Tag: Vietnam War

Another Lost Lesson?

They say (whoever “they” are) that each conflict educates our leaders and strategists…..but I find that not so accurate……for what did we learn about our short visit to the battlefields of World War One?  For that matter WW2 or Korea or especially Vietnam?

I know that we learned nothing from our ten years in Vietnam….for I see the same mistakes being made with our cute “War on Terror”…..a cute slogan only….you cannot defeat a tactic….

But I digress.

Will we, the US, make the same mistakes we made in Vietnam?

According to reports, the Army has delayed the publication of a 1,300-page internal Iraq war study commissioned by General Ray Odierno in 2013. The volume, which few in the public were even aware of, was an admirable project. After all, the U.S. military famously ignored and jettisoned any lessons after its defeat in Vietnam. Most of us would agree that simply can’t happen again.

So why the delay? Some fear the Army might be hesitant to publish a study that takes its leadership to task for decisions critical to the execution, and perhaps outcome, of the war. (Basically, while the Army says it wants to learn its lessons, it doesn’t necessarily want to see them in black and white.) One chief Army historian claimed it would “air” too much institutional “dirty laundry.”

Indeed, retired Colonel Frank Sobchack, a study team director, expressed concern about the delay in the report’s release, asserting “that the Army was paralyzed with apprehension for the past two years over publishing it leaves me disappointed with the institution to which I dedicated my adult life.”

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/will-iraq-become-another-lesson-lost-like-vietnam/

If not then tell me what it all has meant?

Possibly the most poignant line of the 1984 breakout hit “19” by electronic musician Paul Hardcastle was the one it deliberately drove home with synthesized drumbeat repetition: “In World War II the average age of the combat soldier was 26. In Vietnam he was nineteen…nineteen.”

When this song hit the radio airwaves, much of the Vietnam veteran cohort—those who had seen the worst fighting in that war—had been home for a little more than a decade. They were in their early 30s now—building careers, raising families, and politically active. The war’s horrors and fallout began reemerging in national headlines and sympathetic Hollywood films, along with Agent Orange and PTSD. A page had turned, too, in the national consciousness. Americans were finally beginning to separate their anger at the government from the young men who fought its war. The mantra became internalized: never again.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/ten-years-gone-iraq-and-afghanistan-vets-on-what-it-all-meant/

Will there be a lesson learned?  Or will we remain in the arrogant belief that we do everything properly?

Here is something to think about when it comes to Vietnam…..

“I’m going to Saigon,” said Secretary of Defense James Mattis last month before correcting himself. “Ho Chi Minh City – former Saigon.”

It was the fifth time that Mattis would meet with his Vietnamese counterpart, Minister of National Defense Ngo Xuan Lich, and it marked the defense secretary’s first visit to a former U.S. military base outside of Ho Chi Minh City. In 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War, Bien Hoa Air Base was home to 550 aircraft. Today, it is one of many sites heavily contaminated by America’s toxic defoliant of choice, Agent Orange.

https://original.antiwar.com/Arnold_Isaacs/2018/11/08/misremembering-vietnam/

Now you know!

Still Dying After All These Years

Closing Thought–26Nov18

Just a reminder for those that did not fight or have forgotten an armed conflict….we fought a war in Southeast Asia until recently it was America’s longest war….this war consisted of 4 of the nation’s of the region…..Cambodia, Laos, North and South Vietnam…..there were land battles as well as an air war of which over 2 million tons of ordinances were dropped on the region……

That is where we pick up the story of that war……some 40+ years after the end of that war and people are still dying of it……

This year’s Thanksgiving celebration marks 50 years since the American military embarked on the biggest bombing campaign in history, decimating the small Southeast Asian country of Laos by dropping more than two million tonnes of bombs on it at the height of the Vietnam War. 

Half a century on, innocent lives are still being lost as the country struggles with the leftovers of the conflict.

On Thanksgiving Day in November 1968, the United States escalated its war against North Vietnam in Laos.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/laotians-killed-50-years-bombing-campaign-181121000620903.html

Sadly people are still dying thanx to the bombs that we and our allies dropped 43 years ago……

I sincerely hope that everyone is enjoying the “holiday” season…..and everyone has had something to be thankful for in the last year…..it is time to run down the year for the new year approaches with a bang.

Veterans Day–2018

To start our president cancels a visit to a WW1 American cemetery…..

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump cancelled their trip to the Ainse-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial in France on Saturday due to “scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather.”

The details: The Trumps were scheduled to participate in a wreath-laying ceremony and moment of silence, the Independent reports, to commemorate the more than 2,000 U.S. soldiers that died there during World War I. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau all went ahead with plans to visit World War I memorials. According to the White House, Chief of Staff General John Kelly and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joe Dunford would visit in their place.

Screw the American dead….his hair is more important.

This year the true Veterans Day falls on a Sunday so the holiday will be observed on Monday, 12Nov18.

I send a shout out to all veterans on this day and to say a heart felt THANK YOU…..your sacrifices will be remember by me and my family forever.

Keeping with a small tradition here on IST I post a video of the unit I served in while in Vietnam for 2 and half years….I was a LRRP for the 9th Division…..

It is a lengthy video but well worth the view.

Even though the LRRPs were absorbed by the Rangers….I care not I was a LRRP then and will die a LRRP.

For your musical delight I shall leave you with the songs of my time…..

I leave you now….I have things that must be done on this day….thanx for all your support and I appreciate each and every one of my followers.

Peace Out!

Closing Thought–19Oct18

I am one of the disappearing population….vets that served in Vietnam…..and it has been 50+ years since that conflict….as the last of the WW2 vets die and the forgotten war, Korea also winds down….it is the Viet vets that are next…will we be remembered?

Vietnam–This war was no different that any of our many wars……it played in an election…..

….the 54th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the joint act of Congress that gave President Lyndon Johnson the power to combat communist aggression in Southeast Asia.

The resolution, which was passed unanimously by the House of Representatives and all but two votes in the Senate, was the response to a clash between U.S. and North Vietnamese forces in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam in the early days of August 1964. At the time, the American public and many in Congress believed that U.S. naval forces were the victims of an unprovoked attack by North Vietnamese patrol boats in international waters. For years afterward, the so-called Gulf of Tonkin incident was considered the starting point of the Vietnam War. The truth behind the matter is not that simple.

https://www.realclearhistory.com/historiat/2018/08/08/campaign_politics_and_the_origins_of_the_vietnam_war_342.html

With just days before our next election……how will history view this election in relation to war?

Better yet…..how many remember that we are still fighting numerous wars?  Does it matter?

A closing thought within a closing thought……

You’d hardly know it from the news, but we’ve been continuously at war in Afghanistan since 2001. The war quietly turned 17 on October 7.

Unfortunately, America’s amnesia didn’t prevent Command Sergeant Major Tim Bolyard from being killed in Afghanistan in early September during his eighth combat tour and 13th deployment.

https://original.antiwar.com/Stacy_Bannerman/2018/10/11/if-you-forget-about-a-war-its-time-to-end-it/

And now for some music interlude…….

Khe Sanh–1968

One of the more notable battles of the Vietnam War is Khe Sanh….there have been documentary after film about this battle….but since that was  50 years ago maybe some do not know what I am talking about…..

The U.S. military presence at Khe Sanh began in 1962, when Army Special Forces built a small camp near the village, located some 14 miles south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Vietnam and 6 miles from the Laotian border on Route 9, the principal road from South Vietnam into Laos.

U.S. Marines built a garrison adjacent to the Army camp in 1966. In the fall of 1967, the People’s Army of North Vietnam (PAVN) began to build up its strength in the region, and U.S. officials began to suspect that Khe Sanh would be the target of an attack.

https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/battle-of-khe-sanh-1

This short video that lets you get a grip on the action taking place….

I bring this to your attention after reading a declassified document about those days …..

The top commander of U.S. military forces in Vietnam readied nuclear weapons for use on the battlefield in the early months of the brutal 1968 battle at Khe Sanh, according to recently declassified documents obtained by the New York Times.

https://taskandpurpose.com/vietnam-nukes-khe-sahn/

It is so sad that a nuke is their first response to the battle….did anyone consider the American troops in line with that possible nuke strike?

So sad that a nuke was even an option.

War, as French leader Georges Clemenceau famously said, is too important to be left to generals. Generals often see the battlefield in narrow terms, seeking victory at any price, if only to avoid the stain of defeat.

But what price victory if the world ends as a result?

Closing Thought–21Jun18

Recently Ken Burns released a documentary on the Vietnam War…..I did not watch the film for as a vet of that war I do not need to be reminded of it for I spent 2 and half years there…….there is very little he could add that I already did not know or believe.

From all accounts it was a good documentary…..many people have watched it and come away with a “new found” understanding of the war…at least that is the way it is told by the media.

I have also read some articles that did not like the film for they said that it was a whitewash……I guess there will always be a pro and con on this sort of thing…..

I was a member of Vietnam Veterans Against The War until I got hurt and could not make the demonstrations…….and another anti-war group is the Veterans For Peace…it is these people that have said the Burns’ film does not deserve “Best Documentary” award…….

A national veterans’ organization is weighing in on this year’s Emmy awards with a full-page ad in Variety, saying Ken Burns and Lynne Novick’s “Vietnam War” series does not deserve a “Best Documentary” award.

Veterans For Peace (VFP), headquartered in St. Louis, with 175 chapters in the U.S. and six overseas, will run the Variety ad prior to the awards on September 17, to generate discussion about the series and the lasting impact it will have if “crowned with an Emmy.”
The ad says that because “The Emmy Award is a powerful recognition of truth in art,” Emmy judges are asked to consider whether, “In this war-torn world, what is desperately needed – but what Burns and Novick fail to convey – is an honest rendering of that war to help the American people avoid yet more catastrophic wars.”
More about the possible Emmy for the Burns documentary……

Emmy nominations are ongoing. Veterans For Peace recently announced it will place this full-page ad in Variety urging an Emmy not be awarded to the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick documentary, The Vietnam War. The Hollywood Reporter has refused to run the ad. Here, Vietnam veteran, Doug Rawlings, adds his voice to why the filmmakers should not get a Best Documentary award.

Like I said I have not seen the film but I take the vets word for it……but if someone would like take on this issue please share with my readers……some of them are interested in what you think.
Side note:  Did you know there are those that do Vietnam Re-enactment?  How sick (not a good thing) is that?

Lesser Known Battles Of Vietnam

Anyone that watches any of the history channels knows of the battles of Vietnam and the outcome…..battles like that of Khe San or Hue during Tet…these were those battles that the US troops mustered all their energy and won the day.

Then there is Hollywood which did all it could to give the appearance that the US troops could do no wrong and their tactics and fortitude gave them a victory at all costs…..

I hate to be the one to inform you of this but the US did not win every battle they engaged in in Vietnam…..McCain was blowing smoke……

One theme presented by supporters of the American empire is the U.S. military is invincible and can never lose unless stabbed in the back by impatient politicians. They claim the U.S. military never lost a battle during the entire Vietnam war. On August 30, 2011, President Barack Obama proclaimed to a gathering of veterans: “But let it be remembered that you won every major battle of that war. Every single one.” Vietnam vet Senator John McCain repeated this lie in a 2013 article in the “Wall Street Journal.” This myth was disputed by America’s most decorated officer of that war, Colonel David Hackworth, in his book “About Face.” The U.S. military had every advantage, yet mistakes were made and battles lost. Internet research turns up these 104 lost battles of the Vietnam war: 

http://www.g2mil.com/lost_vietnam.htm

Americans need to know the truth…..that we did not win every engagement we entered into with the VC and/or the NVA….you can do what we always do….re-write history but the truth is far from what we are fed.

The Vietnam War: The First Time

It is June and time for a look back into the shadows of history.

On this day the last French troops leave Algeria……in 1964…but before that defeat the French tasted defeat earlier…..in a spot called French IndoChina…..

As a Vietnam veteran I was always interested in how we, Americans, became the fighters of this conflict.  Reading the history of Vietnam you see that the country has been a battlefield for damn near a thousand years.

But what interested me the most was the involvement after WW2…..when control of Vietnam returned to the French……

America’s involvement in Vietnam from early 60’s to mid 70’s was not the first time Vietnam was a major battlefield….a conflict between the West and the East…….

After World War Two the communist in Vietnam started a war for control against the French…who were supported by the West most notably the US………..

In the late 1940s, the French struggled to control its colonies in Indochina – Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Despite financial assistance from the United States, nationalist uprisings against French colonial rule began to take their toll. On May 7, 1954, the French-held garrison at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam fell after a four month siege led by Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh. After the fall of Dien Bien Phu, the French pulled out of the region. Concerned about regional instability, the United States became increasingly committed to countering communist nationalists in Indochina.

Dien Bien Phu…a fascinating battle in so many ways.

With the First Indochina War going poorly for the French, Premier Rene Mayer dispatched General Henri Navarre to take command in May 1953.

Arriving in Hanoi, Navarre found that no long-term plan existed for defeating the Viet Minh and that French forces simply reacted to the enemy’s moves. Believing that he was also tasked with defending neighboring Laos, Navarre sought an effective method for interdicting Viet Minh supply lines through the region. Working with Colonel Louis Berteil, the “hedgehog” concept was developed which called for French troops to establish fortified camps near Viet Minh supply routes.

Supplied by air, the hedgehogs would allow French troops to block the Viet Minh’s supplies, compelling them to fall back. The concept was largely based on the French success at the Battle of Na San in late 1952. Holding the high ground around a fortified camp at Na San, French forces had repeatedly beaten back assaults by General Vo Nguyen Giap’s Viet Minh troops. Navarre believed that the approach used at Na San could be enlarged to force the Viet Minh to commit to a large, pitched battle where superior French firepower could destroy Giap’s army.

https://www.thoughtco.com/battle-of-dien-bien-phu-2361343

Arrogance and stupidity lost this battle for the French which in turn basically lost Vietnam for France……about here enter the US and its advisers and as they say  we all know the outcome of that move.

And apparently we learned nothing from the French or our own experience.

Arrogance and stupidity…..sound familiar?

Memorial Day–2018

Closing Thought–28May18

Today is the day set aside to remember our dead from the many wars we have fought…..I take this opportunity to tell my readers a little something of myself and my service.

I served 2 and half years in Southeast Asia…..most of that time I was a LRRP…..a recon patrol for the 9th Infantry Division Mekong Delta, Republic of South Vietnam……the US Army in their infinite wisdom decided that the LRRPs were so successful that they would incorporate them into the 75th Regt the Rangers so from that point on the LRRPs are wrapped up with the history of the Rangers…but this idea was a bad one (my opinion)…..LRRPs worked in 4, 5 or 6 man teams and when the Rangers took over they wanted 8 man teams…got a lot of LRRPs killed because the team dynamic is different from 6 and 8 members……I will die a LRRP I did not want to be a Ranger in 1968 and that has not changed today….I do not care about the “coolness” of the Rangers…I [prefer to die a LRRP.

For those people that are not sure about LRRPs there is a documentary made on us…it tells our story well…..

Below is the photo of the gun I carried in Vietnam…..a .45 cal “Burp Gun”….since I carried a .45 pistol and the Burp was .45 I had to carry only one ammo….saved time and space on long missions.

Everyone please take a moment to remember our fallen countrymen in our many wars…..

This will be my only post today for I have a family I will spend time with……

Peace Out!

Ken Burns’ Vietnam War

By now most Americans interested have watched Ken Burns’ documentary of the Vietnam War…..I have read many critiques both pro and con….me?  I was there and do not need to be reminded of the stupidity or the insanity…..

But I read a peace in the New Statesman about the film……..

In his own remarks, Mac Owens mentioned an essay by Jim Webb, the decorated Vietnam combat veteran, writer, and former US senator. That essay, “Heroes of the Vietnam Generation,” pairs well with an earlier essay, “Peace? Defeat? What Did the Vietnam War Protesters Want?,” which was also published by the American Enterprise Institute, in 1997. Both are very useful, especially for those who didn’t live through the Vietnam era, for understanding some of that generation’s dynamics.

Webb discusses how it was really the first time in US history when a lot of people argued not going into the military was actually a good thing, and this sentiment has guided how a lot of people look at the Vietnam War. In order to justify not serving in the military at that time, many described the war as unjust, unnecessary, and unwinnable. While I can’t read Ken Burns’ mind, if you look at his documentary The Vietnam War, it certainly seems to support this mentality.

https://providencemag.com/2018/05/ken-burns-omits-vietnam-war/

Of course when Vietnam is mentioned or debated there is always the subject of who won that war…..

To bring with that would nice to know what those asking and answering the question what their definition of winning and losing in war really means.

In order to know whether the U.S. lost the Vietnam war or not, it’s wise to go back and see why the Vietnam war started in the first place. Domino theory or containment was usually used as a  justification for the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The fact is the U.S. failed to stop the spread of Communism throughout Vietnam which led to its spread to Laos and Cambodia in 1975. However, it is arguable that the effects of the war in Korea and Vietnam that the U.S. had involved in did help the rest of South-East Asian countries such as Thailand and Singapore stay free of communism.

Military-wise, the U.S. arguably never lost any major battles. However, it could not stand the constantly increasing loss of American lives and the economic burden the war carried on its people and was eventually forced to leave Vietnam before the war ended. Without its direct support, South Vietnam surrendered to the North Communists and disappeared from the world map not long later.

In short, in the picture of Vietnam, the U.S. failed to defend South Vietnam against the North Communists and probably lost the war politically rather than militarily as Vietnam was far from the war of major battles. In the bigger picture of containment, the U.S. did achieve their initial goals to a certain extent.

https://thevietnamwar.info/who-won-the-vietnam-war/

This is a good piece for those interested in a by-gone war that most Americans had sooner forget