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Sen. John McCain has taken an obvious, strong, personal dislike of President Trump. The most recent sign of this personal spat came to light in the October 22 online editions of FNC, the NY Post, and many other periodicals, when Sen. McCain called Trump to task for using bone spurs to evade military service during the Vietnam War. Sen. John McCain took some veiled shots at President Trump over the weekend — slamming high income draft dodgers like himself for using their wealth to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. “One aspect of the conflict, by the way, that I...

In the 1960s, negative television coverage helped turn American public opinion against the war, the veterans and even the Vietnamese who fought to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam. Actress Jane Fonda, who called U.S. troops murderers, was famously shown sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gunner used to shoot at American planes. By 1971, John Kerry, a Vietnam veteran and now secretary of state, declared on national TV, “We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service.” But is what Americans saw on television and in the movies an accurate portrayal of...

Over the past 20 years, determined Vietnam veteran B. G. "Jug" Burkett has succeeded in challenging hundreds of phony military records — but he has not succeeded in holding the media accountable when they carelessly rely on bogus service stories to make political points. Burkett is now getting some welcome reinforcements: the corps of amateur experts whose instant analysis demolished the credibility of CBS's purported Bush National Guard records. (B. G. Burkett is not to be confused with Bill Burkett, the man who gave the phony documents to CBS.) "The Dan Rathers of the world can no longer put up...

<p>HONOLULU — The first U.S. Navy vessel to dock in Vietnam in almost 30 years is due to arrive there on a landmark port call in November, according to a military source and a former U.S. ambassador. The military contact is the first since the United States pulled out of Vietnam in 1975, withdrawing from a war that cost the United States more than 58,000 lives and left an estimated 1.3 million to 3 million North and South Vietnamese dead. There are an estimated 1,200 American POW/MIAs still unaccounted for. A military official said Friday the ship would dock for five days in what was largely a symbolic gesture reflecting the deepening bilateral relationship between the United States and the communist republic. A spokesman for the Navy's Pacific Command declined to comment, citing security reasons. Bilateral ties between the United States and Vietnam have been improving slowly since the former foes resumed diplomatic relations in 1995. A bilateral trade agreement was signed in 2000, and a deal to resume commercial flights between the two countries was signed on Thursday. "The military-to-military aspect is in a developmental stage," said former Ambassador Charles B. Salmon Jr., currently a foreign policy adviser at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, a Pentagon-funded think tank. Vietnamese Defense Minister Pham Van Tra is due to visit the United States later this year, Mr. Salmon and the military source both said. It will be the first visit by a Vietnamese defense minister since the end of the Vietnam War. Mr. Tra's visit takes place after Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien's recent trip to the United States. Mr. Salmon said that despite the growing relationship the issues of POW/MIAs and human rights violations in Vietnam were still of significant concern for many Americans. The communist government, which tightly controls religion, has clashed and arrested dissident Buddhist monks and refused to recognize Pope John Paul II's appointment of Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Pham Minh Man as Ho Chi Minh City's new cardinal.</p>

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Vietnam and the United States reached a tentative agreement Wednesday to begin the first commercial flights between the two countries since the end of the Vietnam War, a Vietnamese official said. The two sides were still working out final details, but were expected to initial an agreement on Thursday, said the official from Vietnam's Civil Aviation Administration, who declined to be named. The agreement came after negotiations broke down three years ago before resuming this spring. It would open direct flights between the United States and Vietnam, but no details were available on when the service...