Posted on 07/02/2010 12:57:13 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
There are other pieces out there besides this one.. I’ll link a couple up.
I was kind of surprised this hadn’t been posted before I saw it myself.
Don’t mind the fervor by the malcontents,, the place would be dead quiet without them .. and TGIF!
A Safe and Steele’d Holiday to All!
One major problem with Your incorrect assessment and ignorant conclusion................
PAKISTAN!!!
Oh yeah..let’s leave now...In a week, we will have Alquida in Kabul and India already has sights on areas of Pakistan near the Afghan border( uh, you din’t know about that?)...so we will have a REAL mess.
And we WON vietnam...In case you missed the history on that!
Lost it only because we “ran away” like you are advocating now....only this is worse...cause of AlQuida, the muslims are worse than the commies.
Go re read your history( not just the Left’s version_).
yeah, lets abandon another people...Bush would have never done that.
and we are NOT even...You have LOST.
Disaster? The Republicans who are shilling for Obama’s War are the ones inviting disaster. Steele finally did something right. He is actually like the chair of a true OPPOSITION party. The Republcans in Congress, on the other hand, who are supporting Obama’s War are bailing out the Democrats in this failed nation building war.
We “won” in Vietnam eh? I’m old enough to remember the truth. Our ARVN allies ran like scared rabbits toward the helicopters rather than stay behind and launch an anti-communist insurgency.
Quit complaining. All of our GOP heros suck up to him.
But....lets ignore reality...
According to Herschensohn’s latest book, “An American Amnesia:How the US Congress forced the Surrender of Vietnam and Cambodia “.....
Here is what one recent reviewer of the book said..don’t take my word for it................................
As a psychological operations officer who studied Vietnamese at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey California prior to my tour in Vietnam from July 1969 to July 1970, I can say with some confidence that we did indeed win this war. Our area of operations extended from Da Nang, Vietnam northward to the DMZ, so called “I Corps”.
During that year, I was attached to the 3rd Marine division in Dong Ha, the 101st Airborne in Phu Bai just outside of Hue City, and the 1st of the 5th infantry division in Quang Tri. As most readers know, the Tet Offensive of 1968 was heavily fought in the cities of Hue and northward. Vietcong had dominated these areas. Hamlets throughout were intimidated by the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese regular army occupied the jungles.
While combat raged in those jungles for the infantry units I mentioned above, the hamlets had become quite peaceful after Tet. We had three man teams consisting of an officer like myself, and enlisted man usually a specialist, and a Vietnamese interpreter. In the early evenings before we would venture out to the hamlets in our truck and interact with the people in the hamlets. For fear of ambushes or mines we spent the night in the hamlets. Amongst the three of us we had two M-16 rifles and a .45 pistol. Rarely, we would check out M-79 grenade launcher when we had heard there had been some activity in the area. I preferred to spend the night on top of the truck, gazing at the stars above unless it was the rainy season.
During that entire year, sometimes no more than 7 miles from the DMZ where combat was raging, the hamlets were peaceful and friendly. The elders were very polite and often fed us; the children adored us. Not once were we ever harassed or injured. We had great opportunities to talk with the Vietnamese. They feared the communists. Some who were Christians or Buddhists had left North Vietnam as Ho Chi Minh was killing people of faith after they defeated the French. The people in the hamlets were grateful that we were there and they feared that we would leave.
I shall never forget when my interpreter, who had become my friend, and who loved America and loved the Beatles responded to a comment I made while we were riding along in our truck. I said to him, “Someday, Sgt. Lap, when the war is over, we will bring our families together either here in your country or maybe even in mine.” He turned to me with a serious look — we were both in own mid-20s — and said “We will never see each other again.” I was speechless. Inside I was pained and confused. Why would a friend say this? I realized only later it was an act of kindness couched in the hard truth that at the time only he could see.
Further, when I was attached to the 101st Sgt Lap and I one evening a week would leave the base at Phu Bai and go to a high school in Hue city where allegedly Ho Chi Minh had matriculated and we taught English. The class was filled to standing room only with children as young as 6 and adults well into their 70s. I was too naïve at that time to understand why they were there. Like Sgt. Lap, they saw what was going on in America as people in my generation were marching in the streets, spitting on soldiers and calling us baby killers. They saw the end coming for themselves but at that point I was too blind to see it. They surely could see our country’s loss of will to fight. No matter what I said or believed they had to deal with the truth, because for them, it was a matter of life and death, a matter of survival.
I returned home, started medical school, but could never get Vietnam off my mind. I found myself debating with my fellow students, trying to tell them something they were not learning from the Washington Post, the New York Times or the major news TV outlets. I was largely unsuccessful. The specialist I worked with maintained contact with Sgt. Lap for the next several years.
However, as Nixon lost his political battles and resigned over Watergate and Pres. Ford was unable to convince the Democratic Congress to continue funding the South Vietnamese army a formally beaten Communist army saw an opportunity in that weakness. Then came 1975. I recall standing in the shower listening to the radio in my home as they described the helicopters landing on the roof of the American embassy in Saigon trying to save a few people from the communist barbarians literally “at the gate”. I cried bitterly. I feared for Sgt. Lap. It would be easy to find out that he had worked with Americans. Both the soldier I worked with and I have concluded that Sgt. Lap was likely killed, no, executed, by the communists.
This book tells the story as it should have been told 30+ years ago. Every chance I get at 63 years of age I try to tell the real story of what happened. As a Hungarian woman told me in 1971 as she described the pain of realizing that the liberators after World War II were not going to be the Allies but rather the Soviet Union and that their lives would be forever changed until the era of Reagan: “You never realize how fragile your civilization is until you have lost it.”
We are now in dangerous times once again. We never really learned the lesson of Vietnam as told in this book. Read the book, find the truth here.
....................................
I post this lengthy post..to highlight this book but also to give credit to the Vietnam Veterans of the US ( and the Vietnamese of the south) who never got credit back then!
you are so right. See my posts #62 and #66.
I feel like i am talking on Daily Kos with Libs here..ha.
He cried when the helicopters left? Please note that he doesn’t mention the pesky facts that the ARVN were running for them like scared rabbits. That says it all, doesn’t it?
No ...They KNEW we would abandon them...AND we did!
do you for one minute think they didn’t KNOW what was going on in the US and Congress...Oh yeah, blame it on the s vietnamese....”We set you up and then blame you when you want to get out of the hell we have now consigned you to!”
yes, you are right. i just had a rough week and day at work..surrounded by Maroons...so I should probably not engage the Loons on Freep...ha.
thanks for the reality check.
Let me get this right. You are excusing the South Vietnamese FAILURE to launch an insurgency after 1975 on the grounds that the poor babies felt “abandoned” by the U.S. Thank God, the Americans who rebelled in 1775 at Lexington and Concord or the Afghans who took on the Soviets in 1979 didn’t have that attitude.
Barry and Steele fail for the same reasons.
Barry has NO LEADERSHIP skill whatsoever.
Steele has almost NO LEADERSHIP skill but a scintilla more than Barry.
Read the book you ‘academic”....The S vietnamese were promised weapons,etc to continue holding off the commies...Congress cut them off. We left, turned off the lights, closed the door.
Same as it would be if we had just LEFT Iraq, promised the Iraqi govt we would supply them at least money and wepons and materials to continue keeping the bad guys and the Iranians at bay ...and then not followed through. “Poor Babies”??? Obviously you still won’t take the time to study what happened. so what’s the point of discussing it with you....Your types are the Ron Pauls of Today. Or the Murthas, Kerry’s and Bidens...CUT AND RUN!
It is good that you weren’t around in 1775 in America or in 1979 in Afghanistan. You’d probably be telling everyone to give up because they didn’t have foreign sugar daddies to help them.
Unfortunately, it is also loaded with alleged conservatives who want to support Obama’s War. Some Opposition Party!
Juvenile. Ron Paul Luddite!
you haven’t read history nor do you have a clue as to what is at stake in Afghanistan for US.
If you are going to resort to the last refuge of someone who is losing an argument, e.g. name calling, at least get your name calling right! A luddite is someone who is against technology. Hate him or love him, that doesn't describe Ron Paul
I agree. I cannot believe that we are in such a mess over there. This is now Obamas war
First time I have ever agreed with Steele
I still think that he should be replaced
No insurgency has won without the support of an outside major power. The US would not have gained independence without France. Russia would still be running Afghanistan without the US, Pakistan, and the Saudis.
Without these outside ‘sugar daddies’ neither America or Afghanistan would have seen victory.
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