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Different circumstances, but same solution. Soldiers are not "soldiers", but something else...teachers. camp counselors, social workers, warehouse managers, air traffic controllers?

It's all horse hockey. Watch for the C-130s landing at midnight with the body bags.

1 posted on 06/19/2014 11:35:57 AM PDT by Makana
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To: Makana
advisers and Special Forces for Vietnam

Kennedy was mostly thinking about himself.

Why JFK picked Viet Nam. I believe it happened this way.

James "Scotty" Reston revealed this in 1966 IIRC.

The hapless Kennedy was savaged by Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961, especially over being chicken at the Bay of Pigs. So badly did JFK represent his Country that he asked for one more chance, a personal meeting with Khrushchev with only the two of them and two interpreters. JFK agreed to meet with Reston first after the meeting. This account is from, "Scotty," by John F. Stacks.

'How was it?' Reston asked casually.

'Worst thing in my life. He savaged me,' Kennedy responded. The president seemed to Reston to be almost in shock, repeating himself and speaking with astonishing candor to the journalist. 'Not the usual bullshit,' Reston wrote in his notepad. 'There is a look a man has when he has to tell the truth.' Kennedy went on to say that to counter the battering by Khrushchev, which he attributed to the Soviet leader's underestimation of Kennedy's resolve, the United States would have to stand more firmly against the Soviets' demands in Berlin and against the mounting Communist insurgency in South Vietnam. Reston wrote later that he was 'speechless' when Kennedy mentioned Vietnam, since that troubled country was at that point nowhere near the heart of the Cold War conflict and, in Reston's estimation, did not carry much weight in the superpower tug-of-war. Ever afterward, Kennedy's remark to Reston was seen by historians and by Reston himself as the moment marking the beginning of America's long slide into the tragedy of Vietnam."

Yes sir, the JFK people took tens of thousands of Americans into war with the same "resolve" as they had at the Bay of Pigs.

Then LBJ took over caring more about his "Great Society" plans than any thing else including war -- fight the war but it must not in any way hinder getting his "Great Society." Lie, lie, lie whatever it takes. (see McMaster's. "Dereliction of Duty")

Just change JFK and LBJ with BHO; and replace VN & communism with Middle East & Islamism.

2 posted on 06/19/2014 11:51:11 AM PDT by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
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To: Makana

Just because the French got their asses kicked, as usual, in Vietnam, doesn’t mean the US couldn’t have taken the whole dammed country.

We were simply waiting for orders, which never came.


3 posted on 06/19/2014 12:13:44 PM PDT by onedoug
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To: Makana
The Kennedy administration hoped to find an alternative to Diem, and, with U.S. connivance, the Diem regime was overthrown by his generals. Diem was assassinated, and in the South people erupted in joy, people in Saigon bedecking army tanks with flowers and parading joyously through the streets.

The author doesn't mention the chaos that followed. The Vietnamese would dub 1964 "The Year of Seven Coups."

4 posted on 06/19/2014 12:52:06 PM PDT by Fiji Hill
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