16,000 advisors, Special Forces. That’s what they admit to, sure. But they were doing a lot more than ‘advising’ and giving villagers immunization shots. My father was there ‘advising’ in ‘66. He introduced me to a Green Beret Captain, Roger H.C. Donlon, in the Fort Benning PX and I’ve never forgotten it. Medal of Honor winner, while advising there in 1963.
Kennedy saw himself as a Cold War warrior and his little brother was a real fire-eater. This myth about Kennedy reluctantly engaging in Vietnam was just that. He had been backed down over the U-2 downing, at Vienna and in Cuba. He resented it, unlike a current resident who seems to thrive on self abasement. Anyway, that’s my two cents. I saw it at Eglin AF base during the missile crisis and the buildup at Benning 64-65. The Dems were spoiling for war, so the Tonkin Gulf BS. Then RFK and his punks dumped it all in Nixon’s lap.
Our fighting men then share something with our troops 50 years later: they deserve better leaders. A lot better.
“16,000 advisors, Special Forces. That’s what they admit to, sure. But they were doing a lot more than ‘advising’ and giving villagers immunization shots. My father was there ‘advising’ in ‘66. He introduced me to a Green Beret Captain, Roger H.C. Donlon, in the Fort Benning PX and I’ve never forgotten it. Medal of Honor winner, while advising there in 1963.”
You’re quite right, advisors outside of Saigon weren’t exactly sitting quietly in a schoolroom. Kennedy was a big proponent of the Green Berets. One major difference between his policy in Vietnam and Johnson’s was that Kennedy thought that unconventional warfare could do the job. But then he got Diem killed and the North began sending conventional forces south.