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To: 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub; Warrior Nurse; Taxman; Veritas et equitas ad Votum; krunkygirl; ...
Hey Tonk and fellow Vets and all FReepers,

Read this great piece of writing by one of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, my friend Pete Webster of Jacksonville, Florida:

The morning news had a teaser about this, and the Drudge Report carried the story today, of the interview Jane Fonda gave to host journalist, Leslie Stahl, which will appear on 60 minutes later this weekend. She admitted she betrayed the country when she posed on the anti-air craft gun in Hanoi and said it was a tremendous "lapse of judgment" on her part, but still refused to apologize for her anti-war speeches that she gave on Hanoi radio and her exploitation of the POWs. The article went on to say:

She wouldn't make similar broadcasts in Iraq today, however, saying, "I don't think it's the same situation at all. When I went [to North Vietnam]...we had been fighting in Vietnam for eight years. The majority of Americans...[and] Congress opposed the war. It was a desperate time."

With this opinion, I take great umbrage. Why does the length of time we had been fighting excuse the betrayal? Would she have stayed home and supported the troops if we had only been fighting for three years? Had she ever made a USO tour, or a benefit for the troops, in any of those preceding years? Bah! Humbug! Does the unpopularity of the war make betrayal acceptable? Is any war ever "popular? Don't you think some folks, in 1943, felt WWII, "Mr Roosevelt's war." was unpopular? Let's examine why the war in Viet Nam was so unpopular.

Wasn't it unpopular due to the unrelenting attack by the left that she represented and due to the spin by the liberal bias in the press? In some studies, authors have claimed the left has opposed any war against communism, because many of those, especially in Hollywood, have roots in the communist movement. We, more than anyone else, now how the media and Hollywood can create a false consciousness out of the political activism of a few radicals like Fonda. She said the government lied to us, but wasn't that the spin the liberal press put on it? We have just watched the media attempt to do the same thing with the war in Iraq, but thanks to the Internet, they have been thwarted by the people at large and not able to create a false consciousness about the war as they did with Viet Nam.

If we had operated an Internet in the USA in 1965, no radical leftist professors on any campus could have sold the concept the war as a civil war, unjust, or immoral, because folks could have gone to a search engine like Google or Ask Jeeves and found out that Viet Nam had never been a unified country that was torn with internal strife, but had always been, for thousands of years, three separate countries, Cochin, Annan, and Tonkin, with three separate capitols, Saigon, Hue and Hanoi, and three separate cultures and legal systems, totally independent. They could have easily found out that the north was the outside aggressor and that we had treaty obligations to defend a member state like the south, the same way that Australia, Thailand and Korea did. Nothing immoral about that, nor unjust. If we had an Internet and armies of bloggers, the WW II vets might have rallied, like the Swift Vets did, and come to our aid when the radical professors began telling their students to spit on us. Who knows? All I am saying is that our assistance to help Iraq is no different in substance than our aid was to South Viet Nam. Both were altruistic and noble efforts to help a people over come the grip of tyranny and enjoy a greater degree of freedom than offered by a brutal, totalitarian regime like Ho's or Saddam's and we should stop letting the left, a la Jane Fonda, try to excuse their wrong behavior, by disguising betrayal in the cloak of a distinction without a difference. Wrong then; wrong now.

Pete Webster,
LT USN, Diving Officer
USS Tutuila ARG 4
An Thoi, Nha Be, Rung Sat Special Zone

73 posted on 04/01/2005 4:20:21 PM PST by Chieftain (Thanks to the Swift Boat Veterans, Vietnam Veterans, and POW's for Truth for standing tall.)
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To: Chieftain

"The majority of Americans...[and] Congress opposed the war. It was a desperate time."

Dumb a$$ bit**!

What the he** did think the silent majority was!

Too bad Nixon ignored them
and caved into the low life hippy scum!


74 posted on 04/01/2005 4:25:41 PM PST by 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub (Be wary of the "Move On" FReepers! They want Hanoi Kerry to get a "free pass" mmmm Wonder Why?)
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To: Chieftain

>Rung Sat Special Zone

If this guy worked the Rung Sat, he was/is a good/hard dude.


75 posted on 04/01/2005 4:27:21 PM PST by MindBender26 (Having my own CAR-15 meant never having to say I was sorry......)
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To: Chieftain; All
26 Sep 1945 - The first death of an American serviceman in Vietnam occurred.
OSS (Office of Special Operations) Major (Lieutenant Colonel) A. Peter Dewey
was killed in action by the Communist Vietminh near Hanoi.

May 1950 President Harry S Truman authorised $10 million in aid to the French for their war in Viet Nam.
By January 1951, $150 million had been given in aid.

1953-61 Dwight D. Eisenhower 34th US President
1953-61 Richard M. Nixon Vice President
1953 - The US is supporting the French in the amount of $1 billion per year--
33% of all US foreign aid--which is 80% of the total cost to the
. US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles (under Eisenhower) first voices the 'Domino Theory':
if one country in Southeast Asia falls to the Communists, they will all fall, one by one.
12 Feb 55 - President Eisenhower's administration sends 1st 350 U.S. advisers to South Vietnam
to train the South Vietnamese Army
8 Jun 56 - The first American of record to die in Vietnam
was Air Force Tech Sergeant Richard B. Fitzgibbon Jr.
His son, Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, died in Vietnam Sep 7, 1965.
8 Jun 56 Has been formally recognized by the Pentagon as the first American officially to die in that war.
5 Sep 56 - President Eisenhower tells a news conference that the French are
"involved in a hopelessly losing war in Indochina" 1956 The US believed in that Ho Chi Minh would have won any election held in Viet Nam and used their influence over the government of the State of Viet Nam to ensure that the election was not held




From a Must Visit Site
Vipers Vietnam Veterans Page, A Vietnam Veteran & Proud Web Site
About Vietnam

The Vietnam war was the longest in our nation's history.
1st American advisor was killed on June 08, 1956,

and the last casualties in connection with the war occurred on May 15, 1975, during the Mayaquez incident. Approximately 2.7 million Americans served in the war zone; 300,000 were wounded and approximately 75,000 permanently disabled. Officially there are still 1,991 Americans unaccounted for from SE Asia.

Vietnam was a savage, in your face war where death could and did strike from anywhere with absolutely no warning. The brave young men and women who fought that war paid an awful price of blood, pain and suffering. As it is said: "ALL GAVE SOME ... SOME GAVE ALL"
The Vietnam war was not lost on the battlefield. No American force in ANY other conflict fought with more determination or sheer courage than the Vietnam Veteran.  For the first time in our history America sent it's young men and women into a war run by inept politicians who had no grasp of military strategies and no moral will to win. They were led by "top brass" who were concerned mainly with furthering their own careers, most neither understood the nature of the war nor had a clue about the impossible mission with which they'd tasked their soldiers.  And the war was reported by a self serving Media who penned stories filled with inaccuracies, deliberate omissions, biased presentations and blatant distorted interpretations because they were more interested in a story than the truth! It can be debated that we should never have fought that war. It can also be argued that the young Americans who fought so courageously, never losing a single major battle, helped in a huge way to WIN THE COLD WAR.

76 posted on 04/01/2005 4:28:04 PM PST by 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub (Be wary of the "Move On" FReepers! They want Hanoi Kerry to get a "free pass" mmmm Wonder Why?)
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To: Chieftain

thanks, Chieftain.

will ya be there Sunday?


86 posted on 04/01/2005 5:23:02 PM PST by cyn (it's sarcasm, but Jim King really said it.)
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To: Chieftain

Excellent essay!! Tanks for da Ping! :-)


My thoughts!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1374757/posts?page=74#74


88 posted on 04/01/2005 5:44:16 PM PST by JoeSixPack1
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To: Chieftain

They were cowards and traitors then and are cowards and traitors today. WE WILL NOT FORGET!


94 posted on 04/01/2005 6:32:01 PM PST by brushcop
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To: Chieftain

Great post. Thanks.

Hanoi Jane is so stupid, always has been. She is so superficial that she does not even have the depth or intelligence level to MAKE an apology. That was NO apology!
"Poor judgement" ..What?! That is just adding insult to injury. What is so maddening about this totally phony B.tch is that she didn't "get it" then, she still doesn't "get it " now. It's really just so embarassing to even watch her. It's like listening to someone scratching a chalkboard. I just want to throw up when I see that f...g grin.

Ted turner must have been totally drugged when he married her. The threesome was so he didn't have to look at her!

She is so OVER !


100 posted on 04/01/2005 8:55:39 PM PST by Recovering Ex-hippie (Conservative & Rational..what a concept!)
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To: Chieftain

Bump this well written piece to the top!


122 posted on 04/02/2005 10:59:47 PM PST by BykrBayb (In memory of Terri Schindler <strike>schiavo</strike> http://www.terrisfight.org)
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