Posted on 09/30/2010 7:23:58 AM PDT by WebFocus
Add John Kennedy to your list, Mr. “call off the air support” and “send the troops to Vietnam”, he was the incompetent liberal boob that started all this.
Man does that guy get good historical whitewashing though.
Ditto that, good buddy!
PING to a great interview.
TS
To be really precise, the Tet offensive was waged primarily by the Viet Cong. As a result they were nearly wiped out as an effective fighting force. It was after Tet that NVA regulars began doing the brunt of the fighting in the south.
The damage done to the South Vietnamese people by the left in this country cannot be calculated. Our military won every battle and won the war. The story being told by “historians” in this country is a lie. What WAS lost was the “peace” when the congressional democrats broke every promise made to the So. Vietnamese people between 1973 and 1975. They HANDED the south to the communists-something I suspected they wanted to do all along.
I was relatively young when this all happened, and it was here that I began to hate the demonRATs and the left. And I still do.
I will add one fact I doubt many of you ever heard.
During the build up to the Tet Offensive we were collecting all levels of Chinese and N Vietnamese Regulars in the areas around Saigon, Da Nang, Hue and all the other important sites in Nam. When they started hitting the cities it was only the press and the politicians that had no clue what was going on.
But - The most important thing that happened was that at the end of the Tet Offensive, the N. Vietnamese offered Ho Chi Min to us if we would stop the bombing.
So President Johnson did the same thing as he did earlier when we had bombed the north into submission - he stopped and waited for them to show up at the talks in Paris.
They waited how long?
3-4 months as I recall. In the mean time they rebuilt and rearmed through China and Russia.
Each time Johnson patiently had his negotiators waited in Paris - twiddling their thumbs while our men continued dieing.
If Johnson had of done what Westmorland and Abrams suggested, the North would be told to get to Paris anyway they could and when a treaty or truce was signed, then and only then would we stop bombing them. Instead, we cleared the airspace and allowed any and all flights out of Hanoi in the hopes that they were going to Paris.
I know these facts because I was the only one who saw and handled the messages given directly to Generals Westmorland & Abrams. I took the online encrypted messages to offline encryption and then directly to General Westmorland’s Adjutant who then handed it directly to General Westmorland (in my presence).
I then waited for further instructions and reversed the process of encryption to transmit their response to Washington.
Only I, the Adjutant and the two Generals knew what was in those messages (well - and the Senate Arms Limitation Committee and I suppose Pres Johnson). When I left the service I was specifically told not to disclose any information I gathered in my duties while in this Top Secret position.
I have told others of this in the past as I am telling you this now. I will continue to do so until my dying day in hopes that the story will be written correctly and not the way the press wrote it.
I also did some things which helped our cause during the Tet Offensive. I delayed messages (Officially) reaching Westmorland and Abrams until they could take specific action to prevent the Viet Cong, Chinese and N Vietnamese Regulars from getting their equipment back into the DMZ on their exit and TET Failure.
- But that is an entirely other story.
“(his name slips my mind)”
General Giap
Johnson/Macnamera had no intention of letting us effectively fight the war.
If we “Invaded” the North we would be as bad as they were - therefore we let them beat the shit out of us at their leisure.
Pukes? Aren’t you late for school?
Yes PUKES! Just like you!
I was THERE on the ground 1966 - 67 Puke!
Where were you?
General Vo Nguyen Giap in his memoirs
As the saying goes, "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it".
i don’t recall Hackworth going on about all that and your guys’s site may have a foot in accuracy
but on that same site he describes Platoon as a great war movie
let me tell you something.
that is the first time I have ever heard an American Combat Vet list PLATOON...that piece of filth movie directed at our troops..as a great war movie...I came of age in that era..born 1957...I still recall my shame when i realized the reaction when I asked a combat vet buddy of mine who had been capMarine in 1970 and I asked if he had seen Platoon...whew..
so I’m suspect of your link or at least the author’s intent
to his credit...at least he didn’t call Casualties of War a great movie
That was the point of this author's book - that TET did NOT destroy the US public's support for the war in Vietnam. That is the liberal fiction and narrative created afterwards.
As to Vietnam, another 3-5 years of direct US support in terms of money, equipment and airpower would have bought the south a lot of time. N.Vietnam's 1972 Easter Offensive basically failed, due to the use of US airpower. By that point, the troops on the ground were all ARVN, not US Army. By abandoning S. Vietnam in 1973, we ensured their, and our, defeat.
I recall that Cronkite called Tet a defeat for the US.
Also we won the Vietnam War. That’s why everyone signed the treaties in 1973.
After the leftist Congress outlawed the use of US forces in SE Asia in 1975, the North Vietnamese rightly understood that it was time to take the South, while the US sat on its hands and watched.
Over here...
Psst!
Over here...
>>
I hear you. Thanks.
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