Free Republic

Most hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City have confirmed that they have sufficient facilities so that their in-patients are no longer sharing a bed with two to three other patients, according to Nguyen Tan Binh, director of the Health Department of Ho Chi Minh City. However, two central hospitals, the Hospital for Traumatology and Orthopaedics and the Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital, have not met this condition. Each hospital currently has 140-180 in-patients over their 100 single bed capacity. The announcement was made during a meeting yesterday between Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien and officials from the HCMC...

Colonel Le The Mau, a senior military official at the country's Military Strategy Institute, told Sputnik Việt Nam that the United States' demand that Vietnam stop allowing Russian refueling planes to land at Cam Ranh airbase amounts to interference in the country's affairs.

March 8, 1965 -- The first Stockholm Conference on Vietnam is held in Stockholm, Sweden. The conference is the creation of Romesh Chandra, chairman of the KGB-funded World Peace Council. Former Soviet bloc spy chief Ion Mihai Pacepa will later describe it as "a permanent international organization to aid or to conduct operations to help Americans dodge the draft or defect, to demoralize its army with anti-American propaganda, to conduct protests, demonstrations, and boycotts, and to sanction anyone connected with the war." The operation is staffed by undercover intelligence officers and funded to the tune of about $15 million per...

Secretary of State John Kerry spent five minutes of a Senate hearing excoriating a group of 47 Republicans who sent a highly unusual letter to the government of Iran warning that Congress could modify the terms of any nuclear deal it negotiates with the White House. 'This letter raises questions of judgment and policy,' he insisted, before Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker cut him off and scolded him for delivering 'a well-written speech.' 'It's not a speech! This is not a speech!' Kerry erupted. 'This is a statement about the impact of this irresponsible letter. The letter does not have...

On February 7, 1965, a company of 300 Vietcong guerrillas armed with AK-47s, mortars and rifle grenades attacked an American helicopter base named Camp Holloway in the town of Pleiku, located in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. The raid, which came just a few hours after the end of a weeklong cease fire for the Tet holiday, lasted only five minutes; but it produced the highest single number of U.S. casualties in the war: Eight Americans were killed and more than 120 wounded. President Lyndon Johnson ordered an immediate military reprisal. Within 14 hours, U.S. jets were flying bombing...

Jane Fonda said she hoped for an open dialogue with veterans after about 50 former military members and supporters protested the actress’s appearance Friday evening at the Weinberg Center for the Arts. “Whenever possible I try to sit down with vets and talk with them, because I understand and it makes me sad,” Fonda told a relatively full theater, responding to a submitted question. “It hurts me and it will to my grave that I made a huge, huge mistake that made a lot of people think I was against the soldiers.” In 1972 Fonda visited Hanoi, North Vietnam, where...

The rise of violent extremism represents the pre-eminent challenge of the young 21st century. Military force is a rational and often necessary response to the wanton slaughters of children, mass kidnappings of schoolgirls, and beheading of innocents. But military force alone won’t achieve victory. In the long term, this war will be won only by deploying a broader, far more creative arsenal. A safer and more prosperous future requires us to recognize that violent extremism can’t be justified by resorting to religion. No legitimate religious interpretation teaches adherents to commit unspeakable atrocities, such as razing villages or turning children into...

AFP PHOTO / JIJI PRESS On June 8, 1972, a plane bombed the village of Trang Bang in South Vietnam, after the pilot mistook a group of civilians for enemy troops. The bombs contained Napalm, a highly flammable substance which killed and badly burned the people on the ground. The famous black and white photo of children fleeing the burning village won the Pulitzer Prize and was chosen as the "World Press Photo of the Year" in 1972. It became the symbol of the horrors of the Vietnam war, and of every war’s cruelty to children and civilians. The...

On Thursday January 29, 2015, famed mass murderer Henry Kissinger was once again scheduled to address the US Senate Armed Services Committee. Because the tradition of allowing some of the most bloodthirsty killers, traitors, and psychopaths to address members of Congress or provide them with marching orders is par for the course in Washington, Kissinger’s appearance should have come as no surprise to anyone. Nor should it have come as a surprise that this committee boasted a terrorist sympathizer and notorious color revolution artist like John McCain as a member. What was surprising, however, was that this particular address saw...

North America has an “enormous interest” in building diplomatic relationships with Cuba, Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday during a weekend meeting with his counterparts from Canada and Mexico. “This is an effort we believe offers the best opportunity for the people of Cuba to improve their lives and to take part in the choices about their lives,” Kerry said during a news conference at Boston’s Faneuil Hall. A high-level U.S. delegation held two days of talks with Cuban officials in Havana last week for the first time in decades. In December, President Barack Obama announced plans to restore...

The Butterfly Effect January 31, 1968 is an important date in American History, but very few Americans are aware it. Since the birth of our Republic, there have been a number of significant events that have drastically affected our country’s future development and wellbeing. Some of these events were immediately recognized as significant but others took more time, and the damage caused to our country by the “Butterfly Effect” spawned by the 1968 Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War is just now beginning to be realized by a few of us who were there. Those who were there know all...

US Center of Military History Bookshelves: The US Army in Vietnam -- All of the volumes currently published, except the photo book, by the US Army Center of Military History are available online at: http://www.history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/collect/usavn.html Research materials and two chapters from the next Combat Operations volume on Tet are available online at: http://www.history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/resmat/vw.html

Remembering when we had a real president. Remembering our brothers who gave all. Freedom is not free. Freedom is never more than one generation from extinction. God bless America.

“You cannot impose your will, you can’t impose your values, you can’t impose your standards, your institutions on other societies and other countries. It has never worked; it never will work, as noble as you believe [the effort] is,” he is quoted as saying. This conclusion is partially based on his experience as an  infantry soldier in the Vietnam War, as he explains: “The violence, the horrors, the suffering that I saw [in Vietnam] conditioned me … I saw the suffering of our own troops; I saw the suffering of the Vietnamese people; I saw terrible things, which war always...

On your list of worst nightmares, where does suddenly-plunging elevator rank?If not number one, at least in the top five, right?For Greta Van Susteren, that bad dream suddenly became reality as the car abruptly dropped four floors with no warning at all, then left her and several others trapped between levels with no way out. Lasting 10 frightening minutes, they were finally able to pry the doors open and crawl out.Incidentally, if a lift is headed uncontrollably to the bottom, the best possible way to survive is to lie flat on the floor.The incident happened in Hanoi as the Fox...

January 17, 2015 Money Morning Michael A. Robinson writes: This year, 80% of the chips for new PCs will be produced in Silicon Valley… Taiwan… China‘s Shenzhen Province… South Korea… Wrong on all counts. More and more of today’s chipmakers locating their manufacturing facilities a bit off the beaten path these days – in one of the world’s fastest-growing economies… and a nation that some of you may find controversial. But my job is to take you wherever the biggest innovations are being made so that we can find the biggest opportunities. So, today I’m going to show you exactly...

Like most things unapologetically conservative and unapologetically pro-American, Soldier of Fortune magazine has been pilloried for years by the organized Left’s venomously anti-American press and culture. But SOF, founded in 1975 by decorated Special Forces veteran and lifelong adventurer, Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown (USAR - Ret.), stands out as a singular example of American exceptionalism in print media. But that the rest were half as good. SOF is more than that too, for unknown to most people, Soldier of Fortune magazine and its staff of intrepid reporters – almost all with special operations backgrounds, some who paid the ultimate...

Jane Fonda said she hoped for an open dialogue with veterans after about 50 former military members and supporters protested the actress’s appearance Friday evening at the Weinberg Center for the Arts. “Whenever possible I try to sit down with vets and talk with them, because I understand and it makes me sad,” Fonda told a relatively full theater, responding to a submitted question. “It hurts me and it will to my grave that I made a huge, huge mistake that made a lot of people think I was against the soldiers.” In 1972 Fonda visited Hanoi, North Vietnam, where...

US Secretary of State John Kerry has paid his respects to the victims of last week's terrorist attacks in Paris. Mr Kerry told his French counterpart that he "felt bad" not being in Paris as he saw millions of people demonstrating. "This has touched him," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said. "He saw the millions demonstrating, he told me that he felt bad not being here." At a ceremony at the Hotel de Ville, the city hall of Paris, Mr Kerry called the attacks a "living nightmare".

Under fire for being a no-show at the Paris March Against Terrorism, the Obama administration sent Secretary of State John Kerry to Paris today to give a “big hug” to the French.