THE BIG PICTURE: Vietnam, 35 years later

www.boston.com ^ | May 7, 2010

[VU4G10]

Last Friday, April 30th, was the 35th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, and last Tuesday, May 4th, was the 40th anniversary of the shooting of protesting students at Kent State University. The Vietnam War and America's involvement in it affected the lives of millions for well over a decade, exacting a massive human cost with millions of deaths and countless injuries - both physical and mental - that plague many of those involved to this day. United States military involvement and troop strength grew rapidly after 1964 - at its highest level in 1968, with over 500,000 troops on the ground. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. now bears the engraved names of 58,267 of those troops. It's nearly impossible to encapsulate an event of such scale in a handful of photographs, but here, 35 years after the end of the conflict, is my attempt. (47 photos total)

[onedoug]

Ten years....

Whoosh!

[CodeToad]

“Then 35 years of brutal communist rule, that made the War seem like a picnic.”

Yep. Our military could win that war if not for the polidiots in Washington. We won battle after battle but were never allowed to go in for the kill: Invade North Vietnam and halt all traffic and supplies coming in from China and Russia. We left before the fall of Saigon, several years before, and we left the South Vietnamese high and dry after promising we would supply them.

The killing from 1975 onward by the Communists from the north was horrific, yet, we didn’t lift a finger.

Let’s not forget, Vietnam was a war fought by a Democrat, LBJ. Even JFK had second thoughts about it before he was killed.

[neverdem]

BTTT

[troy McClure]

As a kid during the Vietnam war I wonder why we didnt just level every inch of North Vietnam. And then Napalm what was left standing.

[upcountryhorseman]

As I recall, our government was concerned that if we angered
the Russians, they would enter the war (they were supplying
North Vietnam): Also furnishing fighter pilots.

[RJL]

Well, America pulled out and of course the inevitable happened: the North Vietnam Communists invaded, took over, and over a million South Vietnamese were killed under its rule.

But, but... The brilliant John Kerry, who served in Vietnam assured us that "only" 5000 might be killed.

[Jacquerie]

IIRC, the Pig Kennedy led the charge to abandon $ and military supplies to our S. Vietnam allies. This icon of the Left is responsible for the deaths of tens of millions.

Fast forward, didn't Hussein announce about a year ago that we would depart Iraq and/or Afghanistan this coming summer?

[Billthedrill]

You recall correctly. Teddy Kennedy was one of the most malign influences in American political history. His protege was one John Kerry, who is carrying on the evil work. De mortuis nil nisi bonum my aching butt.

[PhatHead]

As Gen. Vernon Walters put it:

“For over ten years, bombs rained down on every village and hamlet in South Vietnam, and no one budged. It took the coming of a Communist ‘peace’ to send hundreds of thousands of people out into the South China Sea, on anything that could float, or might float, to risk dehydration, piracy, and drowning.”

[Jacquerie]

Okay, and isn’t there a deadline for departure from Iraq or Afghanistan?

[Billthedrill]

No. That's good and bad - in the hands of a strategist who wants to keep the enemy guessing, it's good. In the hands of a feckless amateur who has never handled a firearm in his life and thinks that reading political polls is the Oracle of Delphi, it's bad, very bad.

0bama and his basket of fools will kill us in Afghanistan to the degree to which they think, like McNamara and Johnson, that they possess skills that translate to military expertise.

As for Iraq, this more or less informed amateur doesn't know. I think, based on incomplete information and broad principles that may have nothing to do with the situation on the ground, that we ought to be drawing down there more quickly than we are. That has to be balanced against Iran's increasingly desperate search for an external war that will distract her own people from their unnecessarily dire straits. This is all about Iran now, and neutralizing her leaders' ability to prosecute proxy war through militant Islamism. I'd like to think that our current administration appreciates that, but then I'd like to believe in the Tooth Fairy too.

[brityank]

66. Part of a crowd of pro-Vietnam War demonstrators hold up signs and American flags in support of U.S. policy in Vietnam in Wakefield, Mass., on Oct. 29, 1967. The demonstration was organized by 19-year-old Paul P. Christopher, a Wakefield high school senior who became "burned up" by anti-Vietnam War demonstrators. (AP Photo/J. Walter Green)

1960's TEA Party

(I know I never saw this in the Maggot Slime Media back then!)