickly. And it is very well done. Their puzzle piecing is beyond reproach.

When I say it's making me angry I'm referring to a lot of the decision making at the higher levels and yada, yada, yada.




Dave


Originally Posted by Geno67
Trump being classless,tasteless and clueless as usual.
Originally Posted by Judman
Sorry, trump is a no tax payin pile of shiit.
Originally Posted by KSMITH
My young wife decided to play the field and had moved several dudes into my house
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I don't know for a fact but I imagine a good many of the photos and film clips, especially those showing in the field and combat situations, are not necessarily real time but historical stock images that go along with parts of the story and edited in for the visual effect.

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That SF Col. Rheault seems like an interesting guy.


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I'm beginning to believe the fighting communists is the same as the colonies fighting Britain for independence.

Yes, they (Vietnamese) appeared to mostly want to not be under French rule, understandable. But as things progressed and north/south lines drawn, unification meant communism. You know, pretty much like the war of northern aggression.


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It's doesn't get any more complicated than Vietnam. First, the French were pretty good colonials, so much so they considered many of their possessions as "States Of France", in other words, represented in the Chamber Of Deputies in Paris. Wars Of National Liberation became the norm after WWII, with only the Brits being successful (Malaya, Kenya) in keeping the commies out. The United States, in their infinite, altruistic, naive and downright incompetent Foreign Policy, tried to have it both ways. On the one hand we wanted to stop communism, but on the other hand we were equally (and stupidly) against colonialism.

Ho Chi Minh who WAS an admirer of the US and the Founding Fathers, turned to the commies because we half-assed helped the frogs in their colonial (anti-communist) war against Ho. France just didn't have the assets and their idiotic strategy culminating in Dien Bien Phu was the result. So what did we do? much like Bush (43) in Iraq, we went all out and supported a corrupt "democratic" government in the south, just because it was anti-communist and clearly Ho had the upper hand. What we SHOULD have done (and the same goes for Egypt and the Suez, Saudi and of course Iran) was support the Europeans in holding onto their colonies (letting them do the fighting with our financial support) instead of ostensibly siding with the Soviets against "colonialism". Instead, we began the inexorable "mission creep" and corrupted entanglement in Vietnam which would have been fine, had our armed forces been allowed to conduct a winning campaign which we clearly had the muscle to do. One would think we learned our lesson, but we did the same shiet in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nation building and "limited war" with restrictive ROEs were our demise in Vietnam yet we repeated it in SWA AGAIN. We never learn.


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Who said Uncle Ho wasn't a player: wink

"..he lived with and married a Chinese woman, Zeng Xueming (Tăng Tuyết Minh), on 18 October 1926.[19] When his comrades objected to the match, he told them: "I will get married despite your disapproval because I need a woman to teach me the language and keep house."[19] She was 21 and he was 36."


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It's unbelievable how all this buildup to war went unnoticed........... but it sure as hell did.

LBJ could have been a hero if he would have assembled his own foreign policy team instead of keeping JFK/ Bobby team of losers.


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Originally Posted by joken2

I don't know for a fact but I imagine a good many of the photos and film clips, especially those showing in the field and combat situations, are not necessarily real time but historical stock images that go along with parts of the story and edited in for the visual effect.



The "Stock" photo's they showed near the end of episode three whne they were talking about LZ Xray were from that battle.

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"That SF Col. Rheault seems like an interesting guy."

I spent a night in 1969 taking Col Rheault and Col Schungel (DCO 5th SFGA) to NTSAC during a night time session of incoming mortars, etc
while he visited Nha Trang just before taking command. He did not last that long in the command though, due to
some not highly publicized activities.

And yes, it is making me quite angry also finding out how bad the upper level decision making was then.
We all knew it sucked, but at that time not aware of how ugly the truth was. Our leaders should all have to have done time in a free fire zone to qualify ( in my humble opinion). The Montagnards suffered the most just for being there.


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Originally Posted by deflave

When I say it's making me angry I'm referring to a lot of the decision making at the higher levels and yada, yada, yada.




Dave




^^^^^^^^^^^

THIS...as if I weren't pissed enough at them already....


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"The United States, in their infinite, altruistic, naive and downright incompetent Foreign Policy, tried to have it both ways. On the one hand we wanted to stop communism, but on the other hand we were equally (and stupidly) against colonialism."

Exactly what happened in the Congo! Kennedy was doing well to even find the place on a map. The Soviets used The power of the UN against the Belgians and the US and played us like a cheap fiddle!


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i think some of the video is fill in, but not all. reason for saying that is seeing m16's relatively early in the war.
as to the rest of it, as it was an area of interest, indochina, and a good library, a lot of it was surmised even at the time as to the administration leaders. If the military would have been turned loose, it would have been over pretty quick. We have an excellent military great at breaking things, which is what they are suppose to do. We are lousy at nation building.
I remember that incremental escalation b.s. real well. Johnson wouldn't take a dump or get off the pot.
The series is just to me confirming what i believed or thought at the time.
The government has lied to us a lot, and still continues to do so.
I stopped being a virgin in that respect circa 1966.
But it sure should help younger people understand it when us old fahrts talk about a special place in hell for johnson and his cronies.


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Originally Posted by jorgeI
It's doesn't get any more complicated than Vietnam. First, the French were pretty good colonials, so much so they considered many of their possessions as "States Of France", in other words, represented in the Chamber Of Deputies in Paris. Wars Of National Liberation became the norm after WWII, with only the Brits being successful (Malaya, Kenya) in keeping the commies out. The United States, in their infinite, altruistic, naive and downright incompetent Foreign Policy, tried to have it both ways. On the one hand we wanted to stop communism, but on the other hand we were equally (and stupidly) against colonialism.

Ho Chi Minh who WAS an admirer of the US and the Founding Fathers, turned to the commies because we half-assed helped the frogs in their colonial (anti-communist) war against Ho. France just didn't have the assets and their idiotic strategy culminating in Dien Bien Phu was the result. So what did we do? much like Bush (43) in Iraq, we went all out and supported a corrupt "democratic" government in the south, just because it was anti-communist and clearly Ho had the upper hand. What we SHOULD have done (and the same goes for Egypt and the Suez, Saudi and of course Iran) was support the Europeans in holding onto their colonies (letting them do the fighting with our financial support) instead of ostensibly siding with the Soviets against "colonialism". Instead, we began the inexorable "mission creep" and corrupted entanglement in Vietnam which would have been fine, had our armed forces been allowed to conduct a winning campaign which we clearly had the muscle to do. One would think we learned our lesson, but we did the same shiet in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nation building and "limited war" with restrictive ROEs were our demise in Vietnam yet we repeated it in SWA AGAIN. We never learn.



you are a smart man jorge. I have a friend who survived flying a f4 about 80times into north vietnam, and any number of runs low level support other places. It just thrilled me to find out a few years ago that entry/exit paths to north vietnam were being supplied to the north vietnese.
And then all these years later i hear of rules of engagement in the sand box from people dealing with them there. Nothing seems to change.
Except trump, who just said the other day aint' gonna do that any more.


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"Johnson wouldn't take a dump or get off the pot"

That's funny Ron. And a bit ironic. Western White House has phones in all the bathrooms right next to crapper!


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"Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
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Have their round haunches gored."

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our politics are so screwed. I remember kerry during his run for the presidency. and his "whites" in vietnam. never looked like he worked up a sweat in vietnam for the most part. I asked a family member who spent a year in the brown water navy about that, given the heat/humidity in vietnam. His comment was he understood it, if for the most part you never left an a/c controlled building.
Then seeing tapes of him at paris, while he was still a member of the navy calling our troops baby killers.
the media never did vet him properly.
or that famous picture of al gore with the butt of an m16 on the ground, barrel pointed at h is head. he had a good gig tho, office worker in saigon with his daddy's bodyguards.


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Originally Posted by kaywoodie
"Johnson wouldn't take a dump or get off the pot"

That's funny Ron. And a bit ironic. Western White House has phones in all the bathrooms right next to crapper!


i am old enough and memory still enough i remember that too. I have never forgiven him for pulling the beagles ears either.
there is a little email chain i am participating in,one of the guys was three years s.f. in the area. The idiocy of trying to fight a conventional war and training viets to do that when it was really an unconventional war is amazing. You think someone would have talked to the british.
He was also trying to micromanage it down to bombing runs and unit actions, thousands of miles away.
I will never stop being bitter about it.
I have a couple of grandkids active duty right now. prior to their entering long conversations about it explaining the past. My comment was it was/is an honorable thing and even tho it might kill me if they were hurt or lost, i could understand it in some ways. But not due to the b.s. management of politicians in washington.
I have a national cemetary not far from my house. And people buried in it. to get to where they are, i have to pass row after row of headstones. The number in quantity that say vietnam is scary. Even those that survived it, had their lives shortened.

Last edited by RoninPhx; 09/20/17.

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Originally Posted by joken2

I don't know for a fact but I imagine a good many of the photos and film clips, especially those showing in the field and combat situations, are not necessarily real time but historical stock images that go along with parts of the story and edited in for the visual effect.



Some are but some are from the actual battle or of personnel they're discussing.





Dave


Originally Posted by Geno67
Trump being classless,tasteless and clueless as usual.
Originally Posted by Judman
Sorry, trump is a no tax payin pile of shiit.
Originally Posted by KSMITH
My young wife decided to play the field and had moved several dudes into my house
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