Posted on 10/03/2013 7:31:59 AM PDT by central_va
In the fall of 1974, Nixon resigned under the pressure of the Watergate scandal and was succeeded by Gerald Ford. Congress cut funding to South Vietnam for the upcoming fiscal year from a proposed 1.26 billion to 700 million dollars. These two events prompted Hanoi to make an all-out effort to conquer the South. As the North Vietnamese Communist Party Secretary Le Duan observed in December 1974: “The Americans have withdrawn…this is what marks the opportune moment." (4) - See more at: http://hnn.us/article/31400#sthash.C35SjTpu.dpuf
That defunding does not count, it was the dems who did it. In fact, up through the Reagan years, it was the dems who shut down the government except for an instance or two during Carter because he would not increase their pay.
I know Ford felt that it was one of America’s greatest failures. We made promises to the South Vietnamese then left them to die by the thousands.
The left loves to defund things like the contras, but not socialism.
Yep. The Democrats put paper bags over their heads and yelled, “Nyah! Nyah! We can’t hear you!”, while the Khmer Rouge put plastic bags over the heads of the Cambodian people. Another proud moment for the Democrat party.
A good reminder for those that never knew the whole story or have forgotten it.
Bump.
Maybe I should have said “hole story”. It was like congress dropped us down a hole. Another sad day in a growing list of many.
Other than that, Ted Kennedy became the "Lion of the Senate".
The media didn’t much care for the Boat People or their story.
For some Americans it was probably the first time they started noticing just how selective the media can be in what and how it covers news, before the Boat People most news consumers would have predicted the media being all gushy over the racial minority and their epic escapes and heart breaking survival rate, instead they treated the Vietnamese refugees from Communism about the way they treated South Africa refugees, they didn’t want to explain why or make the bad guys look bad.
Go east. Head west. Repeatedly. Day after day. The farthest north we ever went was near the DMZ.
“What are we doing here?” was more a sense of military than political bewilderment.
I’ve had my share of sadness. But two of my saddest episodes were flying out of Vietnam realizing what was coming. And then when the South actually fell.
“My God” I thought. “What have we done?”
Then I went back with my daughter in 2000. And it made me feel better about Vietnam’s future, but increasingly despondent as I saw my own country, by which a secure future could only be possible, falling further and further toward what Vietnam had been.
God, it’s so terribly sad.
BTTT!
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