We Were Soldiers — Betrayed in Viet Nam

Robert L. Kocher (freeper RLK)

[ALOHA RONNIE]

NEVER FORGET


...Vietnamese Actor DON DOUNG is now free because...

.."WE WERE SOLDIERS"..

...combatant/War Correspondent JOE GALLOWAY got his friends at the State Department to go behind the scenes to negotiate DON's Release.

...This while a P/R Campaign was taken up by Freeper ALOHA RONNIE here on Freerepublic.com and on Talk Radio/TV to not allow Communist Vietnam to do what it was doing to this fine International Movie Star ...in Secret.

...Pressure from above and below ...and lots of Prayers finally got DON DOUNG out to FREEDOM in America.

Special thanks goes to the Bible Prayer Group at Inland Valley Community Church in California ...which took up the Spiritual Fight for DON from the very start.


NEVER FORGET

[Heyworth]

I'm trying to think of when Japanese tanks were ever really used "to good effect." Bicycles, yeah, but tanks? When?

[Killborn]

Thanks to Galloway, Ronnie, and whoever else help Doung to his freedom.

[El Gato]

I think Lt. Colonel Moore and Sgt. Major Plumely knew exactly what they were getting into, and the point of it. The point was to lure the NVA into battle, and then use artillery and air power to fix and destroy them. They only succeeded partially, but they did destroy a pot full of NVA, and lots of their equipment. The failure was one of higher command, mainly LBJ and Strange to allow full pursuit, to allow cutting off the enemies supplies, if not at their source, at least at the choke points of their supply system, the rail line and bridges into N. Vietnam, and the ports. Oh eventually we did, but about 6 years too late, and even then in a somewhat restrained manner.

[Heyworth]

Both the British and French had machineguns before the advent of the Great War (though not as many per battalion as the Germans). Indeed, the British adopted the Maxim gun in 1884 -- 30 years before the outbreak of WWI.

Yeah, but the prevailing belief was that, while machine guns were great to fight off attacks on the fort by the "damned fuzzy wuzzies" and other subject colonial primitives, a really well trained, disciplined and motivated European soldier would be able to advance into machine gun fire. Check out a fascinating little book called "A Social History of the Machine Gun" sometime.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

...Yes...

...Thanks to GALLOWAY, our Prayer Warriors and to...

...and to an Internet and Convervative Talk Radio/TV Network...

...that if in place 38 years ago...

...would have prevented the likes of:

WALTER CRONKITE
HILLARY Diane RODHAM
WILLIAM Jefferson CLINTON
JOHN F. KERRY
TOM HAYDEN
JANE FONDA

...from fooling America into leaving Free Vietnamese to their Fate at the hands of invading Communist Terrorist Bullies long, long ago.

...These same Enemies Within must be stopped HERE & NOW...

...for it's now our own FREEDOM that's at stake in Time of War.

[Jimmy Valentine's brother]

I agree. Glad to see you're back in action. Hope all is well.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

YOU both couldn't be more correct.

Please see my Post No. 57

[Killborn]

The Liarberal scum are the worse. Without them, Vnam would have been won, or at least a stalemate a la N and S Korea.

[Joy Angela]

USA Bump for Don Duong

[Pietro]

What I've read so afr is great, I'll finish it later. Thanks for the post.

[neverdem]

"Patton may have been a student of military history, but this fellow is not. Both the British and French had machineguns before the advent of the Great War (though not as many per battalion as the Germans). Indeed, the British adopted the Maxim gun in 1884 -- 30 years before the outbreak of WWI."

I'm pretty sure that in WW I the German Army had organized at least some of their infantry units into machine gun battalions and machine gun regiments, IIRC.

[warchild9]

Napoleon's principle force-multiplier was his genius at logistics. He could move a bigger army faster and farther than anyone else at the time, and concentrate it on the battlefield so quickly his enemies were dazzled. His second advantage was his subordinates, chosen carefully, each equal to any general in Europe. After a few of these were attrited, and Napoleon started to get lazy with his map-studies (which some attribute to diverting bladder infections and chronic kidney troubles), he lost, and lost big.

[colorado tanker]

After the French Revolution, the French were no longer hamstrung with incompetent aristocrats occupying the upper ranks, and could promote based on merit. What was the saying, every private had a Marshal's baton in his pack?

A lot of people forget how key logistics is.

[neverdem]

"The Liarberal scum are the worse. Without them, Vnam would have been won, or at least a stalemate a la N and S Korea."

It was the example of Korea that led those fools to believe they could prevail in a war of attrition, and eventually persuade the Commies to agree to a negotiated settlement .

They couldn't appreciate Korea was a peninsula in which the line that stretched across its width and developed into the DMZ could only be outflanked by amphibous or aerial envelopment operations.

With effective control over all the border areas of Laos and Cambodia, the VC and NVA could always outflank South Viet-Nam.

I heard audiotapes from LBJ's library a few years ago in which LBJ and MacNamara, I believe, were finally recognizing their dilemma of costly stalemate with the status quo. They were clueless about how to proceed and wanted no further escalation.

LBJ said something to the effect that if he were to withdraw from South Viet-Nam now(I belive that was 1967), then he would become the first president in American History to lose a war, and that the Republicans would then never agree to work with him to pass his G*Dd*mn social programs. He was EVIL incarnate!

BTW Ronnie, I was in D 1/7 Cav seven years later when it was 3rd Bde(Sep), 1st Cav Div, the last brigade in country.

[RLK]

Patton was very wealthy. After the war he enlisted the aid of an engineer by the name of Cristie in Peoria to help him design and build his own advanced idea of a tank. His design worked so well that the Japanese military used his design years later in WWII to good effect. Hmmm. The Japanese? I Could've sworn it was the Russian T-34 which was based on Cristie's design.

----------------------------------

You may be correct, but I did not find any reference to it in military texts.

[RLK]

Correct on the Christie origins of the BT and later T34. The Japanese as far as I can see were more interested in British designs, Vickers mostly. RLK is a little manic sometimes!!!

-------------------------------

The information on Japanese use of Patton's designs can be found in The Patton Papers.</i?

[SICSEMPERTYRANNUS]

"Who is this dildo, and why should we listen to any of his babblings?

hehe

[ALOHA RONNIE]

GARRY OWEN, Sir

...from a fellow HHC, 1/7th Cav, 3rd Bde SkyTrooper at the Beginning of the Vietnam War in 1965.

...BTW, our U.S. Air Force Forward Air Commander 1/LT. CHARLES W. HASTINGS in 1965 ended up in Thailand in charge of the Air Evacuation of Saigon at the End of the War in 1975 .

...Both HALBERSTRAM's ..'The Best and the Brightest'.. & MOORE/GALLOWAY's .."WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE and YOUNG".. state that after Lt. Col. HAL G. MOORE's Briefing to MacNAMARA about his Victory at the Battle of IA DRANG, MacNAMARA simply said "Thanks" and started to write a memo to LBJ on his plane back home saying that the Vietnam War was unwinnable. This was in November 1965..!!!

...And it was this same MacNAMARA that LBJ trusted to filter all our Air Strike Targets in Communist North Vietnam for the President's Approval.

The Enemy is now Within...
and always has been.

[El Gato]

With effective control over all the border areas of Laos and Cambodia, the VC and NVA could always outflank South Viet-Nam.

But whose brilliant idea was it to leave that control to them? I believe it was once again Strange and LBJ. Something about "not widening the war" not bombing "Cambodia" or "Laos", when what we would have, and in some cases were, bombing was NVA in Laos and Cambodia. Of course when Nixon finally gave the go ahead to hit the NVA in Cambodia, the left went ape-shiite and the campuses exploded. Well some did, mine went home for Mother's Day. All but the left wing loonies, who either had no mothers, or were not on good terms with them and who proceeded to "vote" for a "strike", when only they were present, They had lost a similar vote a couple of days before when a more representative sample of students, including moi, were present, (if that seems like a typcial Dim "parlimentry trick", it's not suprising since these same folks now control the Dim party)