'Nam: What We Won

The New York Post ^ | April 30, 2005 | Thomas H. Lipscomb

[quidnunc]

The spectacular fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, 30 years ago, had Americans glued to their television sets. Millions watched as long lines snaked up stairs at the American Embassy waiting to be rescued by the U.S. military.

It had been barely 10 years since the first U.S. Marine combat troops arrived in Vietnam at Danang. That decade had been punctuated by premature proclamations of victory, promises of "light at the end of the tunnel" and a Tet offensive that effectively destroyed the Viet Cong, but remained a potent Communist propaganda coup in Western media.

"Vietnamization" finally removed almost all America combat troops from Vietnam more than a year before the fall of Saigon. But by then many Americans felt so whip lashed by media accounts of a war they didn't understand they accepted the fall of Saigon as the final humiliating proof of an American defeat.

As the years passed, a collection of myths accrued that today are regarded by many as historical fact. It is time to reexamine them.

There may be good reason to do so since Edward Kennedy, John Kerry and others repeatedly warn there is an imminent danger that America's attempt to liberate Iraq may become "another Vietnam."

As "everyone knows" today, Vietnam was a war in which the lives of Americans drafted from the lower classes, disproportionately black and Hispanic, were wasted in a failed American intervention in what was basically a civil war between Vietnamese.

-snip-

[starfish923]

We won NOTHING.

We should have NEVER gone in there unless we planned to allow our generals the honor of winning. We COULD have won, in a heartbeat. But, the Democrat Congress....well, never mind....that's old ground, too painful to tread over yet again.

[Piquaboy]

Thanks to the politicians running this war we did not win a damn thing but could have if the military had been allowed to run it. The only thing we got out of it is the big hero, John F-ing Kerry. Thanks a lot for nothing and 50,000 plus dead for nothing.

[em2vn]

"....drafted from the lower classes, disproportionately black and Hispanic...."
This crap never seems to go away even though it has been disproved repeatedly by study after study.

[freedumb2003]

This crap never seems to go away even though it has been disproved repeatedly by study after study.

The article goes on... (emph added)

Except, as a former Secretary of the Navy who served in Vietnam as a Marine officer, James Webb, has pointed out, 67 percent of those who served and 73 percent of those who died in Vietnam were volunteers, not draftees. And blacks "comprised 13.1 percent of the serving age group, 12.6 percent of the military and 12.2 percent of the casualties."

[stm]

The lottery was, for the most part, a blind lottery.

There were questions that it favored people born in earlier months of the year but how could this have targeted minorities? Are minorities historically born in latter months of the year? I would love to see the data on that one.

[Piquaboy]

What else do you expect to come out of New Yourk Shity.

[Search4Truth]

Lying sack of shit.

[Verginius Rufus]

The lottery was not introduced until December 1969. The first time they did it there was a disproportionate number of high numbers in the early months of the year, as if they had not mixed up the capsules sufficiently before they began to draw them out.

That was one of the cleverest things Nixon did from a political standpoint. As a result of the lottery, millions of men who had worried they would be drafted knew that they were safe, and were therefore less likely to get involved in any anti-war protests.

[EagleUSA]

We won NOTHING.
-----
True. What we did get out of it, was a clear picture of POLITICS over and above, NATIONAL PRIORITY. Washington, for a long time now, is far more interested in its own personal politics, than it is about what is right for the country. Viet Nam (and I served during Nam) was a huge tragedy of politics, engineered and perputated by LIBERALS, at an obscene cost in lives and money. My contention is that Washington has still not learnied its lesson, but of course, it did/does not have the pay the bills -- those of lives and the money.

The U.S. set itself up for defeat by not fighting a war. Just participating in one, playing with it, while fueling it with blood and taxpayer dollars.

[starfish923]

True. What we did get out of it, was a clear picture of POLITICS over and above, NATIONAL PRIORITY. Washington, for a long time now, is far more interested in its own personal politics, than it is about what is right for the country. Viet Nam (and I served during Nam) was a huge tragedy of politics, engineered and perputated by LIBERALS, at an obscene cost in lives and money. My contention is that Washington has still not learnied its lesson, but of course, it did/does not have the pay the bills -- those of lives and the money.
The U.S. set itself up for defeat by not fighting a war. Just participating in one, playing with it, while fueling it with blood and taxpayer dollars.

You got that right.
The military has been "keeping score" these last 30+ years. I think that's why there are those, thank God, who won't leave Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other front, without a "W" in the win column.

Thank you for serving!

[stylin19a]

If I could have held out another 6 months, I wouldn't have gone.

[hogwild]

The author stated at the end:

"The Middle East and the United States should be so lucky as to have Iraq turn out to be "another Vietnam."

Well Robert, we only have 54,422 more American fatalities to go in Iraq until we hit the Jackpot like we did in Nam'.

Go drum up a little public support for THAT.

[Eagle9]

I think it was General Robert E. Lee who said, "Strategy wins wars. Tactics wins battles".

In Vietnam, we won every battle, but lost the war. McNamara set the pattern for the "strategy", or lack thereof, that lost the war.

[Wolverine]

"....drafted from the lower classes, disproportionately black and Hispanic...."
This crap never seems to go away even though it has been disproved repeatedly by study after study.

 

Check this: Examining the Myths of the Vietnam War

 

and  Vietnam Center at Texas Tech

 

and Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation

[Buffalo Head]

"We won NOTHING."

You need to read some history about Vietnam, and not continue to be duped by left wing revisionists.

We didn't loose WWII because the Democrats gave Iwo Jima back to Japan after the war was long over. Nor did we loose the VN war because Democrats cut off funding to support our allies two years later when NVN decided to violate the peace accords.

Too many folks mistake the left-wing inspired turmoil on college campuses at home with the real war in VN. The MSM has convinced otherwise reasonable people that when we pulled the last Marine guard off the embassy two years after a defeated NVN signed the peace accords (and our fighting forces had long been at home) that somehow NVN won the war.

Get serious! Our military never lost a major battle or campaign. We ground the VC to a pulp and pushed the NVA back home.

The Democrats would now happily give Iraq back to Sadaam if we let them.

The real lesson from VN is don't let Democrats give back what our soldiers have won on the battle field.

[2banana]

In anticipation of the election, The New York Times in 1955 stated "we must not be trapped into a fictitious legalism that can condemn 10,000,000 potentially free persons into slavery." And Sen. John Kennedy regarded the election as "obviously stacked and subverted in advance."

And that is EXACTLY what happened when America left...