Posted on 06/04/2012 9:15:58 AM PDT by JerseyanExile
Forty-five years ago, American cargo ships filled this vast harbor, unloading supplies day after day for U.S. troops fighting the Viet Cong.
Today, the bay’s azure waters are largely empty, except for local fishing boats. The once-bustling U.S. airbase here, formerly home to fighter squadrons and a combat hospital, is abandoned, a reminder of the U.S. military’s exit from most of Southeast Asia after the Vietnam War.
But the Pentagon is plotting a return.
On Sunday, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta flew in to Cam Ranh Bay, the first Pentagon chief to come to this deep-water port 200 miles north of Ho Chi Minh City since the war. He recalled “the great deal of blood that was spilled in this war on all sides — by Americans and by Vietnamese.”
He also made clear that the U.S. is hoping that hard history will not stand in the way of a U.S. return to the sheltered anchorage off the strategically-important South China Sea.
“Access for United States naval ships into this facility is a key component” of the U.S. relationship with Vietnam, “and we see the tremendous potential here,” Panetta told reporters, standing on the stern of a gray-hulled U.S. Navy supply ship anchored near the bay entrance, undergoing maintenance.
U.S. warships have called regularly at other Vietnamese ports since the guided missile frigate Vandergrift made a port call in Hanoi in November 2003.
“It will be particularly important to use harbors like this as we move out ships from our ports on the West Coast toward our stations here in the Pacific,” Panetta said.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Odd indeed.
Never would have had to leave but for lying traitors like Walter Kronkite.
Except for when Viet Nam needs men and arms from China when they are killing American soldiers?
The enemy of my enemy is my friend...........
...and Jane Fonda
Vietnamese Negotiator to Panetta: Okay, we got deal on Cam Ranh Bay. BUT WE WILL NOT TAKE JOHN MCCAIN BACK!..........
45 years! Wow,it seems just like yesterday when I watched the mobs try to push their way into the American embassy in Saigon, the brave Marines who maintained order, the chaos on the roof of the embassy, and the Navy pushing the helicopters off of ship decks to make room for more people.
And the litter of rifles along Highway 1 as the South Vietnam discarded the weapons we Americans paid for.
And now, we’re in Afganstain. Corrupt leaders, populace unwilling to fight for their own freedom, inability to tell the good guys from the bad guys.
I don’t want to waste anymore American blood to fight for freedom for those who refuse to fight for their own freedom.
Our military is the best in the world. God Bless each and everyone of them.
Was it for the French?.........
More than just a military port! India, Burma, Thailand, cambidia and SE Asia are trying to agree on the construction/reconstruction of the Trans S. Asia Highway, India to VietNam!
I spit on all this.
That is communistic progress for you.
Litter of rifles for which there was no ammunition or vehicles for which there were no spare parts because the Democrat controlled congress terminated the sending of supplies of ammunition and replacement parts to the South Vietnamese government and military as President Nixon had promised would continue. Thus the formal full-scale invasion of the south by the North Vietnamese Regular Army was able to overrun the ARVN as it ran out of the means to fight.
LOL!
I thought the Russians were using it.
They were until the Soviet(Russian) “economy” cratered in the 1990s and 2000s, they pulled out and came home.
I remember a news story on the Russians in Viet Nam. They were called “Americans without money.”
Why would the ARVN fight knowing defeat was inevitable?
The North tried the same attack in 1973-- with US air support & advisors, the ARVN defeated the invasion. Giap told the Central Committee at that time that North Vietnam would never win as long as the US supported the South. He was relieved of command.
The North only won because the communist traitors in the Democratic Party and media bamboozled the US public into cutting off aid.
One of the consequences of the fall of South Vietnam was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: so we are still feeling the consequences of the treason of the Democrats almost 40 years afterwards.
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