Well into the autumn of my life, I am occasionally reminded the end is not too far over the horizon. Mortality puts thoughts in my head, like “What have I done to leave this world a better place?”
There actually are a few things that I think made my existence worthwhile. I will tell you just one of them, because so many of you need to hear it.
No matter how much this rubs the wrong way, I am quite proud to have served my Country in The Vietnam War. Yes, I know, most of you were taught there is shame attached to any role in the war that America lost, an unfortunate mistake, an immoral war, an unwise intrusion into a civil war, a racist war, a war in which American troops committed widespread atrocities, where America had no strategic interest, and that our North Vietnamese enemy was innocently striving to re-unite Vietnam.
The problem is, none of those things are true. That didn’t stop America over the last 50 years lapping up this Kool-Aid concocted by the anti-war machine, a loose confederation of protesting activists, the mainstream news media and academia. They opposed the war with loud noise, half-truths and fabrications. They are the ones who still write their version in our schoolbooks, and their account of history conveniently excuses themselves for cowardly encouraging our enemy while we were at war. You see, having the right to protest does not necessarily make it the right or honorable thing to do.
So, yes, I am defiantly proud to have been among those who raised our right hand swearing to do our duty for our country while so many others yelled and screamed and marched, burned their draft cards, declared, ”Hell no! I won’t go!” and some fled to Canada. In that period of uncomfortable controversy, even patriots tended to look the other way when activists heartily insulted American troops as they returned through California airports from doing the country’s hardest work in Vietnam. War correspondent Joe Galloway summed it up nicely in a column about Vietnam vets in the Chicago Tribune long ago; “They were the best you had, America, and you turned your back on them.”
To be sure, there were lots of warts and wrinkles in the war. We were fighting a tough Communist enemy, defending South Vietnam’s right to remain free. At the same time we were betrayed by our own leadership in the White House with their incompetent micromanagement and idiotic war-fighting limitations that got thousands of us killed while preventing victory. And we were betrayed by fellow citizens encouraging our enemy.
I was trained to be an Army Cobra helicopter pilot. I remember many times, with no regrets, shooting up the enemy to protect our ground troops, firing to cover fellow pilots, and firing to keep the brutal enemy away from South Vietnamese civilians. A high school student asked me last year how I deal with the guilt. I answered that I don’t have any guilt, that I was doing my duty and would proudly do it again.
When John Lennon turned the Beatles into a protest band, his song “Give Peace a Chance” was hailed as genius. Look up the inane lyrics and judge for yourself At protest rallies, crowds of tens of thousands would raise their arms to wave in unison while chanting in ecstasy, “All we are asking, is give peace a chance!” over and over. Luminaries like Tom Smothers, presidential candidate George McGovern, writer and self-acclaimed intellectual Gore Vidal and a host of others lauded Lennon’s song and observed “Who wouldn’t prefer peace to war?”
What self-indulgent, naive stupidity!
My friend Anh Nguyen was 12 years old in 1968, living in the city of Hue, the cultural center of Vietnam. One morning when he opened the shutters to his bedroom window, a shot was fired over his head, the first he knew the enemy’s Tet Offensive had begun. The Communists had negotiated a cease fire for their New Year holiday of Tet, then in treachery attacked on that holiday in about 100 locations all over South Vietnam.
The enemy was well prepared, and they took the city of Hue. They had lists of names and addresses provided by spies, and they went from street to street, dragging from their homes political leaders, business owners, teachers, doctors, nurses and other “enemies of the people.” The battle raged four weeks before our Marines retook the city. In the aftermath, mass graves with nearly 5,000 bodies were found, executed by the Communists, many tied together and buried alive.
Anh and his family had evacuated to an American compound for protection. Anh says when the battle was over and they walked Highway 1 back to their home, the most beautiful sight his family had ever seen was US Marines lining the road, standing guard over South Vietnamese civilians. To follow John Lennon’s plea, Anh’s family and countrymen could “Give peace a chance” by surrendering to the Communist invaders, but even a mush-head like Lennon should know there are some things you don’t give up without a fight. I doubt Lennon would have understood the best way to ensure peace is to carry the biggest stick.
Want to know what causes me shame?
In 1973, when we basically had the war won, the US gave it away in a peace agreement when escape from Vietnam was the only politically acceptable option. In the peace agreement, the US pledged our ongoing financial support to South Vietnam’s defense, and pledged US direct military intervention if the North Vietnamese ever broke their pledge not to attack South Vietnam. In the 1974 elections, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and President Nixon’s resignation, Democrats were swept into Congress and promptly cut off all funding to South Vietnam in violation of the US pledge.
Of course North Vietnam was watching.
In early 1975 when the North Vietnamese attacked South Vietnam, President Ford literally begged Congress to fund the US pledge to intervene, and Congress refused.
The same news media, protesters and academia who had screamed against the war, firmly turned their back in 1975 and refused to notice the slaughter and inhumanity as the Communists overwhelmed the ally America had thrown under the bus. Even today, few on the anti-war side know or care there were roughly 75,000 executions, that a panicked million fled in over-packed rickety boats and died at sea by the tens of thousands, that a million were sent to brutal re-education camps for decades and also died by the tens of thousands, or that South Vietnamese who fought to remain free - and their descendants - are still persecuted to this day. Abandoning our ally to that fate is America’s everlasting shame.
We could have won that war if our military had been allowed to take off the soft gloves, but it went on far too long with no end in sight, mismanaged to a fare-thee-well by the White House and became America’s misery. Through it all, even the betrayals from home, we fought well and never lost one significant battle.
Leftists think they know all about the war and the Americans who fought it. They don’t know didley.
At the 334th Attack Helicopter Company in Bien Hoa, we Cobra pilots were 19 to 25 years old with very rough edges. We thought of ourselves as gunslingers and might have swaggered a bit. We drank too much at the end of a sweat-stained day, for fun or escape or both. We laughed off close calls with the bravado of gallows humor. We toasted our dead and hid the pain of personal loss deep inside. We swore a lot and told foul jokes. We pushed away the worry of how long our luck would hold, and the next day we would bet our life again to protect the South Vietnamese people and each other.
To properly characterize my fellow Vietnam vets, I need to borrow words from John Steinbeck as he wrote about the inhabitants of Cannery Row, and ask you to look from my angle, past their flaws, to see them as I often do, “ . . saints and angels, martyrs and holy men.” America’s best.
I am proud to be one of them because we faced evil together in a valiant effort to keep the South Vietnamese people free, doing God’s work for a little while, even though it failed by the hand of our own countrymen working against us from safety at home.
More than any other class of people, I trust and admire the American men and women who served in Vietnam and met the test of their mettle, even the ones I don’t know. I wouldn’t trade a single one of them for a thousand leftist anti-war elites
Everyone deserves a second chance But for the naval-gazing flower children who remain unrepentant about encouraging the enemy we were fighting, who still smugly know all the wrong answers about us and the Vietnam War, who have never known mortal danger and didn’t give a fig when Saigon fell, and the Commies made South Vietnamese streets run red with the blood of innocent people.
I want to be sure to deliver this invitation before I get too old and feeble:
Kiss me where the sun don’t shine! -------------------------
Terry Garlock lives in Peachtree City, GA.
Published on Wed Jan 30, 2019 in The Citizen, a Fayette County GA newspaper.
Well into the autumn of my life, I am occasionally reminded the end is not too far over the horizon. Mortality puts thoughts in my head, like “What have I done to leave this world a better place?”
There actually are a few things that I think made my existence worthwhile. I will tell you just one of them, because so many of you need to hear it.
No matter how much this rubs the wrong way, I am quite proud to have served my Country in The Vietnam War. Yes, I know, most of you were taught there is shame attached to any role in the war that America lost, an unfortunate mistake, an immoral war, an unwise intrusion into a civil war, a racist war, a war in which American troops committed widespread atrocities, where America had no strategic interest, and that our North Vietnamese enemy was innocently striving to re-unite Vietnam.
The problem is, none of those things are true. That didn’t stop America over the last 50 years lapping up this Kool-Aid concocted by the anti-war machine, a loose confederation of protesting activists, the mainstream news media and academia. They opposed the war with loud noise, half-truths and fabrications. They are the ones who still write their version in our schoolbooks, and their account of history conveniently excuses themselves for cowardly encouraging our enemy while we were at war. You see, having the right to protest does not necessarily make it the right or honorable thing to do.
So, yes, I am defiantly proud to have been among those who raised our right hand swearing to do our duty for our country while so many others yelled and screamed and marched, burned their draft cards, declared, ”Hell no! I won’t go!” and some fled to Canada. In that period of uncomfortable controversy, even patriots tended to look the other way when activists heartily insulted American troops as they returned through California airports from doing the country’s hardest work in Vietnam. War correspondent Joe Galloway summed it up nicely in a column about Vietnam vets in the Chicago Tribune long ago; “They were the best you had, America, and you turned your back on them.”
To be sure, there were lots of warts and wrinkles in the war. We were fighting a tough Communist enemy, defending South Vietnam’s right to remain free. At the same time we were betrayed by our own leadership in the White House with their incompetent micromanagement and idiotic war-fighting limitations that got thousands of us killed while preventing victory. And we were betrayed by fellow citizens encouraging our enemy.
I was trained to be an Army Cobra helicopter pilot. I remember many times, with no regrets, shooting up the enemy to protect our ground troops, firing to cover fellow pilots, and firing to keep the brutal enemy away from South Vietnamese civilians. A high school student asked me last year how I deal with the guilt. I answered that I don’t have any guilt, that I was doing my duty and would proudly do it again.
When John Lennon turned the Beatles into a protest band, his song “Give Peace a Chance” was hailed as genius. Look up the inane lyrics and judge for yourself At protest rallies, crowds of tens of thousands would raise their arms to wave in unison while chanting in ecstasy, “All we are asking, is give peace a chance!” over and over. Luminaries like Tom Smothers, presidential candidate George McGovern, writer and self-acclaimed intellectual Gore Vidal and a host of others lauded Lennon’s song and observed “Who wouldn’t prefer peace to war?”
What self-indulgent, naive stupidity!
My friend Anh Nguyen was 12 years old in 1968, living in the city of Hue, the cultural center of Vietnam. One morning when he opened the shutters to his bedroom window, a shot was fired over his head, the first he knew the enemy’s Tet Offensive had begun. The Communists had negotiated a cease fire for their New Year holiday of Tet, then in treachery attacked on that holiday in about 100 locations all over South Vietnam.
The enemy was well prepared, and they took the city of Hue. They had lists of names and addresses provided by spies, and they went from street to street, dragging from their homes political leaders, business owners, teachers, doctors, nurses and other “enemies of the people.” The battle raged four weeks before our Marines retook the city. In the aftermath, mass graves with nearly 5,000 bodies were found, executed by the Communists, many tied together and buried alive.
Anh and his family had evacuated to an American compound for protection. Anh says when the battle was over and they walked Highway 1 back to their home, the most beautiful sight his family had ever seen was US Marines lining the road, standing guard over South Vietnamese civilians. To follow John Lennon’s plea, Anh’s family and countrymen could “Give peace a chance” by surrendering to the Communist invaders, but even a mush-head like Lennon should know there are some things you don’t give up without a fight. I doubt Lennon would have understood the best way to ensure peace is to carry the biggest stick.
Want to know what causes me shame?
In 1973, when we basically had the war won, the US gave it away in a peace agreement when escape from Vietnam was the only politically acceptable option. In the peace agreement, the US pledged our ongoing financial support to South Vietnam’s defense, and pledged US direct military intervention if the North Vietnamese ever broke their pledge not to attack South Vietnam. In the 1974 elections, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and President Nixon’s resignation, Democrats were swept into Congress and promptly cut off all funding to South Vietnam in violation of the US pledge.
Of course North Vietnam was watching.
In early 1975 when the North Vietnamese attacked South Vietnam, President Ford literally begged Congress to fund the US pledge to intervene, and Congress refused.
The same news media, protesters and academia who had screamed against the war, firmly turned their back in 1975 and refused to notice the slaughter and inhumanity as the Communists overwhelmed the ally America had thrown under the bus. Even today, few on the anti-war side know or care there were roughly 75,000 executions, that a panicked million fled in over-packed rickety boats and died at sea by the tens of thousands, that a million were sent to brutal re-education camps for decades and also died by the tens of thousands, or that South Vietnamese who fought to remain free - and their descendants - are still persecuted to this day. Abandoning our ally to that fate is America’s everlasting shame.
We could have won that war if our military had been allowed to take off the soft gloves, but it went on far too long with no end in sight, mismanaged to a fare-thee-well by the White House and became America’s misery. Through it all, even the betrayals from home, we fought well and never lost one significant battle.
Leftists think they know all about the war and the Americans who fought it. They don’t know didley.
At the 334th Attack Helicopter Company in Bien Hoa, we Cobra pilots were 19 to 25 years old with very rough edges. We thought of ourselves as gunslingers and might have swaggered a bit. We drank too much at the end of a sweat-stained day, for fun or escape or both. We laughed off close calls with the bravado of gallows humor. We toasted our dead and hid the pain of personal loss deep inside. We swore a lot and told foul jokes. We pushed away the worry of how long our luck would hold, and the next day we would bet our life again to protect the South Vietnamese people and each other.
To properly characterize my fellow Vietnam vets, I need to borrow words from John Steinbeck as he wrote about the inhabitants of Cannery Row, and ask you to look from my angle, past their flaws, to see them as I often do, “ . . saints and angels, martyrs and holy men.” America’s best.
I am proud to be one of them because we faced evil together in a valiant effort to keep the South Vietnamese people free, doing God’s work for a little while, even though it failed by the hand of our own countrymen working against us from safety at home.
More than any other class of people, I trust and admire the American men and women who served in Vietnam and met the test of their mettle, even the ones I don’t know. I wouldn’t trade a single one of them for a thousand leftist anti-war elites
Everyone deserves a second chance But for the naval-gazing flower children who remain unrepentant about encouraging the enemy we were fighting, who still smugly know all the wrong answers about us and the Vietnam War, who have never known mortal danger and didn’t give a fig when Saigon fell, and the Commies made South Vietnamese streets run red with the blood of innocent people.
I want to be sure to deliver this invitation before I get too old and feeble:
Kiss me where the sun don’t shine! -------------------------
Terry Garlock lives in Peachtree City, GA.
Published on Wed Jan 30, 2019 in The Citizen, a Fayette County GA newspaper.
I do not believe soldiers who served in Vietnam should ever have been vilified. Those who chose to send them there probably should be. I'm about halfway through Hastings', "Viet Nam, 1945-1975, An Epic Tragedy". It seems to be a balanced view of the country for the entire time period specified in the title, and I encourage all those interested to read it. So many factors worked against our troops, the corruption and incompetence of the South Vietnam government, the determination of the communists are just a couple. As was said in a movie, one of the classic blunders is to get involved in a land war in Asia.
My brother served there on an LST, ended up getting into heroin. A family friend and one of his high school classmate served as a helicopter gunner and was killed. All in vain. Maybe we should have learned from that, maybe if we had we wouldn't be mired in the Middle East, no end in sight.
My time there was 71-72 - by that time, we tended to ignore the biased news from home and mostly we fought for each other. As to what my fellow Army aviator wrote, I'll just say what we said back then, "There it is . . . . "
We could have won that war if our military had been allowed to take off the soft gloves, but it went on far too long with no end in sight, mismanaged to a fare-thee-well by the White House and became America’s misery. Through it all, even the betrayals from home, we fought well and never lost one significant battle.
Good write up, but the best paragraph is above. miles
We could have won that war if our military had been allowed to take off the soft gloves, but it went on far too long with no end in sight, mismanaged to a fare-thee-well by the White House and became America’s misery. Through it all, even the betrayals from home, we fought well and never lost one significant battle.
Good write up, but the best paragraph is above. miles
Indeed!
I served there from January '67-February '68, so was there for the big TET offensive, during which time I was wounded. The betrayals back home were in fact a burden for us.
I have been reading a lot of books lately on the Vietnam War, and just finished a book about Hue. Just about every "expert" of that time period warned against getting involved there. Yet, our politicians felt as if they had to stand up to communism, so Democrat and Republican alike were in favor of it.
Maybe we could have won, but certainly not the way we went about it. History shows us that all we did was waste a lot of American lives, fighting what turned out to be nothing but a delaying action. No need to rehash it, as it is what it is. A couple of my high school classmates were killed over there, and I've always thought that they gave their lives for absolutely nothing.
The Vietnamese have been fighting off the Chinese for 400 years. In all that time they did not quit and they did not lose. Good friends to have, people like that, wouldn't you say?
Very good article. Another forgotten aspect of the fiasco in Vietnam is that of the lives it destroyed after the war and to this day. My uncle, who was only 10 years younger than I went to Vietnam. Although he escaped physical wounds, he carried the unseen wounds to a early grave. They say that 60,000 Americans were lost in Vietnam, but I believe that number is wrong by orders of magnitude and we are still loosing them today. Because of Vietnam, LBJ will always be the worst President in my lifetime saving Jimmy Carter and Obama from that award.
As I said back then, I was unsure if I understood even the tiniest lower left-hand corner of the big picture, but I knew beyond doubt that I was doing my country's bidding in an honorable cause.
I have claimed for the past couple of decades that we did in fact win that war. Full-fledged Communism lasted for less than 10 years in Vietnam before even the most entrenched leaders recognized that their system wouldn't work, but the glimpse of capitalism we gave them would. They gave in and began to allow private entrepreneurship until today, Vietnam has a thriving economy and a hotbed of global business. Look around and note well how many things you own say "Made in Vietnam." Those three words spell victory, my fellow warriors.
And if I could, I'd throw poop at those who did the same to me when I stepped off my Freedom Bird. Because it was they who were the disgrace.
While not all were “true patriots”, they were all soldiers that faced the same horrors of war. They should have all been treated with respect....then and now! I know several that served, and are very “bitter” toward our government. Sadly, they have justified anger! memtb
T R U T H............ That title says it all. Excellent well written piece. I wish that I were that articulate. I was scheduled to arrive in Nam in the spring of 1970. My orders were cancelled ( along with a ton of other guys) about Feb. 1970. Nobody knew why; until months later, summer of '70 IIRC, that Pres. Nixon announced troop reductions. So I and a bunch of other guys didn't go. But of course, that didn't stop us from getting called "Baby Killers", by our wonderful civilian contemporaries of our own age bracket. Back then if you were in a marine or army uniform, or possibly any branch uniform, you automatically qualified as a "Baby Killer". I was brought up in a pretty conservative environment around lots of WW2 / Korean vets including my dad and uncles, teachers, scoutmasters, etc. and this hate filled crap given to so many members of our military back then was my first real world taste of liberalism courtesy of our oh-so tolerant, diverse, left wing, faction of the political spectrum. Today, they'd probably fit descriptions like "snowflakes", "social justice warriors", or maybe even Antifa members. They were alive and well even in the Vietnam era; just under different names.
I left there in 1970.. I was in a HQ for a while ( I can't tell you which one) but I could plainely see we were winning the war and if we had stayed about 6 more months from the time we pulled out it would of been a different story.. I was really shocked when they decided to pull out. I couldent believe it....I wanted to go back and kick some more azz...
. . . Back then if you were in a marine or army uniform, or possibly any branch uniform, you automatically qualified as a "Baby Killer.". . .
Ironic, that these same long-haired, dope smoking hippies, who are the leaders of the Demonrat Party today, were crying "baby killers" back then, but support real baby killing since 1974 in Roe v Wade.
We could have won that war if our military had been allowed to take off the soft gloves, but it went on far too long with no end in sight, mismanaged to a fare-thee-well by the White House and became America’s misery. Through it all, even the betrayals from home, we fought well and never lost one significant battle.
Good write up, but the best paragraph is above. miles
And that is why there was shame associatedcwith that war, the loss of which most normal Americans were reminded was due to them and their lack of support and the Govts lack of support and not due to the great American boys sent there and hung out to dry.
Returning troops reminded most Americans of that unhappy fact. The msm did their best to focus on the antiwar bums as right minded people in their never ending antiAmerican efforts.
Those who have an accident and kill or cripple innocents are reminded of their error any time they see the friends and relatives of those they hurt.
I never heard of any normal folks ashamed of our troops in that effort, though the msm so successfully portrayed it.
If you follow Joe Galloway on Facebook you might be surprised at what a Liberal POS he has become.
I don't do Facebook. What is Galloway saying that indicates he's turned liberal??
L.W.
I was Facebook friends with him as I was in the area when that battle was going on, but he has blocked me from commenting anymore. He is vicious in his comments on Trump and the Republicans. I don't mean critical, Vicious! Just another typical liberal journalist.
If you follow Joe Galloway on Facebook you might be surprised at what a Liberal POS he has become.
I don't do Facebook. What is Galloway saying that indicates he's turned liberal??
L.W.
I was Facebook friends with him as I was in the area when that battle was going on, but he has blocked me from commenting anymore. He is vicious in his comments on Trump and the Republicans. I don't mean critical, Vicious! Just another typical liberal journalist.
Thanks for the information. I never figured Galloway for a left winger.
Well into the autumn of my life, I am occasionally reminded the end is not too far over the horizon. Mortality puts thoughts in my head, like “What have I done to leave this world a better place?”
There actually are a few things that I think made my existence worthwhile. I will tell you just one of them, because so many of you need to hear it.
No matter how much this rubs the wrong way, I am quite proud to have served my Country in The Vietnam War. Yes, I know, most of you were taught there is shame attached to any role in the war that America lost, an unfortunate mistake, an immoral war, an unwise intrusion into a civil war, a racist war, a war in which American troops committed widespread atrocities, where America had no strategic interest, and that our North Vietnamese enemy was innocently striving to re-unite Vietnam.
The problem is, none of those things are true. That didn’t stop America over the last 50 years lapping up this Kool-Aid concocted by the anti-war machine, a loose confederation of protesting activists, the mainstream news media and academia. They opposed the war with loud noise, half-truths and fabrications. They are the ones who still write their version in our schoolbooks, and their account of history conveniently excuses themselves for cowardly encouraging our enemy while we were at war. You see, having the right to protest does not necessarily make it the right or honorable thing to do.
So, yes, I am defiantly proud to have been among those who raised our right hand swearing to do our duty for our country while so many others yelled and screamed and marched, burned their draft cards, declared, ”Hell no! I won’t go!” and some fled to Canada. In that period of uncomfortable controversy, even patriots tended to look the other way when activists heartily insulted American troops as they returned through California airports from doing the country’s hardest work in Vietnam. War correspondent Joe Galloway summed it up nicely in a column about Vietnam vets in the Chicago Tribune long ago; “They were the best you had, America, and you turned your back on them.”
To be sure, there were lots of warts and wrinkles in the war. We were fighting a tough Communist enemy, defending South Vietnam’s right to remain free. At the same time we were betrayed by our own leadership in the White House with their incompetent micromanagement and idiotic war-fighting limitations that got thousands of us killed while preventing victory. And we were betrayed by fellow citizens encouraging our enemy.
I was trained to be an Army Cobra helicopter pilot. I remember many times, with no regrets, shooting up the enemy to protect our ground troops, firing to cover fellow pilots, and firing to keep the brutal enemy away from South Vietnamese civilians. A high school student asked me last year how I deal with the guilt. I answered that I don’t have any guilt, that I was doing my duty and would proudly do it again.
When John Lennon turned the Beatles into a protest band, his song “Give Peace a Chance” was hailed as genius. Look up the inane lyrics and judge for yourself At protest rallies, crowds of tens of thousands would raise their arms to wave in unison while chanting in ecstasy, “All we are asking, is give peace a chance!” over and over. Luminaries like Tom Smothers, presidential candidate George McGovern, writer and self-acclaimed intellectual Gore Vidal and a host of others lauded Lennon’s song and observed “Who wouldn’t prefer peace to war?”
What self-indulgent, naive stupidity!
My friend Anh Nguyen was 12 years old in 1968, living in the city of Hue, the cultural center of Vietnam. One morning when he opened the shutters to his bedroom window, a shot was fired over his head, the first he knew the enemy’s Tet Offensive had begun. The Communists had negotiated a cease fire for their New Year holiday of Tet, then in treachery attacked on that holiday in about 100 locations all over South Vietnam.
The enemy was well prepared, and they took the city of Hue. They had lists of names and addresses provided by spies, and they went from street to street, dragging from their homes political leaders, business owners, teachers, doctors, nurses and other “enemies of the people.” The battle raged four weeks before our Marines retook the city. In the aftermath, mass graves with nearly 5,000 bodies were found, executed by the Communists, many tied together and buried alive.
Anh and his family had evacuated to an American compound for protection. Anh says when the battle was over and they walked Highway 1 back to their home, the most beautiful sight his family had ever seen was US Marines lining the road, standing guard over South Vietnamese civilians. To follow John Lennon’s plea, Anh’s family and countrymen could “Give peace a chance” by surrendering to the Communist invaders, but even a mush-head like Lennon should know there are some things you don’t give up without a fight. I doubt Lennon would have understood the best way to ensure peace is to carry the biggest stick.
Want to know what causes me shame?
In 1973, when we basically had the war won, the US gave it away in a peace agreement when escape from Vietnam was the only politically acceptable option. In the peace agreement, the US pledged our ongoing financial support to South Vietnam’s defense, and pledged US direct military intervention if the North Vietnamese ever broke their pledge not to attack South Vietnam. In the 1974 elections, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and President Nixon’s resignation, Democrats were swept into Congress and promptly cut off all funding to South Vietnam in violation of the US pledge.
Of course North Vietnam was watching.
In early 1975 when the North Vietnamese attacked South Vietnam, President Ford literally begged Congress to fund the US pledge to intervene, and Congress refused.
The same news media, protesters and academia who had screamed against the war, firmly turned their back in 1975 and refused to notice the slaughter and inhumanity as the Communists overwhelmed the ally America had thrown under the bus. Even today, few on the anti-war side know or care there were roughly 75,000 executions, that a panicked million fled in over-packed rickety boats and died at sea by the tens of thousands, that a million were sent to brutal re-education camps for decades and also died by the tens of thousands, or that South Vietnamese who fought to remain free - and their descendants - are still persecuted to this day. Abandoning our ally to that fate is America’s everlasting shame.
We could have won that war if our military had been allowed to take off the soft gloves, but it went on far too long with no end in sight, mismanaged to a fare-thee-well by the White House and became America’s misery. Through it all, even the betrayals from home, we fought well and never lost one significant battle.
Leftists think they know all about the war and the Americans who fought it. They don’t know didley.
At the 334th Attack Helicopter Company in Bien Hoa, we Cobra pilots were 19 to 25 years old with very rough edges. We thought of ourselves as gunslingers and might have swaggered a bit. We drank too much at the end of a sweat-stained day, for fun or escape or both. We laughed off close calls with the bravado of gallows humor. We toasted our dead and hid the pain of personal loss deep inside. We swore a lot and told foul jokes. We pushed away the worry of how long our luck would hold, and the next day we would bet our life again to protect the South Vietnamese people and each other.
To properly characterize my fellow Vietnam vets, I need to borrow words from John Steinbeck as he wrote about the inhabitants of Cannery Row, and ask you to look from my angle, past their flaws, to see them as I often do, “ . . saints and angels, martyrs and holy men.” America’s best.
I am proud to be one of them because we faced evil together in a valiant effort to keep the South Vietnamese people free, doing God’s work for a little while, even though it failed by the hand of our own countrymen working against us from safety at home.
More than any other class of people, I trust and admire the American men and women who served in Vietnam and met the test of their mettle, even the ones I don’t know. I wouldn’t trade a single one of them for a thousand leftist anti-war elites
Everyone deserves a second chance But for the naval-gazing flower children who remain unrepentant about encouraging the enemy we were fighting, who still smugly know all the wrong answers about us and the Vietnam War, who have never known mortal danger and didn’t give a fig when Saigon fell, and the Commies made South Vietnamese streets run red with the blood of innocent people.
I want to be sure to deliver this invitation before I get too old and feeble:
Kiss me where the sun don’t shine! -------------------------
Terry Garlock lives in Peachtree City, GA.
Published on Wed Jan 30, 2019 in The Citizen, a Fayette County GA newspaper.
Exactly. We didn't lose that war. The protestors and politicians quit that war while we were still kicking ass. I was there in 1972 during the Easter Campaign. We sent the best they had (NVA Regulars) to hell. That offensive cost them dearly. General Giap (Commander in Chief of the NVA) said himself they were defeated and ready to surrender more than once but thanks to American protestors and all associated they continued on knowing the Americaqn people didn't have the balls for what was happening. All they had to do was wait us out. Terry is 100% correct. We won that GD war. The American protestors and Government quit too soon. I am proud to have served and have no regrets. Semper Fi to all my Brothers.
As I said back then, I was unsure if I understood even the tiniest lower left-hand corner of the big picture, but I knew beyond doubt that I was doing my country's bidding in an honorable cause.
I have claimed for the past couple of decades that we did in fact win that war. Full-fledged Communism lasted for less than 10 years in Vietnam before even the most entrenched leaders recognized that their system wouldn't work, but the glimpse of capitalism we gave them would. They gave in and began to allow private entrepreneurship until today, Vietnam has a thriving economy and a hotbed of global business. Look around and note well how many things you own say "Made in Vietnam." Those three words spell victory, my fellow warriors.
And if I could, I'd throw poop at those who did the same to me when I stepped off my Freedom Bird. Because it was they who were the disgrace.
I left there in 1970.. I was in a HQ for a while ( I can't tell you which one) but I could plainely see we were winning the war and if we had stayed about 6 more months from the time we pulled out it would of been a different story.. I was really shocked when they decided to pull out. I couldent believe it....I wanted to go back and kick some more azz...
And many THANKS to all those that went to Vietnam, beat the enemy and then got screwed over by the damned politicians and left wing cowards protesting at home.
You guys were and shall always remain America's BEST.
I have been reading a lot of books lately on the Vietnam War, and just finished a book about Hue. Just about every "expert" of that time period warned against getting involved there. Yet, our politicians felt as if they had to stand up to communism, so Democrat and Republican alike were in favor of it.
Maybe we could have won, but certainly not the way we went about it. History shows us that all we did was waste a lot of American lives, fighting what turned out to be nothing but a delaying action. No need to rehash it, as it is what it is. A couple of my high school classmates were killed over there, and I've always thought that they gave their lives for absolutely nothing.
As per my cousin Gene who was there, we were winning. Right up until LBJ said we could not go north of the DMZ. 4 years later we were winning again with Linebacker II until we stopped again. The ultimate defeat was abandoning the South in 1975. We were always winning the war in Viet Nam. We were not winning the war with the leftists and the idiots at home. I watched the fall of Viet Nam from an Army missile base in Alaska and we all felt the same way, we had it won and we let it slip away. It was a low time for us. We all thought America hated us. We didn't know why. We stuck it out in Europe in WWII and look at Germany and Japan now. Allies. Strong Allies. If they look like us we will stay. If they don't look like us we will leave them hanging in the wind. Shame on us.
I've pretty much laid out my thoughts in a previous thread and won't beat it to a pulp here. Most folks take their vision about the war from the time frame of the LBJ years forward and that's about when it started getting messy. Truth is it began quite a few years prior and some very fundamental components and decisions are overlooked. Truman and the French occupation is a good place to start. I'm thinking we had a very positive influence on how things turned out and as example, take a look at the image below and realize how all those swimming holes contributed to the joy of little kids playing in the mud, or even practicing for the Olympics!
It probably isn't obvious, but today the area encompassed in the picture is a thriving metropolis. Weren't for us they would not have had a clean slate to start with.
The biggest loss from that war was convincing most of a whole generation of young people, including me, who had previously trusted and honored our government, that our government was a bunch of incompetent cynical liars and our traditions were not worth a bucket of warm spit. Later I realized the liar was LBJ, not America. But many didn't, and now that they are older, they are the Left who seeks to tear down America. That is LBJ's legacy.
LBJ, McNamara, and Taylor lied. They were like someone caught in the tar baby, a tar baby they had themselves made, and could think of nothing but to throw more of our youth at the tar baby while pulling their own punches. The youth rebelled and most of them were not long-haired hippies either.
Nothing but honor and reverence should be given to those who fought there. If you haven't visited the Viet Nam Memorial, do so. It is a holy and sacred place.
And read "A Bright Shining Lie" by LTC John Paul Vance.
I was just getting out in fall of 64 when things were heating up.
My brother did three tours as a Corpsman with the Marines and he always said they were being sent to Vietnam to fight the Communists but they should have been sent to California and DC.
I know of none who were taught to look at our Nam service men in shame.
I was in college at the time and friends and relatives paid a price and some, the full price in Nam.
Me and my friends looked at the antiwar activists as anti American communist sympathizers and we knew, and our parents knew, our servicemen were hung out to serve, suffer and die without the full support of our govt.
People wanted to support out govt, and they didnt want their boys to go and pay the price their neighbors sons paid.
America wanted to forget that war because America was ashamed of itself.
As I said back then, I was unsure if I understood even the tiniest lower left-hand corner of the big picture, but I knew beyond doubt that I was doing my country's bidding in an honorable cause.
I have claimed for the past couple of decades that we did in fact win that war. Full-fledged Communism lasted for less than 10 years in Vietnam before even the most entrenched leaders recognized that their system wouldn't work, but the glimpse of capitalism we gave them would. They gave in and began to allow private entrepreneurship until today, Vietnam has a thriving economy and a hotbed of global business. Look around and note well how many things you own say "Made in Vietnam." Those three words spell victory, my fellow warriors.
And if I could, I'd throw poop at those who did the same to me when I stepped off my Freedom Bird. Because it was they who were the disgrace.
Those are the same people who keep gavin newsome and nasty Pelosi in power and are destroying California today. They had no scruples in 1971 and they have no scruples today.
It was a complicated time. Our leaders made huge mistakes and lied to us. Read Hasting's, "Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975". I think one of the best movies about how poorly we treated our returning soldiers was "Born on the Fourth of July".
I dated a Vietnamese woman for a little over a year. Sweet thing. We're still friends.
Their family was from SVN, middle-class shop owners. After the North invaded and took over post-1974, the family lost everything except what the father converted to gold and hid. He used that money to pay smugglers to take her and her oldest brother to a boat to escape. She was 14 at the time. One other brother was supposed to go but he couldn't be found when the smugglers gave the word and they had to go immediately.
She spent 40 days on a 40-foot boat with 80 other people. Storms, high seas, all of it. They landed in Malaysia where she spent 2 years in a refugee camp before she was given the chance to go to Canada. She won't talk about those days...
She came to Canada and found work, eventually moving her family here. Her older brother went to the US, became a computer programmer working for the US Gov't. He quit that at age 51 and went back to school to become an MD, his true calling.
Rest of the family settled here in Canada and found jobs, made homes, made lives. Her mother died in VN, but her father is still alive. He hates two things - Chinese and communists, because they were both what took away his life in VN.
I just wonder how different the world would be had we stayed and finished the job. We were betrayed. Vietnam was betrayed. I find it difficult to comprehend the scope of the waste...all the young fellows who gave it their best and sacrificed ALL. They WERE America's best beyond the shadow of a doubt.
OTOH, I question whether it is wise---or even possible---to give another culture freedom. It seems to be something that will slip away from and elude those who are unwilling to get it for themselves. More recent events in the middle east tend to support that hypothesis.
I could be wrong, though. Could it be that these other cultures won't embrace the fight for liberty because they [perhaps justifiably] perceive that we will abandon them? Maybe they've been conditioned to see that as inevitable...and maybe we've been conditioned to he behave that way.
I could be wrong about all that, but I do think about it.
OTOH, I question whether it is wise---or even possible---to give another culture freedom. It seems to be something that will slip away from and elude those who are unwilling to get it for themselves. More recent events in the middle east tend to support that hypothesis.
I'm not even sure our culture can handle freedom! It's been given to us by our forebears but we are seeing it being slowly taken away. There dang sure seems to be a large number of Americans who are willing to become slaves to the federal government.
God bless all of you who served, wherever and whenever.
I was one of the guys who kept the B-52's, C-130's, F-4's, A-7's, F-105 Wild Weasels, and a whole bunch of other USAF birds in the air, plus doing a little electronic maintenance on the BUF's on the way to the target- - - -AFSC 325X0, on flying status. Many of my friends who survived like I did are now dying of combat related illnesses caused by Agent Orange, Trichlorethyline, Asbestos, and some of the other stuff we were exposed to. It was fought about 50 years ago, but that war is still killing people. Yes, the politicians betrayed us, but, it seems nothing of value was learned from their malfeasance. My Marine vet grandson is still fighting his battles- - - -IED injuries, and PTSD from yet another "war" the politicians were too cowardly to win, fought on behalf or people who don't deserve to have one drop or American blood shed for them. Try negotiating with a nest of hornets sometime, instead of using a weed-burner propane torch on them, and I'll be glad to place a big bet on the outcome! People who ignore history, or worse yet, lie about it and rewrite it, are doomed to repeat the mistakes that were made! Jerry
I just wonder how different the world would be had we stayed and finished the job. We were betrayed. Vietnam was betrayed. I find it difficult to comprehend the scope of the waste...all the young fellows who gave it their best and sacrificed ALL. They WERE America's best beyond the shadow of a doubt.
OTOH, I question whether it is wise---or even possible---to give another culture freedom. It seems to be something that will slip away from and elude those who are unwilling to get it for themselves. More recent events in the middle east tend to support that hypothesis.
I could be wrong, though. Could it be that these other cultures won't embrace the fight for liberty because they [perhaps justifiably] perceive that we will abandon them? Maybe they've been conditioned to see that as inevitable...and maybe we've been conditioned to he behave that way.
I could be wrong about all that, but I do think about it.
Trying to impose a culture or democracy, propping up corrupt government officials as we did in Vietnam is doomed to failure. If we had stayed longer in Vietnam we'd have futilely spent more money and spilled more blood, both American and Vietnamese. What's surprising is that we didn't learn much from our experience. Witness Iraq.
I just wonder how different the world would be had we stayed and finished the job. We were betrayed. Vietnam was betrayed. I find it difficult to comprehend the scope of the waste...all the young fellows who gave it their best and sacrificed ALL. They WERE America's best beyond the shadow of a doubt.
OTOH, I question whether it is wise---or even possible---to give another culture freedom. It seems to be something that will slip away from and elude those who are unwilling to get it for themselves. More recent events in the middle east tend to support that hypothesis.
I could be wrong, though. Could it be that these other cultures won't embrace the fight for liberty because they [perhaps justifiably] perceive that we will abandon them? Maybe they've been conditioned to see that as inevitable...and maybe we've been conditioned to he behave that way.
I could be wrong about all that, but I do think about it.
Trying to impose a culture or democracy, propping up corrupt government officials as we did in Vietnam is doomed to failure. If we had stayed longer in Vietnam we'd have futilely spent more money and spilled more blood, both American and Vietnamese. What's surprising is that we didn't learn much from our experience. Witness Iraq.
Vietnam today is communist in name only. Look at the wide range of products marked Made in Vietnam and you'll know that it is a thriving and booming capitalist economy.
I just wonder how different the world would be had we stayed and finished the job. We were betrayed. Vietnam was betrayed. I find it difficult to comprehend the scope of the waste...all the young fellows who gave it their best and sacrificed ALL. They WERE America's best beyond the shadow of a doubt.
OTOH, I question whether it is wise---or even possible---to give another culture freedom. It seems to be something that will slip away from and elude those who are unwilling to get it for themselves. More recent events in the middle east tend to support that hypothesis.
I could be wrong, though. Could it be that these other cultures won't embrace the fight for liberty because they [perhaps justifiably] perceive that we will abandon them? Maybe they've been conditioned to see that as inevitable...and maybe we've been conditioned to he behave that way.
I could be wrong about all that, but I do think about it.
Trying to impose a culture or democracy, propping up corrupt government officials as we did in Vietnam is doomed to failure. If we had stayed longer in Vietnam we'd have futilely spent more money and spilled more blood, both American and Vietnamese. What's surprising is that we didn't learn much from our experience. Witness Iraq.
Bullshit. We have met the problem, and it is YOU.
No, the problem is invading other countries with no exit strategy, wasting treasure and the blood of our soldiers. The problem is stupidity, refusing to learn from the past. That means guys like you are the problem.
I just wonder how different the world would be had we stayed and finished the job. We were betrayed. Vietnam was betrayed. I find it difficult to comprehend the scope of the waste...all the young fellows who gave it their best and sacrificed ALL. They WERE America's best beyond the shadow of a doubt.
OTOH, I question whether it is wise---or even possible---to give another culture freedom. It seems to be something that will slip away from and elude those who are unwilling to get it for themselves. More recent events in the middle east tend to support that hypothesis.
I could be wrong, though. Could it be that these other cultures won't embrace the fight for liberty because they [perhaps justifiably] perceive that we will abandon them? Maybe they've been conditioned to see that as inevitable...and maybe we've been conditioned to he behave that way.
I could be wrong about all that, but I do think about it.
Trying to impose a culture or democracy, propping up corrupt government officials as we did in Vietnam is doomed to failure. If we had stayed longer in Vietnam we'd have futilely spent more money and spilled more blood, both American and Vietnamese. What's surprising is that we didn't learn much from our experience. Witness Iraq.
Bullshit. We have met the problem, and it is YOU.
No, the problem is invading other countries with no exit strategy, wasting treasure and the blood of our soldiers. The problem is stupidity, refusing to learn from the past. That means guys like you are the problem.
I had a good friend, who was in the marines in 69. He went to Basic training. Then to nam, he was shot in the hip two weeks later. He has been crippled ever sense. He didn’t let it bother him, I saw him the other day and he and I said ya know you look around and we don’t have it so bad!
Here is an interesting video shown on 60 Minutes, several years ago. It features Frank Snepp, CIA Vietnam analyst, who spent 1970 to the final pullout in 1975, in Vietnam. He relates just how the CIA and politicians betrayed our Vietnamese friends who had helped us. Snepp got into some serious trouble with the CIA when he wrote and had published without CIA clearance, Decent Interval, his experiences in Vietnam and just how incompetent and devious the CIA was there.
When I lived in Los Angeles, I met Snepp and spoke with him about how the CIA demands any member or former member must get clearance for anything they write about anything the CIA does.
Kinda reminds me of the corruption today in high levels of the CIA as certain high level members have been involved in the coup against President Trump..
Vietnam today is communist in name only. Look at the wide range of products marked Made in Vietnam and you'll know that it is a thriving and booming capitalist economy.
In short, we won.
In many ways I agree with you but I have to wonder that if we’d have left Vietnam to its own devices wouldn’t it likely be “evolving” with the modern world? Did the 59,000+ lives lost precipitate their evolution or is it a compelling evolution based upon geopolitical inevitability?
That war forever changed this country’s attitudes and began our slide down the slippery slope. It was the harbinger of a new era and it illuminated the power and money that the military industrial complex wields as it made a few vultures incredibly wealthy while causing great pain and sadness for millions.
In my opinion the Vietnam War didn’t advance freedom or defeat communism. It was “fought” by politicians using American boys as their pawns. The less educated and those at the bottom of the socioeconomic strata were disproportionately murdered by politicos from DC in their reckless and callous trade of blood for money (and power). I have always had a deep respect for those that fought that war and then came home to find their country in a <seemingly> irreversible decline. That war legitimized immorality, violence and political divisions while fostering hatred and anti-patriotic rhetoric. Individually we have warriors that are still fighting battles that are 50 years distant while collectively we’re seeing even more vitriol and anti-patriotic rhetoric, rhetoric whose foundations were legitimized during the Vietnam war.
The sniveling cowards who refused to serve their country in the 60's and 70's took control of business, politics, education, and entertainment while the rest of us raised our hands, took an oath, and marched off to war. Then they poisoned the well of public opinion when those of us who survived returned, often crippled in body and/or mind. The children and grandchildren of those same worthless wastes of sperm have followed in their ancestors' footsteps to make this nation a sad parody of its former greatness. In the opinion of a lot of us, there are two Americas- - - -one populated by veterans and other patriots who serve our fellow citizens and work for the common good, and a huge number of the same sort of cowardly, self-absorbed scum who have no morals, or love of country. May they rot in Hell- - - - -along with the rest of their own kind! Jerry
I just wonder how different the world would be had we stayed and finished the job. We were betrayed. Vietnam was betrayed. I find it difficult to comprehend the scope of the waste...all the young fellows who gave it their best and sacrificed ALL. They WERE America's best beyond the shadow of a doubt.
OTOH, I question whether it is wise---or even possible---to give another culture freedom. It seems to be something that will slip away from and elude those who are unwilling to get it for themselves. More recent events in the middle east tend to support that hypothesis.
I could be wrong, though. Could it be that these other cultures won't embrace the fight for liberty because they [perhaps justifiably] perceive that we will abandon them? Maybe they've been conditioned to see that as inevitable...and maybe we've been conditioned to he behave that way.
I could be wrong about all that, but I do think about it.
Trying to impose a culture or democracy, propping up corrupt government officials as we did in Vietnam is doomed to failure. If we had stayed longer in Vietnam we'd have futilely spent more money and spilled more blood, both American and Vietnamese. What's surprising is that we didn't learn much from our experience. Witness Iraq.
Bullshit. We have met the problem, and it is YOU.
No, the problem is invading other countries with no exit strategy, wasting treasure and the blood of our soldiers. The problem is stupidity, refusing to learn from the past. That means guys like you are the problem.
More BULLSHIT.
Whatever was wasted in Vietnam can be laid at the feet of the un-American left who wanted the communists to succeed in taking over southeast Asia and the useful idiots who parroted them. The stupidity is allowing morons like you to have any influence at all. If we learn anything at all from the past, it needs to be to tell you buttboogers to sit down, shutthefuckup, and let the adults make the decisions.
Returning New Zealand troops from VN were spat on and had paint thrown at them. A certain female ex Prime Minister of this country who was a university student at the time, was among those who did this. Disgusting.
Had a few get in my face upon return from my first tour. 3 of the 4 Hairy Krishnas dopes wound up in their butts in the airport terminal. Another was a business operator in Florida that I knew before joining the Army. I hope his hearing has recovered and his customers have found use for their expanded vocabulary.
From someone who watched TV reports of the fighting, And always thought the gorillas they talked about were apes (Planet of the Apes, I was very young).
Thank you all for your service!
Good, bad or indifferent war. Thats not the point with me, about you.
You answered the call, or volunteered. Your country needed the best and the brightest, And many did the right thing.
Pal, I got excited to read that. My 10th grade English teacher was Mr. Garlock and a Vietnam Vet. Straight to the year book pile to check. Nope. He was Larry, not Terry. Anyway he was a good man.
Vietnam is the main reason LBJ is the 2nd worst US president ever. He sent our guys to fight and die in Vietnam while preventing them from even attempting to win. He fought the Vietnam war only to make himself look tough.
R Strange McNamara might could have done better if not for johnson and westmoreland. the dude was boxed in. the politician on one side, the pro-war soldier on the other.
but what else could he do?
i allus blamed johnson for his wrongdoings.
i've got jaguar under contract, searching for his grave right now.
if they made a tv show out of the search it might go on for several seasons.
i know the police action billed as the dirty little war in se asia went on for several seasons.
R Strange McNamara might could have done better if not for johnson and westmoreland. the dude was boxed in. the politician on one side, the pro-war soldier on the other.
but what else could he do?
i allus blamed johnson for his wrongdoings.
i've got jaguar under contract, searching for his grave right now.
if they made a tv show out of the search it might go on for several seasons.
i know the police action billed as the dirty little war in se asia went on for several seasons.
A pro war soldier, interesting subject. Gus, where was it in RVN that you engaged in combat?
R Strange McNamara might could have done better if not for johnson and westmoreland. the dude was boxed in. the politician on one side, the pro-war soldier on the other.
but what else could he do?
i allus blamed johnson for his wrongdoings.
i've got jaguar under contract, searching for his grave right now.
if they made a tv show out of the search it might go on for several seasons.
i know the police action billed as the dirty little war in se asia went on for several seasons.
A pro war soldier, interesting subject. Gus, where was it in RVN that you engaged in combat?
mike r
hey, mikey. i built my time at ft hood, tx after basic on tank hill at ft. jack SC.
saw a lot of incoming soldiers being drawn down from the nam.
lot's of good folks. the war was not good for them though, in my opinion.
i'm not down on people who served in the time span. i did. but lot's of folks got chewed up pretty bad, ya know?
I think the only "truth" is we lost the war. The 59,000 wasted guys, not to mention those who died later or were wounded, were just that--"wasted."
We did not make Viet Nam capitalistic. If we had just adhered to the accords tht mandated an election in 1956, it probably would have become capitalistic 20 years earlier, without the war.
The failure was in policy and strategy, not the fighting men themselves. Our problem was the domino theory, something simply not true.
Why fight a communist government in Viet Nam when we were subsidizing a communist government in Yugoslavia?
Some of the policy failures that guaranteed we would lose, after the US got sick of the endless war:
1. A draft that kept boys vulnerable and uncertain for 8 years, from 18 to 26, with vulnerability increasing each year.
2. Supporting a South Vietnamese government which was corrupt and not supported by its people.
3. Letting the enemy have privileged sanctuaries, guaranteeing the initiative to the North Vietnamese.
4. Worthless search and destroy missions, worthless because we immediately gave up any gains made.
5. McNamara's emphasis on statistics, resulting in phony body counts and aircraft sorties that didn't mean anything.
6. Total misunderstanding of what the North wanted. Bombing pauses for reonsidering? Offering a Red River dam?
7. Lying to the American people, from Tonkin Gulf in 1964 to the Cambodian incursions in 1970.
The only reason we left is that Nixon decided to declare we'd won and would go home. Nixon also defused the corrupt draft system by his lottery system. He gave the South Vietnamese government a couple of years to get their act together, called "Vietnamization." They didn't get their act together. And the North had a trump card--all our prisoners. Finally Nixon started mass bombing and made them release the prisoners. Bye bye. The South Vietnamese collapsed like a deck of cards, in part because Congress refused to keep pouring money for weapons down the South Vietnamese rathole.
So what did we get? Only the knowledge that sending massive amounts of troops and air assets to "win the hearts and minds" is a waste of time, money, and lives. At least in the mid-East we are deploying assets on a far lower level. If we want to fight a real war, we should be prepared to "kill every living thing above ground," to quote General LeMay. If we're not willing to do that, don't go to war. Viet Nam was not worth doing that.
Finally I would like to honor Jane Fonda for her worthy efforts. I intend to present her with a bottle of expensive Skotch whiskey. I will present it to her, after her death, by sprinkling it on her grave. After passing it through my kidneys.
Vietnam today is communist in name only. Look at the wide range of products marked Made in Vietnam and you'll know that it is a thriving and booming capitalist economy.
In short, we won.
In many ways I agree with you but I have to wonder that if we’d have left Vietnam to its own devices wouldn’t it likely be “evolving” with the modern world? Did the 59,000+ lives lost precipitate their evolution or is it a compelling evolution based upon geopolitical inevitability?
That war forever changed this country’s attitudes and began our slide down the slippery slope. It was the harbinger of a new era and it illuminated the power and money that the military industrial complex wields as it made a few vultures incredibly wealthy while causing great pain and sadness for millions.
In my opinion the Vietnam War didn’t advance freedom or defeat communism. It was “fought” by politicians using American boys as their pawns. The less educated and those at the bottom of the socioeconomic strata were disproportionately murdered by politicos from DC in their reckless and callous trade of blood for money (and power). I have always had a deep respect for those that fought that war and then came home to find their country in a <seemingly> irreversible decline. That war legitimized immorality, violence and political divisions while fostering hatred and anti-patriotic rhetoric. Individually we have warriors that are still fighting battles that are 50 years distant while collectively we’re seeing even more vitriol and anti-patriotic rhetoric, rhetoric whose foundations were legitimized during the Vietnam war.
Agreed. We may have postponed the communist takeover, but not by much. And, at a tremendous cost to us and the Vietnamese. We should have learned from the French, but slid into the same trap. Then we repeated those mistakes in Iraq. You're also correct about the underprivileged fighting the war, especially racial minorities.
I think the only "truth" is we lost the war. The 59,000 wasted guys, not to mention those who died later or were wounded, were just that--"wasted."
We did not make Viet Nam capitalistic. If we had just adhered to the accords tht mandated an election in 1956, it probably would have become capitalistic 20 years earlier, without the war.
The failure was in policy and strategy, not the fighting men themselves. Our problem was the domino theory, something simply not true.
Why fight a communist government in Viet Nam when we were subsidizing a communist government in Yugoslavia?
Some of the policy failures that guaranteed we would lose, after the US got sick of the endless war:
1. A draft that kept boys vulnerable and uncertain for 8 years, from 18 to 26, with vulnerability increasing each year.
2. Supporting a South Vietnamese government which was corrupt and not supported by its people.
3. Letting the enemy have privileged sanctuaries, guaranteeing the initiative to the North Vietnamese.
4. Worthless search and destroy missions, worthless because we immediately gave up any gains made.
5. McNamara's emphasis on statistics, resulting in phony body counts and aircraft sorties that didn't mean anything.
6. Total misunderstanding of what the North wanted. Bombing pauses for reonsidering? Offering a Red River dam?
7. Lying to the American people, from Tonkin Gulf in 1964 to the Cambodian incursions in 1970.
The only reason we left is that Nixon decided to declare we'd won and would go home. Nixon also defused the corrupt draft system by his lottery system. He gave the South Vietnamese government a couple of years to get their act together, called "Vietnamization." They didn't get their act together. And the North had a trump card--all our prisoners. Finally Nixon started mass bombing and made them release the prisoners. Bye bye. The South Vietnamese collapsed like a deck of cards, in part because Congress refused to keep pouring money for weapons down the South Vietnamese rathole.
So what did we get? Only the knowledge that sending massive amounts of troops and air assets to "win the hearts and minds" is a waste of time, money, and lives. At least in the mid-East we are deploying assets on a far lower level. If we want to fight a real war, we should be prepared to "kill every living thing above ground," to quote General LeMay. If we're not willing to do that, don't go to war. Viet Nam was not worth doing that.
Finally I would like to honor Jane Fonda for her worthy efforts. I intend to present her with a bottle of expensive Skotch whiskey. I will present it to her, after her death, by sprinkling it on her grave. After passing it through my kidneys.
I'm not going to say you're wrong about any particular point...in fact you're right on a lot of points. However, I think you're overlooking the fact that the defeat of North Vietnam was at hand when the politicians decided to jerk the rug out from under our allies in the south. At the insistence of the marxist left here in the USA, of course.
Total agreement on how to commemorate Jane Fonda's demise.
Don't have much objection to what Indy wrote but think some of you fellas are a bit short on review of the timeline of affairs that led us into that war. It started before Truman actually and it was his doctrine that set the stage.
That said JFK was prepared to pull out of the affair just before his assassination and LBJ ditched the documents prepared for that purpose. In the larger picture Truman overlooked the lessons of WW2 and entered us into our first circle jerk in Korea. LBJ repeated this sin in spades, as did Bush 2. Junior couldn't even learn the proper way to wage war from his daddy. Sad stuff in every way...near 40 years of war between the Mideast and Nam and damn little to show for it. Did ya know that Ladybird was a major stockholder in Textron Industries, aka Bell Helicopter? And like Nixon or not, he got us out of the war by sealing their ports, cutting overland roads and rail lines and destroying the north's capacity to wage war with the use of brute force. That is part of the equation of war that works pretty much every day of the week. I would be very supportive of Constitutional amendment such that eligibility for POTUS required military combat experience, or lacking a convenient war, military service of at least 5 years in the combat arms.
When I get to Hell I'm gonna lift LBJ off the floor by his ears. Right after I turn McNamara into a grease spot. Right next to Jane F.
I agree with Rocky on the point that in a round about way we won, but also think it was a war that never had to be fought. And getting wasted was a ritual we all shared, damn near every night in the 'Club.
There are no chopper pilots down in Hell, there are no chopper pilots down in Hell! Navigators, Bombardiers, and a bunch of other queers, but there are no chopper pilots down in Hell!
Was part of that event and saddened when we lost. My thoughts are that to truly win a war, the enemy should be mercilessly hammered until they beg us to quit. Then like Japan, occupy the country for about 2 generations to assure a reasonable government is established.
Perhaps few realize that one of the greatest losses combat veterans suffer is the loss of their natural innocence. Most of us grow up really owning "Thou shalt not kill." Those of us who were forced to take other human lives truly lost something that now isolates us from virtually all others.
Was part of that event and saddened when we lost. My thoughts are that to truly win a war, the enemy should be mercilessly hammered until they beg us to quit. Then like Japan, occupy the country for about 2 generations to assure a reasonable government is established.
Yup. That's the way to do it. Germany ultimately was a success, too, if you overlook the way the USSR was given a part and the pickle they've gotten themselves into more recently. Korea had way too much politics involved, but at least we've stood by the south to this day.
What we've done since then has had politics in the mix every time, and the liberals have made sure every gain is ultimately lost for their own political gain.
It's been almost 50 yrs and another lifetime for many of us here since the last day we said our goodbyes to our brothers in arms we left behind ...I think all of us remember that timeline as if it were yesterday to some extent with mixed feelings of happiness and sadness for those not so fortunate however we will honor their valor till the last breath we breathe.
I have no regrets for serving even in those tumultuous times and for the most part have put it behind me although hardly a day goes by that a sight or smell doesn't trigger a memory especially since I reside so close to my last duty assignment.. Lots of SEA vets here as well so even as we grow old this precious brotherhood is not only intact but very much alive and well...
My thanks to all you here for your devotion to duty and country during the hardest of times...
I was a young man of 18 when I enlisted.6 years later I knew that I was a complete different person.Friends and comrades from boot camp and high school were now dead.I knew every day of my life from then on was a bonus and lived my life to the fullest for my buds who could`nt anymore.I pledged never to forget them and never have.I try and go to the wall every chance I can to tell them of my gratitude to them for what they did.I am diminished.Huntz
It's been almost 50 yrs and another lifetime for many of us here since the last day we said our goodbyes to our brothers in arms we left behind ...I think all of us remember that timeline as if it were yesterday to some extent with mixed feelings of happiness and sadness for those not so fortunate however we will honor their valor till the last breath we breathe.
I have no regrets for serving even in those tumultuous times and for the most part have put it behind me although hardly a day goes by that a sight or smell doesn't trigger a memory especially since I reside so close to my last duty assignment.. Lots of SEA vets here as well so even as we grow old this precious brotherhood is not only intact but very much alive and well...
My thanks to all you here for your devotion to duty and country during the hardest of times...
I have searched and cannot find words to add to this. Says it all, at least for me.
Just throwing this out there since the topic of before the war came up.
Saw a documentary on Ho Chi Minh, said how he came to the US, the #1 country in the world known for freedom and self determination, looking forsupport. How he wanted to get rid of the French, and have his country be free, and self governed. We sided with France (ofF'ncourse) and supported them in their ruling over Vietnam. That led him to look elsewhere for help. China, and Russia.
True, or false.
If true, could one say that our biggest F'up was to support a colonizer over a colony. (hypocrisy doesn't begin to cover that)
If we had supported Ho, he may have became a tyrant. Or, a George Washington. If so, consider the world today. Most of the problems we rant about are based on liberalism. Without the war, where would Libs be today.
What an idea for one of Newt Gingrich's books, where he changes a single event in history, then writes about what would have happened if...
It's been almost 50 yrs and another lifetime for many of us here since the last day we said our goodbyes to our brothers in arms we left behind ...I think all of us remember that timeline as if it were yesterday to some extent with mixed feelings of happiness and sadness for those not so fortunate however we will honor their valor till the last breath we breathe.
I have no regrets for serving even in those tumultuous times and for the most part have put it behind me although hardly a day goes by that a sight or smell doesn't trigger a memory especially since I reside so close to my last duty assignment.. Lots of SEA vets here as well so even as we grow old this precious brotherhood is not only intact but very much alive and well...
My thanks to all you here for your devotion to duty and country during the hardest of times...
Thank you Brother, there are us and those like us. No one else has a clue. See you all in Valhalla including DD when he finishes his light work in hell
The sniveling cowards who refused to serve their country in the 60's and 70's took control of business, politics, education, and entertainment while the rest of us raised our hands, took an oath, and marched off to war. Then they poisoned the well of public opinion when those of us who survived returned, often crippled in body and/or mind. The children and grandchildren of those same worthless wastes of sperm have followed in their ancestors' footsteps to make this nation a sad parody of its former greatness. In the opinion of a lot of us, there are two Americas- - - -one populated by veterans and other patriots who serve our fellow citizens and work for the common good, and a huge number of the same sort of cowardly, self-absorbed scum who have no morals, or love of country. May they rot in Hell- - - - -along with the rest of their own kind! Jerry
I can’t add anything to any of the perspectives offered. I just know after my tour, I had a totally different outlook on all things human. I didn’t hunt for almost 20 years since the critters can’t shoot back. I’ve been over that for about 30. I quit LE after 3 years of seeing the same thing expecting different results in the city. Humanity sucks without the Lord. I might also remind one that what they say about not fuggin’ with an old man is true.... Happy Trails
![[Linked Image]](https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/gallery/80/full/95477.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/gallery/80/full/95478.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/gallery/80/full/95481.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/gallery/80/full/95479.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/gallery/80/full/95480.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://i2.wp.com/usefulstooges.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/jane5.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/3v8TXxQ.jpg)
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/H44nLoJ.jpg)
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/E7jyy97.jpg)