We Were Soldiers — Betrayed in Viet Nam

Robert L. Kocher (freeper RLK)

[El Gato]

Is LT. Col. An one of those "honorable generals"?

Not to speak for him, but I believe Hal Moore thinks so, else why would he, Moore, have gone to Vietnam to visit An?

[RLK]

Rommel radioed Hitler of his intention to retreat on November 3. Hitler denied him with this rather unrealistic response: "It would not be the first time in history that the stronger will has triumphed over the enemy's strong battalions. ...

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Hitler's magical thinking. Hitler's will was so strong, expressed through the German People, that military realtiy no longer mattered.

[neverdem]

Right on the money.

[RLK]

Oh, and Napoleon's main innovation in battlefield tactics was to have his infantry attack in column.

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Move troops in column. Musketry can not attack an arrayed force in column as the men in back would be blocked by those in front of them and would not be able to shoot anything.

[Killborn]

It's interesting how some people are willing to direct armies under the most evil regimes, even if they are opposed or neutral to it.

[RLK]

But at the top of my list of McNamara complaints is his restrictions on the air war over N. Vietnam, keeping most of the important targets off limits.

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It was also very predictable, occurring in an advancing wave. This made it innefective.

[RLK]

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).

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If you have a few of them in theory, but don't deploy them while the other guys do, you don't have them.

[PhilDragoo]

5,000 degrees Kelvin in perpetuo for traitors.

[RLK]

It's interesting how some people are willing to direct armies under the most evil regimes,

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In the case of Guderian and some others, he initially supported Hitler as he thought could revitalize and save the German nation. Germany was in shambles and being eaten to pieces. There was a period in which a single loaf of bread cost four million to eight million marks. Dollars were the same. People were going down the street with wheelbarrows full of mone, no exaggeration, to buy a single loaf of bread. There are surviving newsreals showing it.

As time went on, Guderian and others became disillusioned and disgusted with Hitler. However, opposition to Hitler in any form whatsoever was lethal, as Rommel found out.

If you read Guderian's autobiography, as the New Yorker reviewer pointed out, "His (Guderian's) contempt for the Nazis is never far from the surface."

[ALOHA RONNIE]

...MOORE has expressed over and over again his respect for his worthy IA DRANG Opponent Lt. Colonel AN and later on General AN.

...Vietnamese Actor DON DUONG should have gotten a Golden Globe and Academy Award for his portrayal of Lt. Col. AN in RANDALL WALLACE's...

.."WE WERE SOLDIERS"..

...for accurately defining this Officer at work. For putting us there.

Welcome to America, DON, and to Freedom.

[neverdem]

"...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..!!!"

If the Strange one thought that then it just shows what immoral bastards he and LBJ were. Does murderer come to mind? Sounds a little weak to me.

Garry Owen's was the name of a bar in my neighborhood. I was a member of the 1/69 Inf. in the NY Army Natioal Guard also. Guess what was the unit's song was?

Garry Owen

[ALOHA RONNIE]

...Our Communist Terrorist Enemy HO CHI MINH kept telling the whole world during the Vietnam War that there was not a single one of his North Vietnamese Troops in South Vietnam.


...See my last Photo, Photo Collection Set #3, of my:

'RONNIE GUYER PHOTO COLLECTION'

http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_collection.htm


...showing our first 2 North Vietnamese Army POW's at the Battle of the IA DRANG Valley on November 15, 1965 ...8 miles inside a then Free South Vietnam..!!!

...During his Impeachment, longtime HO CHI MINH Supporter BILL CLINTON told us on TV that everything depends on what the meaning of the word IS, IS.

The Communist Dialectic, alive and well in America today.

HO CHI MINH
BILL CLINTON
HILLARY RODHAM
Same-Same

[GopherIt]

I have a great plan to show we've learned something: let's cashier both Jerry Boykin and Lt. Col. Allen West. That'll show 'em!

[ALOHA RONNIE]

Vietnam was a fight for FREEDOM just like the one going on right now in the Middle East.

President BUSH has promised FREEDOM's Return to:

Communist Vietnam
Communist North Korea
Communist Cuba

...as well its Arrival to all the Countries of the Middle East during a BUSH Presidency...

...as our own best Self-Defense against future Terrorist Attacks here at home.

...A U.S. Navy Vessel will soon have a 5 Day Port of Call at Saigon while Communist Vietnam's Defense Minister visits our Pentagon. Communist Vietnam comes to us now to counter the threat of Communist China's increasing power and influence over all East Asia.

...The World is new...
...as our need to protect ourselves from Muslim Extremists worldwide and Vietnam's need to protect itself from China...

...brings us both closer together in a new Time of War.

...T'was all worth it in the End, it seems.

AMAZING.

[jokar]

bttt
GARRY OWEN
Co H 75th Rangers. attached to the 1st cav. 69 - 70.

[Cacique]

bttfl

[ALOHA RONNIE]

...The Real Invasion of Vietnam began when a convuluted French Communism invaded a young college student HO CHI MINH's head in Paris during the 1920's. A Communism HO CHI MINH brought back with him to infect all of Indo-China.

...The Real Murderer of his own Vietnamese People was HO CHI MINH ...with reckless abandon.

...It is now ours to NEVER FORGET that during the Vietnam War...

HILLARY Diane RODHAM
WILLIAM Jefferson CLINTON
JOHN F. KERRY
WALTER CRONKITE

...did all that they could to aid HO CHI MINH's Communist Victory over US and FREEDOM.

...With HILLARY Diane RODHAM now fixin' to announce for the Presidency in Time of War...

...NEVER ever FORGET this.

[Smokin' Joe]

The writer misses one thing in his musings about Robert E. Lee. Lee was a West Pointer also. Despite the failings of the Northern Generals, Lee repeatedly showed his ability to exploit those weaknesses, to the detriment of the Northern Army. He (Lee) was the better General.

We were, arguably, not defeated by force of arms in Vietnam. Despite what could be termed incompetence on the part of strategists, our military was, on occasion bloodied, but not defeated. The war was lost by incompetent politicians, negotiators, and a media which flirted heavily with 'giving aid and comfort to the enemy'.

The grunts did their job.

History is repeating itself, insofar as the media is concerned. Our military has become far more competent, far better trained, but should employ the hunters, trackers, and snipers it has in the past to observe and retaliate when our other forces are attacked. Every car bomb/suicide means one less car bomber. let's pick 'em off before they detonate.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[Grampa Dave]

First let them feel the heat for a week or so, before total immersion.