Posted on 04/28/2005 8:16:41 PM PDT by CHARLITE
My room mate at APG was a RUFF PUFF advisor for six years around Bambi Touit (spelled like it sounds) His name was Ron Osimo. He thought the world of the Vietnamese.
I had a 12 year old kid save most of my unit one day on my demo range by picking up a burning WP round and throwing it in a water filled crater. He got to it first and picked it up instead of running like most of us were going to do. It was right in the middle of 1,500 lbs of explosives and propellent when it started burning.
Our decission to let the communist freely demonstrate and operate in this country probably cost us even more.
The most important thing is we learned from Vietnam War is more than just battles and firepower, it involves coordinating politics and being adept to the local culture and politics of the people in country. Look at our approach in Iraq and you will see not only the network centric technologies but also the political/cultural sophistication in our military.
I was too young for VN, but have traveled there quite a bit and know a large number of former ARVN officers and enlisted as well as former civilian employees (all through wifey who is Vietnamese).
One of the most poignant comments I've ever heard came from a former civilian employee who's still (trapped) in VN - he was highly trained in the US and speaks flawless English, though now he's pretty much blacklisted because of his previous line of work.
Anyway we were talking about 1975 and he was saying "Terrible, terrible, we didn't know how bad it was going to be", and etc, until he finally looked me in the eye and said "Why did America abandon us? I can't understand that. We were winning, and America abandoned us."
What was I gonna' do, explain John Kerry and Jane Fonda to him?
Not only did we not give them every thing we promised them when we pulled out, we didn't even make up their ammunition expenditure for the 1972 Easter Offensive. It was a Democratic congress that cut the funding with Ted Kennedy in the lead.
May Kerry and Kennedy et al rot in hell for the evil they inflicted upon the South Vietnamese people, not to mention 2.5 million Cambodians.
Awesome article.
Good afternoon out there.
I am the infamous 'Teacup', Assistant Team
Leader of Team 1/7 in Vietnan, fortunately
for me, under 'Brazzaaville'.
It is my opinion that following the Tet
Offensive of 1968 the Viet Cong, as an
organization, virtually ceased to exist.
I agree with Brazzaville, following that,
the enemy we encountered were primarily
very young troops send south from the north.
I talked to one Vietnamese company commander who was trying to hold that big bridge north of Saigon. He said he had 17 rounds of 5.56 for his company right toward the end. NOT 17 rounds per man, BUT 17 rounds for the entire company. He told his men to get in civilian clothes and try to go home and at least save their families. I think I would have done the same thing. It was all over.
While flying from the west coast back to Virginia there was an American sitting next to me who had just gotten out of Saigon. The poor guy was still in shock. He related to me what it was like right at the very last. He claimed that some of the Vietnamese mothers were running by his bus trying to toss their children through the windows in hopes they would be saved. He saw at least one baby go under the wheels of the bus as it headed to the airfield. I wish Kerry, Fonda, and Kennedy would be forced to watch a film of something like that every night, because those people played a big part in it.
Thanks for mentioning Xuan Loc, brazzaville. Our Democrat-controlled Congress was despicable in those days.
I'm half in the bag from too much alcohol consumed in the first class section of my Pan Am clipper from New York, and punchy from the time zone change. Queuing up to the Air Vietnam counter to get my boarding pass for the flight to Saigon, I see a sign being posted, “All Flights to Saigon Canceled.” --Drick Halstead
It really brings tears to your eyes when you read that stuff. I wonder how many of those guys in the South Vietnamese unit were looking vainly to the skies for American aircraft?
For your review and comments, don't know if have seen this one, might want to ping it to the Foxhole
1975, not 6
When are the rank and file Americans gonna realize that the anti-Vietnam War types are not deceived at all? They aren't deceived, they really believe in communism.
We have the Dan Blathers hugging Castro, and the air-headed Janie Fondas telling us to pray that we become communists.
What more do we need to know to realize that there are dangerous subversives right here in our midst?
Not to mention the Soviet Communist inbeds in our media such as Hollywood, music industry, news (both TV and print), Democrat party and Madison Ave. Senator McCarthy warned us about these inbeds back in the 50s but they had complete control of the media and were able to hide the truth ad discredit him. Later when the KGB records were opened to review it was seen that everyone that "Tail gunner Joe" said was a commie was a commie but the MSM has never gotten around to talking about that.
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