Free Republic

Very very sad: WHERE are the Americans?" Talk to Iraqis in Baghdad these days, and you'll likely hear the question. Of course, everyone knows where the Americans are physically. The 130,000 US troops cantoned in a diminishing number of barracks outside the cities make their presence felt on occasion. The thousands of civilian Americans who are helping build a new Iraq are also easy to spot. The question refers to the United States' fast-fading political profile. Those who deem Iraq as the biggest US foreign-policy success in decades are baffled by Washington's determined efforts to deny that reality -- indeed,...

Viet government blocking Catholic web sites (including CWN) Aug. 6, 2009 (CWNews.com) - Catholic internet sites that have given prominent coverage to a Vietnamese government campaign against the Catholic Church -- including CWN -- are being blocked by government censors. VietCatholic News, a service staffed by Vietnamese journalists, has long been blocked to users inside the country. Now Catholic World News, AsiaNews, Catholic News Agency, and Independent Catholic News have all been added to the list of blocked sites. Vietnam strictly regulates Internet access for its citizens, using both legal and technical means. The collaborative project OpenNet Initiative classifies Vietnam's...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5, 2009 – Petty Officer 1st Class Joseph Ruggiero’s heroic actions more than five years ago saved lives and earned him the first Purple Heart awarded to a Coast Guardsman since the Vietnam War. Petty Officer 1st Class Joseph Ruggiero became the first Coast Guardsmen since the Vietnam War to earn the Purple Heart for valor. Courtesy photo   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Ruggiero entered the service May 1, 2000, not knowing what the future would hold for him. His father, who served in the U.S. Marines in Vietnam, also served in the federal government for...

. FREE Mennonite Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh of Pleiku, Vietnam .

The news out of Vietnam demonstrates a reality which few acknowledge these days when we mistakenly think we have become so “enlightened”, the existence of evil. It demands immediate global responsive action. There is a new “Vietnam War” underway. The enemies of life, freedom and true liberation are killing Catholic priests in Vietnam! The leftover remnant of the discredited and inhuman ideology of Maoism is now turning its ire against what has always been its greatest enemy, the only true humanism, the Christian faith. The fullness of that Christian faith, with the only systematic social development of the implications of...

Anti-Catholic violence and police raids at several Catholics’ homes in the Vietnamese coastal city of Dong Hoi have prompted many parishioners to flee for their own safety. Local government officials reportedly wants to create a “No Catholic Zone.” Police and gangs on the city streets have stopped anyone who wears any Catholic religious symbol in order to beat them savagely. Those arrested include Nguyen Cong Ly, whose house was used by parishioners of Tam Toa for worship services. During the police search at Ly’s home, a gang of thugs surrounded his house and yelled anti-Catholic slogans suggesting his death, Fr....

Dong Hoi, Vietnam, Jul 28, 2009 / 09:29 pm (CNA).- Two priests were hospitalized in the central Vietnamese coastal city of Dong Hoi after being beaten brutally by plain-clothed police and a gang employed by the local government. One of the priests, who is now comatose, was thrown from the second floor of the hospital where he was visiting the first victim. On Sunday, Fr. Paul Nguyen Dinh Phu, parish priest of Du Loc, was attacked by a group of plain-clothed police and thugs when he was travelling to Tam Toa parish to concelebrate morning Mass with five other priests...

7/28/2009 - KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AFNS) -- As a 21-gun salute rang throughout Chapel Hill Memorial Cemetery July 27, the sound meant a Vietnam War veteran who had been missing in action for more than 40 years was finally home to rest . Active-duty members, retirees and their families gathered at Chief Master Sgt. Quincy Adam's final resting place to pay their respects. Among them was Staff Sgt. Adam Blankenship, cousin of Chief Adam. "It's been a long road for our family waiting for this type of closure," said Sergeant Blankenship, 436th Security Forces Squadron at Dover Air Force Base,...

July 27, 2009, 4:00 a.m. McNamara’s FollyThe road to failure in Vietnam. By Conrad Black The recent death of former U.S. defense secretary and World Bank president Robert McNamara, at 93, has raised again, in editorials and obituaries, the hoary head of the Vietnam War. Geeky in his thick, rimless glasses and slicked-back hair, expressionless, desiccated, fast-talking, and mechanically confident, McNamara was at the cutting edge of the managerial revolution—a business administrator, statistician, and efficiency expert. He was a mesmerizing figure for a time, especially after the Kennedy public-relations apparatus confected the myth of calibrated crisis management in the...

A massive cave recently uncovered in a remote Vietnamese jungle is the largest single cave passage yet found, a new survey shows. At 262-by-262 feet (80-by-80 meters) in most places, the Son Doong cave beats out the previous world-record holder, Deer Cave in the Malaysian section of the island of Borneo. Deer Cave is no less than 300-by-300 feet (91-by-91 meters), but it's only about a mile (1.6 kilometers) long. By contrast, explorers walked 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) into Son Doong, in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, before being blocked by seasonal floodwaters—and they think that the passage is even...

CONTINGENCY OPERATING SITE MAREZ EAST, Iraq, July 23, 2009 – Army Sgt. 1st Class Hershel L. Mayfield is a Vietnam veteran with 39 years of service. But when he re-enlisted here earlier this month, his mind was on the future and the young people he serves with. Army Sgt. 1st Class Hershel Mayfield, right, receives his re-enlistment certificate from Army Capt. Irvin Morris at Contingency Operating Site Marez East, Iraq, July 7, 2009. Mayfield has served 39 years in the Army, including 37 with the 158th Maintenance Company of the Alabama Army National Guard. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt....

Walter Cronkite created Fox News. Cronkite's fundamental role as a "cultural artist" in creating Fox. one of the most notable moments of Cronkite's liberalism being unmasked in a highly visible fashion was his now famous series on Vietnam. But by this time conservative Americans were already well awake to the realization that this powerful new institution of television was being used in ways both subtle and not, to convey the message that there was no more enlightened or superior world view than modern American liberalism. Broadcast by broadcast it was increasingly apparent that those who disagreed or who challenged the...

#5 Jim Thompson POW and Legendary Badass Who was he? Jim was just a store clerk, until he decided he could probably impress more girls by telling them he was a Green Beret, which he became. How He Stared Down Death: During the Vietnam War, Jim was captured and held as a prisoner of war, at which time he was beaten and tortured. The time we're speaking of by the way was a period of nine years, giving him a pretty bittersweet record for being held as a POW.

Journalism: After the eulogies, the fact remains that "the most trusted man in America" betrayed that trust. He helped snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam and tried hard to do the same in Iraq.President Obama on Friday praised Walter Cronkite as a journalistic icon, calling the CBS anchor the "voice of certainty in an uncertain world." More to the point, he was the father of advocacy journalism, the patron saint of media bias. He went from reporting news to recreating it in his own image. Far from the image of the patriotic war correspondent, Cronkite was a...

The Herald-Mail http://www.herald-mail.com/ 07/20/2009 A different take on moon landing By JAMES H. WARNER Today, July 20, 2009, marks the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing by astronaut Neil Armstrong. Almost everyone who was alive at the time will remember the day. They will remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. I, too, remember where I was and what I was doing on that day, However, I did not hear the news of the moon landing for several more years. I was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and on July...

On February 27, 1968, Walter Cronkite delivered his verdict on the (ongoing) war in Vietnam. The most trusted man in America pronounced that it was "...more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam War is to end in a stalemate." Stalemate.... The Tet Offensive, which battle prompted Cronkite's televised towel throwing, was a decisive American victory -- of the more than 80,000 Communist troops who poured south on the Vietnamese New Year, American and allied South Vietnamese soldiers would kill or capture more than 58,000, while suffering a combined, and comparatively light, 9,000 casualties. Tet was in fact a disaster for the...

With the love-fest going on for Cronkite I felt the need to interject some reality into the situation. A few reasons why the man shouldn't be remembered as fondly as some suggest. One reason....His part in ensuring that Vietnam would end badly for the United States by uttering these kind of words, and doing it on a nightly basis: Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? I’m not sure. The Vietcong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. It seems now more...

Apart from the Soviet Union, Asia was the major killing field of communism. Perhaps 75 million innocent men, women and children were killed for communism in Asia - mainly in China, North Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia. The western effort to stop this evil in Korea and Vietnam was a great and noble cause, and partially successful. The brave Americans who died in Korea and Vietnam did not die for nothing. They did not die for "a lie". They died for the freedom of South Korea and South Vietnam. In Korea, they were partially successful. North Korea fell to the darkness,...

The United States voiced concern Wednesday about rising tension between China and Vietnam in the South China Sea as a senator led calls to boost US seapower faced with Beijing's growing military.

Catholic villagers in Thua Thien-Hue province say they have tried their best to follow Church teaching on the use of artificial birth control methods in the face of the government's two-child policy. Huong Toan villagers, just like Vietnamese elsewhere in the country, are required to have no more than two children per family since 1994, when village authorities launched a nationwide family planning program. Families with more than two children have to pay rice to the government as a fine. Many local Catholics say they have done their best to remain true to Church teaching but some have had to...

HOUSTON — Charles Bass had told the story about how he survived a deadly snakebite in Vietnam so many times it seemed natural to tell it again, this time in front of a TV camera on the Fourth of July. He pointed at scars on his hand and the crook of his elbow, explaining how he'd stuck a hollow bamboo in the vein to stop the venom from reaching his heart. The camera panned a display case full of his medals at the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum on Southmore Boulevard. A placard explained that Sgt. Major Bass had earned the...

You're a 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley ,11-14-1965, LZ X-ray, Vietnam . Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 - 1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in. You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out. Your family is 1/2 way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and...

WASHINGTON, July 8, 2009 – Bright blue skies above the National Mall today belied the solemnity of the ceremony commemorating the first two American combat casualties of the Vietnam War. U.S. Army Master Sgt. Chester Ovnand and Maj. Dale Buis were the first two U.S. servicemembers killed in the Vietnam War. Their sacrifice was honored in Washington, D.C., Jyly 8, 2009, in a ceremony commemorating the 50th Anniversary of their deaths. DoD photo by U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Carden   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “On this date 50 years ago, two men lost their lives...

Few Americans have heard of Bien Hoa, but the Vietnam War started there 50 years ago today.

Rather than absolving him of his sins, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s pseudo-mea culpa, “In Retrospect: Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam,” is a self-indictment. His lesser crime is self-indulgence. His arrogance and duplicity during the Vietnam conflict is echoed throughout his book as he recounts his mismanagement of the war. If as he admits, ignorance was his guiding light, then, it has grown to be a beacon today, proving that he has learned little about Vietnamese communism in the almost three decades that it took him to write his book. Besides the war, another tragedy is that McNamara seems...

Two tours in Vietnam. A Purple Heart. A welding accident. A wheelchair. Death at 61. A bill for $277,186.96. Two months after Roger Lennon died, the woman who took care of him for more than a dozen years got a bill in the mail. The state of Iowa said the Bettendorf veteran owes almost $300,000 for the medical care he received in the state-run veterans home. "I called them and said, 'Is this a joke?'" Sarah Miller said. "Who has that kind of money? And I was with Roger every time he was signed into the Iowa Veterans Home in...

Mr. McNamara's last day at the Pentagon was a comedy of errors. A grand farewell ceremony was planned on the lawn near the river entrance, and thousands assembled in the freezing rain. Meanwhile, the elevator taking Mr. Johnson, Mr. McNamara and 11 others jammed between floors, and they were stuck for 15 minutes. "What's wrong with this thing?" the president asked. "Don't ask me," Mr. McNamara replied, "I don't work here anymore."

I can't stand media liberalism. From the article: ========McNamara revealed his misgivings three decades after the American defeat that some called "McNamara's war."========= Allow me to correct this. ========McNamara revealed his misgivings three decades after the American defeat that some liberal journalists called "McNamara's war."=========

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." —Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) Well, the aptly named Robert Strange McNamara has finally shuffled off to join LBJ and Dick Nixon in the 7th level of Hell. McNamara was the original bean-counter — a man who knew the cost of everything but the worth of nothing.

Fox News alert during Fox and Friends. No story on Fox News site, yet.

Father Ly on trial in 2007 Hanoi, Vietnam, Jul 3, 2009 / 07:33 pm (CNA).- On Wednesday 37 members of the U.S. Senate called on President Nguyen Minh Triet to release Fr. Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, a longtime human rights advocate.The bipartisan group of Senators, led by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Sam Brownback (R-KS) cited “serious flaws” concerning the priest’s arrest, trial and imprisonment. They asked the Vietnamese president to facilitate Father Ly’s “immediate and unconditional release from prison” and to allow him to return home and work without restrictions on his “internationally guaranteed” freedom of expression, association...

Excavation of an ancient Vietnamese site has thrown up the earliest evidence of rice cultivation, while shedding new light on how the death of young children was viewed by community members. The excavation, led by professor Peter Bellwood and Marc Oxenham from the Australian National University (ANU) School of Archaeology and Anthropology, studied the site, some 3,000-4,000 years old, named An Son. The findings suggest that death in young children was so common that community members were unlikely to revere the death of their offspring until they had survived for more than five years. "The burial of a new born...

A core issue in our recollections of Vietnam is the performance of the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam), our South Vietnamese allies. My good friend, R.J. DelVecchio, fellow former Marine in Vietnam, able student of Vietnam, and humanitarian, just sent me an email about the “Evolution of the ARVN” that is a particularly good overview and corrective to many’s view. Let me share it with you: + Photos & Links for more about the ARVN

WASHINGTON - Despite pleges to protect South Vietnam, former US president Richard Nixon privately vowed to "cut off the head" of its leader unless he backed peace with the communist North, tapes released Tuesday showed. The tapes appear to confirm charges by South Vietnam's late president, Nguyen Van Thieu, who tearfully accused the United States of breaking its word to protect Saigon when the southern capital fell in 1975. The National Archives released more than 150 hours of new tapes from Nixon, who notoriously recorded his conversations. Nixon is heard railing against the media and Congress for allegedly undercutting the...

Although many Vietnam movies have been made since the mid-70. FORGOTTEN HEROES will stand out as one of the best. This is an action war drama and could be about men in any war, but this moving story unfolds in the jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia.

Report: News Legend Walter Cronkite Gravely Ill By TAMER EL-GHOBASHY Updated 9:00 PM EDT, Thu, Jun 18, 2009 American journalism legend, Walter Cronkite, is nearing death and CBS News has been scrambling to update the 92-year-old's obituary, Mediabistro.com reported Thursday. The former anchor of "CBS Evening News" is gravely ill, according to TVNewser, a news blog on Mediabistro.com that cited several sources at CBS News. The Los Angeles Times reported that rumors surrounding Cronkite's health began swirling when CBS began calling other top TV anchors for quotes and comments on Cronkite's career. CBS News declined to comment on Cronkite's condition....

In a nationally televised address on August 4, 1964, US President Lyndon Johnson announced that North Vietnam had launched two unprovoked attacks on American military ships.  Within three days of Johnson's TV appearance, lawmakers passed the bipartisan Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and Mr. Johnson had started the ill-fated Vietnam War. Political analysts say the crisis helped Mr. Johnson defeat former military pilot and war veteran, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, in the 1964 presidential election.  (Employing a Democrat gimmick still used today, Johnson also portrayed Goldwater as racist.) "Conspiracy kooks" charged that Johnson lied about the second attack and they also...

E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend Version November 11, 2005, 2:18 p.m. War & Responsibility “It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began.� EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the text of a Veterans Day speech President George W. Bush delivered at Tobyhanna Army Depot, in Pennsylvania, as released by the White House. Thank you all very much. Thank you all for coming, please be seated. Thanks for the warm welcome. I'm glad to be back in Pennsylvania and I'm proud to be the first sitting President to visit Monroe County. (Applause.) I'm especially...

June 14, 2009Obama's Other Controversial ChurchBy Andrew Walden "This is a guy (former Weatherman terror-bomber Bill Ayers) who lives in my neighborhood ... the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago - when I was 8 years old - somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense." -- Barack Obama on the Campaign trail, 2008 As President Obama prepared to commemorate D-Day, the Associated Press dug up old details and photos to write a warm fuzzy story about the WW2 service record of Obama's maternal grandfather...

If someone threw you a party about 40 years too late, would you still go? On Saturday, at least 1,500 of Minnesota's Vietnam-era veterans did. The vets, along with friends and family that brought the total crowd to an estimated 5,000, came to an event in their honor held on the State Capitol grounds in St. Paul. There were cheese curds and hot dogs, plane flyovers and a color parade, live entertainment and VIP speakers, laughing children and nodding grannies. A lot like any summer weekend festival, until you got to the "Traveling Wall," a three-fifths scale replica of the...

The three brothers grew up during the depression in a hard steel mill town. The older brother was a brilliant academic, star athlete, and he was a father figure to his younger siblings. He taught them honesty, honor, courage, and respect. He was proud of them, and they were proud of him. In fact, they freely admitted in later years that they had worshipped him. They grew to be solid young men, bright with prospect, even tempered, and religious. When World War 2 broke out, the older brother joined the Army Air Corps, and was trained by the Royal Air...

Vietnam fighter jet crashes, pilot killed International AP News 2009-06-10 10:42 HANOI, Vietnam (AP): An official says a Vietnamese fighter jet crashed during a training mission, killing the lone pilot. A district military official who identified himself only as Thanh said the Soviet-made SU-22 crashed into a corn field Tuesday morning in Cam Thuy District in northern Thanh Hoa province after taking off from a nearby military air base. Wednesday's Youth newspaper quotes villager Truong Van Dinh as saying he heard a big explosion before the plane crashed and engulfed in a ball of fire. Several military plane crashes involving...

Hanoi, Vietnam, Jun 11, 2009 (CNA).- The Vietnamese government has renewed its seizures of Catholic Church properties in the country, demolishing several monasteries to build hotels and tourist resorts. The move has generated fears that the government has adopted a new and “harsh” approach to Catholics. Last week the government ordered the destruction of the monastery of the Congregation of the Brothers of the Holy Family in Long Xuyen, Vietnam. A spokesman for the diocese said the former two-story home of the priests and religious of the Holy Family Order was destroyed on June 4. The Sisters of St. Paul...

The now-demolished monastery of the Brothers of the Holy Family Hanoi, Vietnam, Jun 11, 2009 / 05:07 am (CNA).- The Vietnamese government has renewed its seizures of Catholic Church properties in the country, demolishing several monasteries to build hotels and tourist resorts. The move has generated fears that the government has adopted a new and “harsh” approach to Catholics. Last week the government ordered the destruction of the monastery of the Congregation of the Brothers of the Holy Family in Long Xuyen, Vietnam. A spokesman for the diocese said the former two-story home of the priests and religious of...

The two-storey building was home to the Order of the Brothers of The Holy Family of Banam. Its altar and votive statues were thrown into a rubbish dump. Church properties are being seized by the authorities to be turned into hotels or tourist resorts. Catholic leaders lament the violation of religious freedom in the country. The monastery of the Congregation of the Brothers of The Holy Family of Banam (Frères de la Sainte Famille de Banam) has been demolished by government order, a spokesman for the diocese of Long Xuyen, capital of An Giang province, reported. As a result of...

AL ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq, June 2, 2009 – From the jungles of Vietnam to the streets of New York City to the deserts of Iraq, one Army noncommissioned officer has proved his dedication to the country through decades of service. Army Sgt. 1st Class Luis R. Laluz, far right, of Staten Island, N.Y., offers soldiers weight-lifting tips in a gym at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, May 4, 2009. An amateur bodybuilder and former bodybuilding champion, Laluz started a physical fitness program for soldiers in his unit, the 321st Sustainment Brigade. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Kiyoshi C....

VIRGINIA BEACH A few years ago at a reunion for Navy sailors and airmen, Clarence Cooper met two men he'd seen just once - Sept. 14, 1968. It was a hot and humid afternoon when North Vietnamese troops ambushed Cooper's supply ship on the river outside Vinh Long. Rockets streamed from the bank, blasted through bulkheads and drove shrapnel into the small crew. The sailors unloaded on the entrenched enemy lines. The deck was covered with smoke and fire and cartridge cases and two rocket-propelled grenades that somehow didn't explode. The fight culminated with a helicopter rescue of a gravely...

With attention focused on North Korea's brinkmanship on nuclear weapons and missiles, another potential crisis is brewing that is about ready to spill over into violence, with Vietnam apparently preparing to challenge China's ownership of a string of islands thought to be the link to billions of dollars worth of oil. In asserting its rights to the Spratly Islands also claimed by China, Vietnam has ordered six Project 636 Kilo-class submarines from Russia and has gotten permission for the purchase, in addition to other military arms Vietnam has ordered. Russia sees the sales as strategically beneficial and Chinese critics suggest...

Four decades ago, the liberal, antiwar wing of the Democratic Party helped to force President Lyndon B. Johnson from office. Specifically, Johnson decided not to run for re-election in 1968 in large part because of rising primary challenges and increasingly vitriolic demonstrations against him. One chant that was heard often at anti-Vietnam War rallies was "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" The level of anger now is nowhere close to that level, but there are warning signs that President Obama is starting to generate serious opposition on the fiery left. There is increasing unease about his...

They pledged to leave no man behind, so for 43 years the mystery of what happened to Huey 808 has tortured veterans of the First Air Cavalry. The helicopter and its four-man crew failed to return from a routine mission in December 1965, soon after braving enemy fire at the battle of Ia Drang, America's first great clash of arms in Vietnam. Pilots spent months scouring the jungle looking for traces of a crash site, and for years afterwards, comrades of the lost crew made trips to the steamy hill villages of the Central Highlands looking for clues to what...