Free Republic

We must remember not just South Vietnam's fall, but why it fell.Fifty years ago, April 30, 1975, the world watched in horror and disbelief as the last American helicopter lifted off from the rooftop of our embassy in Saigon. South Vietnam had fallen in the manner of Ernest Hemingway, “first gradually, then suddenly”: a decades-long war, a relative peace, and then a mad dash by the North Vietnamese Army that consumed the country in less than a month. The tragedy was simply breathtaking. And horribly, horribly unnecessary.What followed was not peace, but darkness. The swift collapse of South Vietnam, Cambodia,...

This week marks the 60th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that committed the United States to fighting and then losing the Vietnam War. On Aug. 2, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox was attacked by North Vietnamese PT boats that wrongfully believed Maddox was part of a South Vietnamese strike group delivering a hit-and-run raid on the north. Two days later, the Maddox and USS Turner Joy were ordered back on patrol off the North Vietnamese coast. Both reported being attacked by North Vietnamese PT boats. But those attacks never took place. President Lyndon B. Johnson, however, used the...

Lt. Gen. Hal Moore took his sword from its sheath Tuesday evening, raised it and said, “I’m going to cut this cake like a soldier.” The cake didn’t stand a chance. Moore sliced swiftly through the sugary goodness to help commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Battle of Ia Drang, where outnumbered American soldiers held off the North Vietnamese on Nov. 14-16, 1965. Several hundred visited Auburn City Hall in a tribute to Moore and veteran journalist Joe Galloway, who co-authored the book “We Were Soldiers Once … And Young.” Between slices of cake, Moore and Galloway spoke to the...