Posted on 01/09/2008 8:43:10 PM PST by MileHi
Wow, thank you.
Gotta go. Will get back in the AM. Thanks for drowning my son in info...{:0)
Check post #20 for the link. Just read the first couple pages but it’s right on and Melvin Laird knows what of he speaks.
Victor David Hansen had an excellent article on the Tet business a few years back in the American Legion magazine - maybe a local AL post would have back copies - included quotes from the likes of General Giap who said the North was ready to start peace talks after Tet because they had been so badly defeated, but changed their minds and kept fighting after they heard the likes of Cronkite saying we had lost the war.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Igloo_White
or just google Igloo White - top secret at the time - I was on the installation and maint team for IBM.
This was one reason the VC and NVA had so much trouble getting stuff down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. We knew where they were a lot of the time and could bomb very accurately. Our snipers would easily set up ambushes.
In short we kicked their backsides.
BTW Son of Igloo White could be used to seal our southern border with no fence. And could be done with much less $$ than Igloo White cost.
Here’s a reference that will put your son head and shoulders above his teacher, the lamestream media and most Americans. It’s called “Vietnam: A History” and was written by Stanley Karnow. The book chronicles that Vietnam has been involved in various wars and civil wars since around the 1400s. It wasn’t new by the time we got involved, we just stepped in after the French gave up trying to defeat the Viet Cong. And they had been fighting from sometime in the 40’s until they abandoned Vietnam in ‘53 or ‘54 after the battle at Dien Ben Phu (sp?).
With respect to Tet and the Crankcase comment, it is true. One of the leading North Vietnamese generals (don’t recall his name, either; probably has a Phu or Diem in his name, though!) acknowledged after we capitulated in ‘Nam that Tet had been a disaster for them and they were talking about surrendering until the American media spread the story that Tet was a disaster for the US.
Vietnam was called “the Living Room War” because we all sat around the TV in the living room at night and watched the news reports. Something else your son might want to check out is Congress’ battle with Nixon over various pet projects. They would turn the money off the fight the war (no bombs, bullets, gas, or airplane fuel) until they got Nixon to either give in on whatever they wanted or he would compromise with them. This tactic went on for months during the last couple of years of the war. The only problem was that someone didn’t bother to tell the North Vietnamese that the military in ‘Nam couldn’t buy the materials of war and they just kept on killing American kids. There is no way to estimate how many of those names on the Vietnam Memorial might not be there had Congress and the MSM not been so intent on undermining our efforts.
Your son’s teacher sounds like a leftist moron whose knowledge of the war comes from John F’n Kerry, Jane Fonda and the DNC talking points. Those of us who were actually there know the real story.
Tell your son good luck. We fought that war once, it is disgraceful that he has to fight it again.
speaking of Cronkite:
To: scottybk
Cronkite ranked Jimmy Carter as the smartest president that he met. While he was polite enough to avoid direct criticism of Ronald Reagan, it was clear that he does not have a high opinion of Reagan’s intellect. Cronkite claims he had a role in bringing about the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.
General Weyand presented this speech at the GEORGE CATLETT MARSHALL MEMORIAL RECEPTION AND DINNER for the Association of the United States Army Convention, held in Washington, DC on October 18, 2000 GEORGE CATLETT MARSHALL MEMORIAL RECEPTION AND DINNER Association of the United States Army Convention
Washington, DC October 18, 2000
“After Tet, General Westmoreland sent Walter Cronkite out to interview me. I was in Command of the Forces in the South around Saigon and below and I was proud of what we’d done. We had done a good job there. So, Walter came down and he spent about an hour and a half interviewing me. And when we got done, he said, “well you’ve got a fine story. But I’m not going to use any of it because I’ve been up to Hue. I’ve seen the thousands of bodies up there in mass graves and I’m determined to do all in my power to bring this war to an end as soon as possible.”
It didn’t seem to matter that those thousands of bodies were of South Vietnamese citizens who had been killed by the Hanoi soldiers and Walter wasn’t alone in this because I think many in the media mirrored his view. It was a far different situation for me than when I was in Korea with my Battalion.
I had a fellow named John Randolph who was an Associated Press Correspondent. He literally lived with our Battalion and he wrote about the men in a way that was good for them. It raised their morale. He never undercut their effort nor maligned the cause for which they fought. He became like one of them. He was awarded the Silver Star for Valor for helping them retrieve wounded and dead from the field of battle under fire.
When I was in Paris at the Peace Talks, it was the most frustrating assignment I think I ever had. Sitting in that conference, week after week listening to the Hanoi negotiators, Le Duc Tho and his friends lecture us. Reading from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Herald Tribune, the Atlanta Constitution, NBC, CBS, you name it.
Their message was always the same. “Hey, read your newspapers, listen to your TV. The American people want you out of Vietnam. Now, why don’t you just go ahead and get out?” So finally a Peace Agreement was signed that everyone knew would be violated and with no recourse or hope of enforcement on our part.
224 posted on 09/19/2004 10:39:48 PM PDT by kcvl
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/09/recounting_abrams_war_in_vietn.html
Short but sweet.
I got to Nam in 66 when Westmoreland was running it. In 68 Gen Abrams took over (I actually met him in Saigon at one of our hush hush facilities and answered questions for him).
Things changed quickly (the rocket attacks on Saigon stopped for one thing) as did they in Iraq with the Franks-Petraeus transition in Iraq.
I left in 1970 a big fan of Abrams.
Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi’s victory?
A: “It was essential to our strategy. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar movement. ...Those people represented the conscience of America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.”
~ Former North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin,In an interview, “How North Vietnam Won the War,” by Stephen Young, Wall Street Journal, Thursday, August 3, 1995.
Don’t trust Karnow on Vietnam. MacLean also lefty and Isaacs is questionable. Trust absolutely nothing by D. Gareth Porter and Marilyn Young is a lefty.
See Mark Moyar, Louis Sorley, Guenter Lewry, Lewis Fanning, Glen McDonald, Peter Braestrup, Bernard Fall, P.J. Honey, Dennis Duncanson, Robert Shaplen, Norman Podhoretz, Michael Lind (”Vietnam: The Necessary War”, 1999); Douglas Pike; Robert Turner; William Duiker; Sir Robert Thompson; Gen. Lansdale; William Westmoreland; Chanoff and Doan Van Toai, ex-VC; Truoung Nhu Tang; Truong Chinh; Harry Summers; Al Santoli; Michael Lee Lanning; William Colby; James “Nick” Rowe; John Hubbell; Donald Kirk.
Some of these are friends of mine; others were acquaintances I met as a journalist while in So. Vietnam and Cambodia.
I would add “A Better War” by Lewis Sorley. The book’s focus in the period beginning with the 1968 Tet offensive and Westmoreland’s replacement by Creighton Abrams. It speaks of Abrams’ changes to Westmoreland’s big assault search and destroy strategy to become the seize and hold. Improvements in intelligence enabled US and ARVN forces to “cut off the nose” of North Viet Nam’s forays into the south to delay and blunt their new offensive operations. A good read.
"What we still don't understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi. You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender!"
"It was the same at the battles of TET. You defeated us! We knew it, and we thought you knew it. But we were elated to notice your media was definitely helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefields. We were ready to surrender. You had won!"
Description: Emailed quotation
Circulating since: Late 1990s (various versions)
Status: Inauthentic
It appears that in the limelight of historical perspective, LOTS of former VC officers have come forward and claimed credit for admitting that Tet was a disaster for them!! I guess that they hope than no one really remembers who actually made the comment and hope that the dust of history and time have made us all forget.
From the various posts on this thread, it looks as though they are right!
Word is that Kerry was also in Paris during the “Peace Talks”....while still an Officer in the Navy Reserve...
However - most of HIS discussions were with the Communists..
Some folks believe this led to his less than Honorable Discharge -— which accounts for the POST dated and inappropriate signatures on his “current” discharge papers....
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