Communists "reunified" Vietnam in 1975 (USA Today Barf Alert)

USA Today ^ | 11/21/03 | Mason

[pabianice]

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam

[pabianice]

Shame on Navy Times for running this Left-wing tripe without editing. Nice bit about the jg, though.

[RLK]

His 54-year-old father fought for the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese navy from 1966 until the war ended in 1975, when communist forces reunified the country (WTF, over?).

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This is a left wing myth which has also been accepted by conservatives. It is impossible to reunify Viet Nam. It was originally three separate countries which were ruled by the French through conquest. The countries were Cochin-china in the South Ann Nam in the middle, and Ton Kin in the North. Ton Kin is where we get the name for the Tonkin Gulf. Ho Chi Minh took over Ton Kin after expelling the French. Cochin-China and Ann Nam voted to combine into a single new country, Viet Nam. Ho Chi Minh later attacked the new nation from Ton Kin, which we called North Viet Nam. Older maps will show the three original nations.

[RaceBannon]

Bad photo, but it is mine

This is a shot of the re-unified Vietnamese who risked their lives fleeing the re-settlement camps and Communist dictatorship as late as 1981 when this photo was taken.

This photo was taken on board the USS Belleau Wood in 1981, while I was deployed on it. The guys in blue are surrounding the Vietnamese refugees, the dark, little people in the picture.

This picture was taken in the well-deck of the BElleau Wood, from about 40 feet away, so the flash was not too effective. You might have to squint to see it.

[nothingnew]

“And when he found out that I was going to be there, he was like, ‘Can I come, too?”’

Grew up in kalifornia, did he?

FMCDH

[krb]

You can play with the color channels a bit and bring out a little detail in the middle. Looks like they are rounding 'em up. That one guy looks like he is just sitting there.

[man of Yosemite]

They need us now to end the thirty tears of poverty that they've experienced, while their sons and daughters that left their country have prospered greatly in the good old USA. The refugees from Viet Nam have made good use of the liberty and opportunities that this country offered them. Let Viet Nam see how many professionals were created by democracy and capitalism.

[RaceBannon]

It was mostly women and children, only two grown men.

About 27 total, they were attacked by Pirates, 2 died on the trip.

I am still looking for the picture I have of them at sea, a totally flat sea, sunset, water like a mirror, with one little dot in the ocean...them and their rickety little boat.

[angkor]

Several facts bode for even better relations in the next few years:

1) The Vietnamese have been at war with China for 1,000 years, most recently in the 80's over the northern border and the Spratley Islands.

2) Government officials and their cronies have been sending their kids to college in the U.S. and Australia for the last 10 years, which has helped to promote a change of attitude about capitalism (not that the Commies were ever against having money, they simply preferred to steal it over making it).

3) General Giap and his ilk are just about dead, and once they're gone there'll be few to exalt on the wonders of Marx and Lenin.