AP: William Westmoreland dead

Associated Press | July 18, 2005

[Dont Mention the War]

breaking, more to come

[Sirc_Valence]

RE: We should not have been there in the first place.

Are you a Communist?

Must be another libertarian. It's not a short step from there to anarchy and drugs, and then to socialism then to communism and waving buring American flags and supporting the NSDP and America's enemies abroad.

It's natural for people who don't learn America's values to be unable to defend them and promote them abroad where there are desperately needed.

[I_like_good_things_too]

RIP

[zarf]

I have to disagree. The Vietnam war was originally an extension of French colonialism. We, tragically became French proxys and extended this mistake of history.

[beelzepug]

"My father met him in 1965 in Vietnam."

I saw him once at our airfield in '67. A very striking figure. Wish I could've met him. I did meet Gen. Abrams once. He had a habit of turning up in a strange compnay area, unannounced, just to see what was going on. I almost bowled him over.
R.I.P. Gen. Westmoreland. Ya done good.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Thanks to Nixon
the lies of Hanoi Kerry and Hanoi Jane
are being told again.
And our military are being slandered in Gitmo, Iraq and Afghanistan

Hanoi Kerry and War Crimes in Vietnam

Hanoi Kerry went before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1971
to accuse the United States military
of committing massive numbers of war crimes in Vietnam.

Too bad that because Nixon failed to uphold the law,
we are still stuck with Hanoi Jane and Hanoi Kerry.
If Nixon hadn't caved into the minority anti-war crowd
and listened to the Silent Majority
Hanoi Jane AND Hanoi Kerry
would have been prosecuted for their treason in the 70's,
while Nixon was still President.

Keep in mind that Nixon was directly involved in Viet Nam,
as Vice President, going back to at least 1955.

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.

[BIRDS]

RIP. Sometimes heroes die old. This one did.

[injin]

rest in peace Westy and thanks for a job well done

[beelzepug]

" He was a prig and a twit"

Yeah, it was always the officers who effed up everything, wasn't it? Wow, if only they'd had the good sense to ask your advice. Probably a g__damned cook!

[Gucho]

Rest in peace General.

[stm]

Gen Westmorland did the best he could with what he had. He was severely handcuffed by a micro-managing, incompetent and short sighted Commander in Chief

[Lockbar]

I enlisted in the Army in 1973. In 1986 Chicago held a pretty large Vietnam Veterans Parade which I attended as a respectful spectator as I never got over to Nam (most guys were already home). Westmoreland marched in the Parade all on his own, pretty much isolated from other marchers. He wore his Class A "Greens". I very much respected him for that and cheered him for being willing to present himself so openly to the public. I felt he was over all a real man of courage.

[naturalman1975]

56,000 dead. For nothing.

No sir. Not for nothing.

I'm an Australian - take a look at a map and realise that for Australians, the domino theory wasn't just something we worried about in the context of a larger cold war, important though that was.

We were the end of the domino. If South East Asia fell, then eventually we would fall as well.

The United States helped to save us from that fate during World War II, when the war in south east Asia did come to our doorstep.

In Vietnam, once again, the United States helped to save us from that fate - it was just done a little earlier that time.

The Vietnam War convinced the enemies of democracy and freedom that free people were still willing to pay any price to preserve that freedom.

Men like my father knew what they were fighting for - and many of us still know what they died for.

When you go home
Tell them of us and say
We gave our tomorrows
For your todays.

Lest We Forget

[neverdem]

Thanks for the ping. RIP Sir.

[CDB]

RIP. General Westmoreland.

The MSM still can't stop taking cheap shots, but history will be kind to you, reporting truthfully and accurately that the Vietnam War was a surrogate battle between the Us and the USSR in the Cold WAR, which we WON.

[puppypusher]

He's right about that. It was given away by our democratic politicians.

[newzjunkey]

He was old. He died. Don't know much about him. R.I.P.

[newzjunkey]

I noticed neither you nor the others indicated just what it was for that our honored dead died for. Given that Vietnam ultimately fell, did they not actually die in vain? We can at least thank Komrade Kerry and his pals for that.

[Da Mav]

"56,000 dead. For nothing."

Simply not correct. The major rationale for fighting in South Vietnam was to stop the spread of communism into SE Asia, Indonesia, the Phillipines, and ultimately Japan and Australia. South Vietnam fell when the liberals in Congress cut off all funds and support to the country when it was being invaded by the North. What rolled into Saigon were not peasants trying to liberate their country but well equipped regular armored divisions from North Vietnam.

Ultimately South Vietnam fell. But the communists paid such a high price for it that revolutionary export went out of fashion, and the dominos never fell. For that, we can thank the brave men and women who fought there from many countries. They were robbed of their victory in South Vietnam by the politicians back home; but their more important legacy is a major part of the Asian-Pacific theatre that never fell to communism.

[zarf]

The Vietnam war was a French colonial conflict. The US was mistaken to get involved.

[Da Mav]

It started out as a French colonial conflict. But it evolved into a proxy fight between the communist world and the free world.

Characterizing Vietnam as a French colonial war is like saying WW2 was a battle over Poland. It started out that way, but rapidly assumed far greater geopolitical importance.