Posted on 03/04/2002 11:32:30 PM PST by Snow Bunny
Truth sometimes is not pretty but the Honor and respect for Vietnam veterans is VERY real.
Actual photo on CD cover taken on Hue in April ’68…….TET Left is Freeper 1stBn27 and on the right Doug ‘ Wildman’ Carey.
Vietnam was not so much a war as it was one long battle in an ongoing war -the war in defense of freedom, which is still under assault. This battle was lost not by those brave American and South Vietnamese troops who were waging it but by political misjudgments and strategic failure at the highest levels of government.
The tragedy- indeed, the immorality-of those years was that for the first time in our history our country and its government failed to match the heroic sacrifice of our men in the field.
This must never happen again.
~Ronald Reagan~
I want to thank Tonkin for all his help and support.
Thank you my brother.
The Vietnam war was the longest in our nation's history. Two American advisors were killed on July 8, 1959, and the last casualties in connection with the war occurred on May 15, 1975, during the Mayaquez incident. Approximately 2.7 million Americans served in the war zone; 300,000 were wounded and approximately 75,000 permanently disabled. Officially there are still 1,991 Americans unaccounted for from SE Asia.
Vietnam was a savage, in your face war where death could and did strike from anywhere with absolutely no warning. The brave young men and women who fought that war paid an awful price of blood, pain and suffering. As it is said: "ALL GAVE SOME ... SOME GAVE ALL"
The Vietnam war was not lost on the battlefield. No American force in ANY other conflict fought with more determination or sheer courage than the Vietnam Veteran. For the first time in our history America sent it's young men and women into a war run by inept politicians who had no grasp of military strategies and no moral will to win. They were led by "top brass" who were concerned mainly with furthering their own careers, most neither understood the nature of the war nor had a clue about the impossible mission with which they'd tasked their soldiers. And the war was reported by a self serving Media who penned stories filled with inaccuracies, deliberate omissions, biased presentations and blatant distorted interpretations because they were more interested in a story than the truth! It can be debated that we should never have fought that war. It can also be argued that the young Americans who fought so courageously, never losing a single major battle, helped in a huge way to WIN THE COLD WAR.
| - U.S. MILITARY CASUALTIES IN SOUTHEAST ASIA - - DEATHS BY STATUS - - AS OF MARCH 31, 1997 - |
||||||
| STATUS | USA | USN | USAF | USMC | USCG | TOTAL |
| Regular | 17,321 | 2,178 | 1,759 | 13,200 | 6 | 34,464 |
| Reserve | 3,774 | 376 | 653 | 954 | 1 | 5,758 |
| National Guard | 88 | - | 9 | - | - | 97 |
| Selective Service | 16,989 | - | - | 683 | - | 17,672 |
| Unknown | 24 | 1 | 162 | - | - | 187 |
| TOTAL DEATHS | 38,196 | 2,555 | 2,583 | 14,837 | 7 | 58,178 |
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