Posted on 08/09/2017 6:46:10 PM PDT by gandalftb
56,000 dead Americans for NOTHING. I think loving the country is out of the question.
Free South Vietnam and we can be great allies.
Speaking as someone who was born after the war:
1. Thanks for your service.
2. I find it completely understandable that they hold such an opinion. It’s not like they don’t have reason for their opinion, and it’s certainly not like they didn’t pay cash for the right to have it in the first place.
IIRC, China and Vietnam were at war at one time and Vietnam beat them.
Wrong.
Ho had been a member of the Comintern since the 1920s, and was a member of the French Communist Party since 1917. He was always a Communist and always loyal to the Soviet Union.
Hey no problem.
Hey no problem.
Let me clarify - I didn’t say he wasn’t a Communist himself (because clearly he was), I meant that he didn’t approach the Communist *Bloc* for support first; he didn’t go to the Soviet Union to get aid until after the US had turned him down by supporting the French. If the US had actually told the French to bugger off, he might have accepted a more democratic government as a requirement of that aid; he was a nationalist more than a Communist, from what I’ve read.
That’s new to me. I believe I was thinking about this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War
very interesting, thanks Spktyr!
My first flight instructor flew Me-110s for the Reich during the war.
Thank you from a Nam Gold Star sister. My youngest bro was there for a bit and he loved it, but I can’t get the image of the woman he was staying with eating rats. Wonder if they have a middle class yet?
I heard once that when the Americans gave independence to the Philippines in 1946, Ho Chi Minh said he wished Vietnam had been an American colony instead of a French one, because the Americans would probably let go of Vietnam at the same time.
He was probably right - the idea of “empire” never did sit well with the American public. The ‘empire’ we took off Spain in the 1898 Spanish American War didn’t do us any favors and we pretty much let everyone who didn’t want to be in it go after less than 50 years; pretty much we discovered we had no taste for it and it wasn’t that great an idea in the first place.
my dad was U.S. Army and training medics in Salt Lake City Utah, one of his brothers was a medic on Saipan (never said one word about it in 30 years while I was around), his other brother was a loader on an anti aircraft gun on a destroyer in the Solomon’s.
All of my mothers 4 brothers were Navy and overseas. I’m real proud of my families WWII record which was one reason there was never any question I was going in.
Interestingly, some of my GI buddies would try and kid Yugi and Minesaki about their role in the War (on Okinawa). On anything else they would laugh and joke and carry on and very friendly. All us kids just loved them. But, bring up their war experiences and they would just shake their heads and say “dami!, dami!” (means no good) and walk off.
...............so, in your piece of the world on this subject you obviously moved on and tens of millions on both sides did too following all our wars through Vietnam.
You know, as CRAZY as it is in a literal sense, what sane alternative is there?
That said, I agree with the freeper who said it look creepy (or whatever adjective he used) to see Mattis and this Vietnam General standing together on the Pentagon steps with the Vietnam General saluting the US Flag during the National Anthem. Amazing.
Actually, if I recall the story correctly, after the war he actually enlisted in our air force for a while...
When I first went back I determined that I would eat anything given me to eat at least once. Some of it is pretty exotic. The rats are very large, bigger than some of the rabbits southern boys here take and cook up all the time and they are the same on the plate.
The country went thorough the 'starving years" after the 75 taking of Sai Gon but the Communists finally realized that if they persisted with classic communism- collectivization and dismantling of religion and all that- the communists were going to starve, too. China was not going to help and , in fact, invaded in a border war. The Viet Communists being Vietnamese were/are practical people and they saw that the country was sliding down the tube and they knew that if the country did not grow rich and strong it would become a province of China. They backed off and allowed first the Buddhists to have their pagodas back then finally gave the Catholics back their rights and promoted market capitalism and the country has been prospering since.
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