Free Republic

Disputes over territory in the South China Sea are causing countries in the region to increase their demand for an American security presence, the U.S. defense chief said on Sunday.

<p>Richard Nixon came into office in 1969 with 550,000 conscripts in Vietnam, 200 to 400 coming home dead every week, no exit strategy, and anti-war and race riots constantly erupting all over the country. There were no relations with China and no substantive discussions in progress with the Soviet Union or the principal Arab states. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy had been assassinated in 1968, and the routine skyjacking of civil airliners had begun. By 1972, Nixon had withdrawn from Vietnam with a non-Communist government still in place in Saigon, had opened relations with China, signed the greatest arms-control agreement in history with the USSR, ended school segregation while avoiding the lunacy of court-ordered busing of millions of schoolchildren around the metropolitan areas of the country for “racial balance” (i.e., chaos), started a peace process in the Middle East, founded the Environmental Protection Agency, and abolished the draft. There were no more riots, skyjackings, or high-level assassinations.</p>

Within weeks many of you will be looking across just hundreds of feet of water at some of the most modern technology ever invented in America. Unfortunately, it is on Soviet ships. - Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, May 25, 1983, to graduating class at Annapolis . ... Almost 70 percent of the present Soviet merchant fleet has been built outside the Soviet Union. This has released Soviet shipyards and materials for Soviet naval construction. All diesel engines in Soviet ships use a technology originating outside the Soviet Union. The Soviets provided 80 percent of the supplies for the...

U.S. naval vessels sailing through international waters in the South China Sea, including areas claimed by China, cannot be considered provocative, the U.S. Navy's most senior uniformed officer said on Thursday, while a Chinese newspaper called for a firm response to any "unscrupulous" U.S. behavior. China has overlapping claims with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei in the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Beijing has warned it will not stand for violations of its territorial waters in the name of freedom of navigation. The United States says international law prohibits claiming...

This story by Bernard Goldberg certainly takes me back to the early days of my blogging career. Shortly after the 2004 Republican convention, Mary Mapes produced a segment for 60 Minutes II that alleged that George W. Bush had manipulated his enlistment in the Texas Air National Guard to avoid serving in combat in Vietnam. The documents used by CBS, Mapes, and Dan Rather turned out to be clumsy hoaxes, which the blogosphere exposed through careful review of their substance and their form (the latter of which I played a small part in refuting, with my expertise in printing and...

Vietnam and Malaysia growth depends heavily on external trade Even before the ink is dry on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, companies are laying out plans to expand in Vietnam and Malaysia, both rapidly developing Asian nations whose growth depends heavily on external trade.Manufacturers of apparel, rubber gloves and bikes are among those considering increasing production in the Southeast Asian countries to capitalize on export growth expected from the accord, which sweeps away tariffs to markets including the U.S., the world’s biggest economy.The mammoth trade agreement is seen as a game-changer for these national economies, according to an analysis by...

In the wonderfully funny movie “Mom and Dad Save the World,” one of the heroes admits that his people are not so bright. “But what we lack in brains,” he says, “we make up for in ...good intentions.” Gentle mocking here of the frequent appeal of the incompetent for tolerance of their mistakes: How can you blame us if our intentions are good? The trouble is that much of what's really rotten in the world is due to people who thought that their good intentions would ensure a favorable result. Maybe the best example of this: former president Jimmy Carter....

I n April a BMW racing through a fruit market in Foshan in China’s Guangdong province knocked down a 2-year-old girl and rolled over her head. As the girl’s grandmother shouted, “Stop! You’ve hit a child!” the BMW’s driver paused, then switched into reverse and backed up over the girl. The woman at the wheel drove forward once more, crushing the girl for a third time. When she finally got out from the BMW, the unlicensed driver immediately offered the horrified family a deal: “Don’t say that I was driving the car,” she said. “Say it was my husband. We...

KUBINKA (Moscow Region) (Sputnik) – Russia is ready to equip the Gepard-class 3.9 frigates for Vietnam with Club-class cruise missile systems, the director of Zelenodolsk shipbuilding plant said Monday. "If the Vietnamese partners want to install Club missiles [on the frigates], we are ready to provide them with these weapons," Sergei Rudenko told RIA Novosti. At present, Gepard-class frigates are equipped with Russian Uran anti-ship missiles. Club missiles are designed for warships to hit both surface and ground targets. Gepard-class 3.9 frigates are an export version of Project 11661 guard vessels, built in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan. In 2011,...

Late in the evening of March 17, 1981, a rickety Vietnamese river boat embarked on an ocean journey to Thailand, carrying 27 people in a desperate attempt to find a new life. A day and a half at sea, they were picked up by a Thai fishing boat, which they saw as salvation. Instead, the new vessel brought them a plague of robbery, kidnapping and starvation. When they were set back aboard their own disabled craft several days later, only 25 Vietnamese remained. Two infants -- a boy of five months, a girl of 11 months -- were kept by...

I have a dream Unpublished Work © 2005 Mike Swagerty 1966-67 USMC There was a time I thought I’d live forever, I was too damn tough to die But after all these years of abusing myself I’m damned if I know why And it’s looking like my living days will soon be in my past But there’s one thing, Lord, that I need from you, before I breathe my last. I’ve probably asked for too much while I was taking up my space But, I need to ask for one more thing, before I leave this place. If you’ll...

For years, all the aviation world knew about Boeing’s secret stealth project from the 1960s was limited to a name and a single mysterious photo. It seemed like a relic out of time, possessing many stealthy design features that wouldn’t exist until decades later, and even then, only in highly classified black projects.

Benavidez had a total of 37 separate bullet, bayonet, and shrapnel wounds from the six hour fight with the enemy battalion. He was evacuated to the base camp, examined, and thought to be dead. He couldn’t open his eyes because of the amount of blood that had dried over them. He couldn’t talk, because he had been hit in the mouth with a rifle butt and his jaws were locked. As he was being placed in a body bag among the other dead, he was suddenly recognized by a friend who called for help. A doctor came and examined him...

Washington - There has been an astounding 32 per cent increase this year in the number of students flocking to American universities for higher studies. It is the biggest increase from any single country for the year, although in overall terms, China still tops the table in a big way. Figures just released by the US Student and Exchange Visitor Programme (SEVP) indicate that 149,987 Indian students are currently enrolled in American universities of a total of 1.05 million. Chinese students number 301,532. When it comes to the highly-coveted STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) stream, it is Indian students...

"These candid images show life on the front lines of the Vietnam war through the eyes of a young soldier, who rediscovered the collection decades after the conflict ended. In the images by former artillery officer Christopher Gaynor, helicopters swoop down in high-risk troop deployments, convoys rumble through the booby-trapped countryside and infantrymen make tense dawn patrols....."

Larry Yepez credits Marine training. A California Vietnam veteran now has bear attack scars to go along with his battle wounds. Crediting his Marine Corps training, Larry Yepez, 66, says he fought off a 250-pound bear outside his Mariposa County home last week. I could feel his strength. I felt like a little rag doll underneath him ... the bear was about 10 feet away and despite his yelling "get away," the animal continued toward him, jumped on him and knocked him down. ... I could hear the crunching ... when he bit down (on my wrist). He ripped towards...

“An essay published in Newsweek, The Washington Spectator and at least one other website argues that a flag honoring U.S. troops who have been captured or gone missing is actually ‘racist’ and deserves to be treated with the same hostility as the Confederate flag. ‘You know that racist flag?’ writes Rick Perlstein. ‘The one that supposedly honors history but actually spreads a pernicious myth? And is useful only to venal right-wing politicians who wish to exploit hatred by calling it heritage? It’s past time to pull it down.’ No, Perlstein isn’t talking about the Confederate flag, but actually the POW/MIA...

The Story of the Other Racist Flag As the Nixon administration prosecuted the Vietnam War, American citizens enacted a bizarre psychic reversal By Rick Perlstein Posted on August 10, 2015 in Politics You know that racist flag? The one that supposedly honors history but actually spreads a pernicious myth? And is useful only to venal right-wing politicians who wish to exploit hatred by calling it heritage? It’s past time to pull it down. Oh, wait. You thought I was referring to the Confederate flag. Actually, I’m talking about this.

Ms. Dehabey, resettlement coordinator for US Together in Toledo, is also the primary facilitator for their adjustment to the area. The organization has been quietly and steadily resettling refugees in the Toledo area for a little more than a year, the only agency in the Toledo area doing so. The refugee community is a small but growing regional population, Ms. Dehabey said. She has placed 11 families in the Toledo area, including two before US Together opened its Toledo office in May, 2014. ... Ms. Dehabey opens an average of one case a month, she said, though arrivals can be...

Known variously as Puff the Magic Dragon, Dragonships or just Spooky, the AC-47 gunship, with its broadside battery of GE miniguns, was a sight to behold. In 1965 with the grunts on the ground needing as much persistent close in air support as could be spared, the Air Force went about converting a handful of World War II-era C-47 transports into lead slinging death dealers by attaching a number of General Electric GAU-2/M134 miniguns arranged to fire through the left-hand side of the plane at a target below.