Posted on 09/21/2017 9:20:30 AM PDT by oh8eleven
Most of the interviewees talk in the lugubrious tones of the defeated. We all know the story ends badly. But when it’s over, we aren’t told why we lost. The music is more memorable than the pictures, and the pictures are more compelling than the narration. We are deluged by sights and sounds but not enlightened as to cause and effect.
The film casts the antiwar movement in a moderately favorable light. Are the protesters the real heroes here? What about the valiant US soldiers, 75 percent of whom were volunteers?
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
A self-portrait - Looks just like you!
Apologies, “Violating the State of Nature” should of been “Violating the Social Contract”.
where a counter-attack would of finished off the Viet Cong.....They WERE finished off.
Short odds on the fact that Ken Burns masturbates to pictures of Tom Hayden, Jerry Rubin, Abby Hoffman, and the entire faction of the Black Panthers on a nightly (Of course needs Viagra because his Beta male mentality left him with ED).
The South Vietnamese fought almost two years after we left. It was the pulling of our military assistance from the ARVN and the failure to do anything about the North Vietnamese violation of the peace agreement that led to the downfall of South Vietnam.
Here is one of the best references on the chronology of the Vietnam War.
I spent a year in-country 1967-68 and nine months off the coast on an LPH. I refuse to watch anything that Burns produces. He is not a real historian, but rather, a leftist revisionist.
It's a long, complicated series that says a lot of different things. Burns doesn't think we could have won the war. But he also shows Vietnamese who fought against us and now question whether all the bloodshed was necessary.
I don't think Burns slights the patriotism and pride of those who fought. He does show some things that maybe the soldiers weren't proud of, but he has respect and sympathy for those who fought and what they went through.
The show was ambivalent about the anti-war protestors. Burns agrees with them, but the program argues that much of the protesting was about self-interest, rather than moral principles.
Vietnam had never been a single country? I had no idea that was the case.
Not really, the South fought on for almost two years after we left.
August 23, 1972 - The last U.S. combat troops depart Vietnam.
November 30, 1972 - American troop withdrawal from Vietnam is completed, although there are still 16,000 Army advisors and administrators remaining to assist South Vietnam's military forces.
January 27, 1973 - The Paris Peace Accords are signed by the U.S., North Vietnam, South Vietnam and the Viet Cong. Under the terms, the U.S. agrees to immediately halt all military activities and withdraw all remaining military personnel within 60 days. The North Vietnamese agree to an immediate cease-fire and the release of all American POWs within 60 days. An estimated 150,000 North Vietnamese soldiers presently in South Vietnam are allowed to remain. Vietnam is still divided. South Vietnam is considered to be one country with two governments, one led by President Thieu, the other led by Viet Cong, pending future reconciliation.
January 27, 1973 - Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announces the draft is ended in favor of voluntary enlistment.
January 27, 1973 - The last American soldier to die in combat in Vietnam, Lt. Col. William B. Nolde, is killed.
April 1973 - President Nixon and President Thieu meet at San Clemente, California. Nixon renews his earlier secret pledge to respond militarily if North Vietnam violates the peace agreement.
June 19, 1973 - The U.S. Congress passes the Case-Church Amendment which forbids any further U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia, effective August 15, 1973. The veto-proof vote is 278-124 in the House and 64-26 in the Senate.
The Amendment paves the way for North Vietnam to wage yet another invasion of the South, this time without fear of U.S. bombing.
July 1973 - The U.S. Navy removes mines from ports in North Vietnam which had been installed during Operation Linebacker.
August 9, 1974 - Richard M. Nixon resigns the presidency as result of Watergate. Gerald R. Ford is sworn in as the 38th U.S. President, becoming the 6th President coping with Vietnam.
September 1974 - The U.S. Congress appropriates only $700 million for South Vietnam. This leaves the South Vietnamese Army under-funded and results in a decline of military readiness and morale.
October - The Politburo in North Vietnam decides to launch an invasion of South Vietnam in 1975.
December 13, 1974 - North Vietnam violates the Paris peace treaty and tests President Ford's resolve by attacking Phuoc Long Province in South Vietnam. President Ford responds with diplomatic protests but no military force in compliance with the Congressional ban on all U.S. military activity in Southeast Asia.
January 8, 1975 - NVA general staff plan for the invasion of South Vietnam by 20 divisions is approved by North Vietnam's Politburo. By now, the Soviet-supplied North Vietnamese Army is the fifth largest in the world. It anticipates a two year struggle for victory. But in reality, South Vietnam's forces will collapse in only 55 days.
January 14, 1975 - Testifying before Congress, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger states that the U.S. is not living up to its earlier promise to South Vietnam's President Thieu of "severe retaliatory action" in the event North Vietnam violated the Paris peace treaty.
January 21, 1975 - During a press conference, President Ford states the U.S. is unwilling to re-enter the war.
February 5, 1975 - NVA military leader General Van Tien Dung secretly crosses into South Vietnam to take command of the final offensive.
April 21, 1975 - A bitter, tearful President Thieu resigns during a 90 minute rambling TV speech to the people of South Vietnam. Thieu reads from the letter sent by Nixon in 1972 pledging "severe retaliatory action" if South Vietnam was threatened. Thieu condemns the Paris Peace Accords, Henry Kissinger and the U.S. "The United States has not respected its promises. It is inhumane. It is untrustworthy. It is irresponsible." He is then ushered into exile in Taiwan, aided by the CIA.
April 23, 1975 - 100,000 NVA soldiers advance on Saigon which is now overflowing with refugees. On this same day, President Ford gives a speech at Tulane University stating the conflict in Vietnam is "a war that is finished as far as America is concerned."
April 29, 1975 - NVA shell Tan Son Nhut air base in Saigon, killing two U.S. Marines at the compound gate. Conditions then deteriorate as South Vietnamese civilians loot the air base. President Ford now orders Operation Frequent Wind, the helicopter evacuation of 7000 Americans and South Vietnamese from Saigon, which begins with the radio broadcast of the song "White Christmas" as a pre-arraigned code signal.
At Tan Son Nhut, frantic civilians begin swarming the helicopters. The evacuation is then shifted to the walled-in American embassy, which is secured by U.S. Marines in full combat gear. But the scene there also deteriorates, as thousands of civilians attempt to get into the compound.
Three U.S. aircraft carriers stand by off the coast of Vietnam to handle incoming Americans and South Vietnamese refugees. Many South Vietnamese pilots also land on the carriers, flying American-made helicopters which are then pushed overboard to make room for more arrivals. Filmed footage of the $250,000 choppers being tossed into the sea becomes an enduring image of the war's end.
April 30, 1975 - At 8:35 a.m., the last Americans, ten Marines from the embassy, depart Saigon, concluding the United States presence in Vietnam. North Vietnamese troops pour into Saigon and encounter little resistance. By 11 a.m., the red and blue Viet Cong flag flies from the presidential palace. President Minh broadcasts a message of unconditional surrender. The war is over.
Wrong. The Viet Cong were no longer a real fighting force after Tet. They were decimated. The NVA took over and put up a good fight, but what defeated us was the Democrats who pulled funding from the SVNA. Read about it. I know it.
Three countries: Tonkin, Cochin China, and Annam.
No crap Sherlock, read my post again, their was no military excuse for “losing”/pulling out after Tet. Pay attention to what I stated about what Congress did not do (Declare war/fund the war), but allowed (The DRAFT which continued until ‘73). Maybe that should clue you in.
Huh... just yesterday, youtube suggested I might be interested in the Pathe film news clip of the French parachuting into Dien Bien Phu. Gives a good sense of the terrain. Man, were they really screwed after losing their airfield to the Viet Minh.
After the US left, ARVN got the equipment left behind. They had the 4th largest Air Force in the world.
And legendary graft.
US aid wasn't cut off but it was reduced from $1 billion to $700 million in 1974. That shouldn't have been enough to cause their collapse in 1975.
Interesting. And then I suppose the French combined them into colonial holding they called Vietnam?
Unless you were actually there you have no idea what was going on before during or after so shut the F up.
Vs. 1.5 million of the enemy.
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