Inside the NYT building late Saturday:
“Oh NO!! ISIS is killing a bunch of frogs. That’s going to dominate the headlines for the next week! We’re going to need to run somthing on Vietnam, Nixon or Bush. What have we got with pictures that’s ready to go.”
We didn't fail, American politicians failed us.
They, and so many others who fought in Vietnam, were as great as any generation that preceded them. Their misfortune was to draw a bad war, an unnecessary war, a mistake by American politicians and statesmen, for which they paid.
It wasn't an unnecessary war, asshole, it was a war we were never allowed to win.
FU LBJ, FU Robert McNamara.
45+ years and I'm still pissed.
Welcome Home to my Brothers who returned.
To the OTHERS who didn't make it home.....My Country still hasn't given you a proper apology.
Sorry. The Vietnam War did not start in 1965. The anti-communist Vietnamese were fighting it constantly since they lost N Vietnam. Eisenhower had a few “advisors” there who fought but were sworn to never admit it. Kennedy sent 50,000 in 1961. By 1964 election there were double that number of Americans in Vietnam.
If you want to see early photos of the war, see the photos of people like Griebenow and Rexcillius and other like them. I mention those two because I saw their photos in the 50s and early 60s.
I read Sheehan’s book, Bright Shining Lie, years ago and it had many truths in it on Pres. Kennedy’s & Johnson’s mistakes in getting our US into the Vietnam mess. I was of draft age then but gamed the deferments to keep my coward a$$ out of the military. I’m not proud of that.
We won that war three times. I use “we†to define those of my generation like me who fought there. Well, actually we won it the first time and the ARVN won it in Tet and March of 1972 when crushed they the NVA mechanized army that came down highway one. In each case Democrat politicians snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The first time was when his Joint Chiefs of Staff told Johnson what was required and he impolitely told them to go to hell as follows. A link to the entire article follows, which I first saw published in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings.
“Seemingly deep in thought, President Johnson turned his back on them for a minute or so, then suddenly discarding the calm, patient demeanor he had maintained throughout the meeting, whirled to face them and exploded.I almost dropped the map.
He screamed obscenities, he cursed them personally, he ridiculed them for coming to his office with their “military advice.†Noting that it was he who was carrying the weight of the free world on his shoulders, he called them filthy names-shitheads, dumb shits, pompous assholes-and used “the F-word†as an adjective more freely than a Marine in boot camp would use it. He then accused them of trying to pass the buck for World War III to him.
It was unnerving, degrading.â€
Vietnam 1965: The Day It Became the Longest War
http://extendedremarks.blogspot.com/2006/12/vietnam-1965-day-it-became-longest-war.html
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The NYT is as usual full of it. These journalists did very damn little during that war outside of their Saigon hotels and other major cities in the south and some reported from a number of large US basecamps. Very few US journalists ever went out with US Infantry or Marine units in the bush. I recall the CAV being formed as my father was in UTR at CONARC. UTR (Unit Training and Readiness at Continental Army Command} reported that the 1st Cav was not combat ready for RVN. It was not in 65.I served with men who had four tours in SE Asia by mid 68, and a number had started off with a White Star tour in Laos in the late 50’s to early 60’s. In fact at FT Bragg both Moon Hall and Hardie Hall are named after officers from White Star Mobile Training Teams that were in Laos. In 68-69 I served with a Major who had been in Laos in 60-61, Then was CO of an A team in I Corps in 62-63,From 65-66 he was a Mike Force Company CO and he was our XO in 68-69. Many a dear friend lost his life in that war. The average US Infantryman in Vietnam spent more time in actual combat during a tour in RVN then those in WWII did. In 70-72 I was sent back to college and one Army CPT in my class had been a platoon leader with the Cav in the Ia Drang in 65. John was a mess as he had been stripped and left for dead.
Hal Moore wrote the book, We Were Soldiers Once...And Young, the basis for the Mel Gibson movie, We Were Soldiers. I couldn’t watch it without sobbing.