Chuks Lad,

I will mail you a book of Bar Chits as an indication of solidarity re your Service and your views on old "Useful Idiots".

I left on my stretcher as we were at the high water mark in Cambodia where we had finally for the first time been allowed to go after the Enemy's source of Supply....something we had never been allowed to do before.

Sadly, those afterwards were also denied the ability to carry the fight to the Enemy as Brother "Claus" had advocated for many years prior to our being involved in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

It would appear the British Parliament has been doing reading some History books themselves and did not like what they saw was about to happen again. Perhaps it is true that those who ignore History are bound to repeat it.

Those who tell us they know best about our Vietnam Experience usually know the least about it.....and certainly did not participate in that experience. I would suggest to them they consider how similar so many of our last episodes have been to that of Vietnam.

Libya, Egypt, and now Syria....all Civil Wars and all completely muddled up by out side powers getting involved or caused by outside powers getting involved.

Obama and Company plainly ignored History....hell...they ignore current events it seems.

I would suggest the following books for those that are genuinely interested on how we came to lose the Vietnam War....because we sure enough did. The Enemy did not beat us.....we beat ourselves. We had a complete failure of Leadership in both our Civilian government and within the Senior Ranks of the Military. Just....as we are seeing today in my view. Thus, my concerns over Libya, Egypt, and now Syria.


"Dereliction of Duty" by H. R. McMaster ISBN 0-06-018795-6
"On Strategy" by Harry G. Summers, Jr. ISBN 0-89141-563-7
"The Army and Vietnam" by Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr. ISBN 0-8018-2863-5
"Westmoreland" by Lewis Sorley ISBN 978-0-547-51826-8
"Thunderbolt" by Lewis Sorley ISBN 0-671-70115-0


HJ.....you must be besotted with the real Hanoi Jane.

Have you sought clinical help for that fixation?

Nice picture, BEagle.

But damn you, Sir! Are you a Communist too ?

Indeed I have, SAthingy.

My doctor assures me my implants are settling down nicely. Soon I'll be wearing my first bra. Excited!!!!!

HJ, why?

If you really want to emulate your heroine, no bra would be the order of the day :)

Seriously, for others, do read the contrarian views that HJ puts forward; they cast a different perspective and are often more realistic than some more extreme views published here.

PN,

I think if you slow down a bit and actually read what is being said....re HJ the original and John Kerry....it is the manner and method of their protest....not the views that have caused the long lasting and strong disapproval of their conduct.

There were honorable ways of protesting the War. Honorable people opposed and protested the War.

These two did not do that.

There lies the difference.

I am sure there are similarities in the way some folks opposed the British Governments actions in Northern Ireland....and some are viewed much the same as we view HJ and JK. Protest is one thing....but there is a line one must not cross before being viewed as giving direct support and assistance to the Enemy during a time of War.

By the way HJ....you are going to have to start sleeping with New Black Panther Party leaders if you wish to have the complete experience. I can refer you to the Shabazz brothers and a few others if you are interested.

Not that I would recommend that as a wise choice of conduct however.


Some idea of just how screwed up HJ the First is.....I have seen Fruitcakes that were not as nutty.

Jane Fonda said her biggest regret was not sleeping with Che Guevara | Mail Online

Seems the ex Iranian leader Rafsanjani is now saying that the Syrians gassed their own peeps.... Not exactly the solidarity Assad would be hoping.

HJ, no, I am not a Communist!

.

Oh, God...
 

They have let Bradley Manning have both his sex change and access to the internet? What, oh what, are things coming to?

SASless, you better hurry up with those bar cards; I feel a heavy bout of self-medication coming on.

With luck they'll have Spaghetti and Meatballs on the menu for him the day after his op followed by Spottied Dick and Custard for pudding.


edit

Changed to name from Spotty to Spottied to appease LB even though in my neck of the woods it is known as the former.:ok:

The term swiftboating (also spelled swift-boating or swift boating) is an American neologism used pejoratively to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. The term is derived from the name of the organization "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" (SBVT, later the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth) because of their widely publicized[1] then discredited campaign against 2004 US Presidential candidate John Kerry.[2][3][4]


I understand that some people don't like Kerry because he had the moral courage to speak out against the war, but to try to discredit him means that a number of other people, by association, were also discredited. A shameful act against patriots just for political gain.

Does the custard help with the spotty dick? I ask because I prefer butter and brown sugar on it but that has not worked so far.

PN,

Pert nipples are the next op. Don't rush me...

chuks,

I deeply resent your suggestion that I am Chelsea Elizabeth in disguise. I'm far hotter.

SASless,

SAS, you blame your leaders for your country's failures in the American War. You're wrong.

You were - mostly - competently led and well equipped. Strategically you made few mistakes. You won the vast majority of the engagements in which you participated. Why, then, did you fail in your goal? And not only in VN, but in Iraq and Afghanistan too?

Sorry, but it's the guys on the ground who failed you. The guys who thought a 'free fire zone' meant killing every living thing in sight. The guys who were so poorly trained and led at squad level that they preferred to pop a few grenades and burn a house rather than to clear it properly and with due regard for its likely inhabitants. The guys who considered the appropriate response to a few VC in a village was to napalm the entire damn thing. The guys who assumed every male between the age of 16-60 not in South Vietnamese uniform was an enemy and treated them accordingly.

Yes, the Communists were horrendously cruel in the South to those they viewed as non-supporters. But they were perceived by the Vietnamese as 'our bast*rds' rather than the 'invading bast*rds'. No-one likes an invader, especially not when you have the history VN possesses. I think you'll find the same perspective exists in Afghanistan too.

You lost the war at an individual level. You failed to show compassion, respect, even love for the people you were there to serve and protect. To you, they were just 'gooks' of one hue or another. And still you do it. Listen to the voices on YouTube as you 'take out' your enemies. You learn nothing.

If you find comfort in blaming your leaders or your media or Ms Fonda for your loss, I'm happy for you. But you're pointing your finger in the wrong direction. Your failure was that of the ordinary soldier or airman, and his alone.

HJ,

You are talking silly now.

Read....it enlightens one's mind.

But....one must read from credible sources that provide factual accounts.

You are just like HJ the First.....when you talk as you do now.....being a useful Idiot.

You were not there....you do not really know what went on...and your intellectual curiosity is such you have not studied the War.

You quote popular myths and cling to them despite being offered the truth.

You probably have stood at the Military Museum in Saigon....looked at the Chinook and read the sign in front of it that describes the Radar System that was installed on it....and thought it to be true.

Perhaps when you stood in the Visitors Center at the Hoa Lo Prison (Hanoi Hilton), you skipped over the photo of Norm Gaddis being taken prisoner....Norm spent many years there as a POW and over coffee we have discussed what his time there was like.

Yes, My Lai happened, and yes Helicopter Crews flying that day stopped some of the killing by offering to shoot US Soldiers who were murdering innocent Vietnamese. They went on to report the Atrocities to their Commanders but the US Army tried to cover it up. Colin Powell, as you may recall as a Major tasked to investigate the initial allegations six months after the event, covered up the event by saying it was all a fabrication.

It was a war of reunification that we should never have gotten into.

We owe that to Harry Truman and his about face on the Roosevelt Doctrine of ending European Colonialism at the end of WWII. Roosevelt would never have supported the French and would have supported Ho and Giap over the French.

We were right in one regard however.....it was a war that helped bring the downfall of Communism in Europe, greatly altered the belligerency of the Chinese, and kept most of that part of the world from falling under the control of communist governments.

Can you discuss the difference between the Westmoreland Strategy and Abrams Strategy? At what point did we actually lose the War? What were the factors that lead to the Vietnamese Armed Forces being so unable to counter the NVA after the US Forces departed?

If you can answer those questions you can answer why Iraq and Afghanistan have gone wrong...along with Libya and Egypt and if we persist....Syria too.

He claimed he threw his medals away but then appears they were someone elses.........

Quote of the Day (via The New York Times): Homs resident: “Man, I wish Bush was the president,” he said. “He would have reacted right away. He may have invaded Cyprus or Jordan instead of Syria by mistake, but you know he would have done something at least.”


Indeed

Hmm...
 

We have us a hottie who is a scholar of the Viet Nam War? If she or he or whatever says so, I suppose so, but, really, as SASless said, just before he stole my bar card, "You had to be there."

Scholars argue to this day over the meaning of that, whether SASless meant, as many veterans still maintain, that one had to participate in the grand cluster-f*ck that was the American Viet Nam War in order to come to much of an understanding of what it was like for the average GI, or else he was simply stating the obvious, that I had to be there, instead of in Port Harcourt as I was, to keep hold of my bar card. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and apply his statement to the war.

Jane, you might want to spend your dosh on a set of books instead of a set of fake, albeit pert, nipples. (You might find your new nipples disappointingly numb, although that would make a good match for the quality of your thought.)

Viet Nam is made up of various ethnic groups, so that one really could argue that South Viet Nam was being invaded by North Viet Nam, as two somewhat different groups with very different desires.

I don't think too many people in South Viet Nam really went around muttering "Ho, ho, Ho Chi Minh; NLF is gonna win," under their breath, let alone screech it out at full volume as your fellow believer did, but that is just another guess of mine.

chuks,

OMG, you said the 'you had to be there' thing! That IMMEDIATELY negates anything you said from there on in. ROTFL!!!!!

SASless, honey,

This is my last comment on this because my mommy won't let me stay up late talking to bad people on the Internets. And it's only the Internets so no-one really gives a hoot anyway...

You don't speak Vietnamese. This I guarantee. You still don't understand either the people or the county. This too I guarantee. You seek answers in a neat package. This I understand.

Almost everyone in 'South' Viet Nam of a certain age has a story to tell about the disproportionate use of force by Americans during the American war. Even those on the side of the Republic. Now they're either all fantasists or there is truth in their tales. You choose which you prefer.

The vast majority of the literature written by 'Vets' supports the hypothesis that most neither knew or cared why they were there, that winning 'hearts and minds' was not exactly a prime concern, and that compassion or respect for their adversary simply didn't exist. Or are you telling me they were all wrong? Again, take your pick.

The failure of the American supported regime to gain the trust of the local population created the very basis for the eventual collapse of the Republic. They trusted the other side more. Game over.

Yes, I'm certain there were good people on your side. Just not enough to make a difference.

Like most in Viet Nam today I have no real interest in wars past. As I keep being told, I'm part of a 'soft generation who couldn't do what we did'. And they're probably right. I have never seen the Hanoi Hilton and only visited the War Crimes Museum 'cos it was on the curriculum. The Chinook is a recent addition (4-5 years ago?) it wasn't there during my visit.

Again, SASless, the people who make the difference are the people who are actually on the ground, doing the fighting. Making sure they have the right mindset is a lesson you need to learn if you intend to keep on wandering into other peoples wars. Send scared barely-educated kids with their heads full of nonsense and you'll end up with another Viet Nam.

And you have, haven't you?

Now, it's time for my cuddle. May I go now?

What does ROTFL mean?

In my experience, some of them were a little too trigger-happy in Iraq and Afghanistan too.