Free Republic

After three decades of bloodshed, Vietnam’s civil war abruptly ended 43 years ago today, on April 30, 1975. The events surrounding this date are seared into the minds of every Vietnamese person of a certain age.I was not yet four years old, but these are some of my earliest memories. There was no longer a North and South Vietnam divided at the 17th parallel, only the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Days before, the radio inside our house in Saigon had been ticking off provinces that had fallen into North Vietnamese hands: some of them the hometowns of my relatives. As...

Former U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius said he resigned from his post last year after the Trump administration asked him to pressure the Vietnamese government to receive more than 8,000 Vietnamese refugees marked in the U.S. for deportation. The vast majority of the people targeted for deportation — sometimes for minor crimes — were war refugees who had established lives in the U.S. after fleeing the Vietnam War more than 40 years ago, Osius wrote in an essay this month for the American Foreign Service Association.

CHINA is waging a “campaign of psychological warfare” against Australia, an Aussie academic has warned. Professor Clive Hamilton, author of the controversial book Silent Invasion: China’s Influence in Australia, gave a talk to US Congress overnight in which he warned of dire consequences if Australia gives too much leeway to the rising superpower. “Beijing knows that it cannot bully the United States — in the current environment the consequences would be unpredictable and probably counter-productive — so it is instead pressuring its allies,” Prof Hamilton said. “Last week the PLA Navy challenged three Australian warships sailing through the South China...

Dieter Dengler (May 22, 1938 – February 7, 2001) was a German-born United States Navy aviator during the Vietnam War and later a private aircraft test pilot and commercial airline pilot. He was one of two survivors, the other being Phisit Intharathat, out of seven prisoners of war (POWs) who escaped from a Pathet Lao prison camp in Laos. He was rescued after 23 days on the run[1] following six months of torture and imprisonment and was the first captured U.S. airman to escape enemy captivity during the Vietnam war.[2][3]

<p>If someone had told me a few months ago that I’d be writing a piece for Front Page on this theme, I would’ve dismissed him as a lunatic. After all, then I was supporting the positions expected from those on the so-called antiwar right. I was harshly critical of Israeli defense initiatives, more willing to talk up for Noam Chomsky than the sitting President, and insistent upon baiting “neo-conservative” Michael Ledeen of National Review into admitting that he sought to see the regime in Tehran overthrown by any means necessary, including US Military involvement.</p>

In contemplating bombing Syria, we are looking at a limited military action and the possibility of a considered accidental all-out war with Russia – or as we are prone to say, World War Three. Even as we initially ponder bombing a Russian client state, we are once again considering limitations on military strategy. As a consequence of a political choice not to bomb Russian assets and Russian personnel, we would unnecessarily be putting American lives in danger. These considerations are eerily similar to those that the U.S. government imposed during the Vietnam conflict, which led to a protracted politically managed...

It’s November 1963, JFK survives the assassination attempt. After months of intense headlines worldwide speculating his recovery, he emerges on the world stage triumphant just days before the Spring of ’64. Kennedy snatches the sympathy vote from LBJ’s slimy clutches and handily wins a second term. Johnson is never to be President. Is there a Vietnam or another stage inevitable with a different outcome? And what becomes the intentions of The Great Society?

Imagine if the ambiguous result in our long struggle to end poverty—like the Vietnam War, an effort in which the goal posts always seem to be moving—was shown to be as ineffective. Fifty years ago, American Marines were wrapping up their bloody battle to retake the historic Vietnamese capital of Hue, occupied by communist forces in the Tet Offensive weeks before.Graphic images from the struggle went on display in January at the Newseum, in Washington DC, in an exhibit titled, “The Marines and Tet: The Battle That Changed the Vietnam War.” The title of the exhibit, which runs through July...

Anna Chennault, for many years one of the most visible private citizens in Washington as a Republican fundraiser, writer and Chinese-born, anti-communist lobbyist who dabbled in foreign intrigue after the death of her husband, the renowned leader of the Flying Tigers in China and Burma in World War II, died Friday at her home in Washington. She was 94. Her death, in her apartment at the Watergate complex, was announced today. The cause was complications of a stroke she suffered in December, her daughter Cynthia Chennault said. In her memoir photographs, wearing a high-necked white ao dai, Chennault appears with...

WASHINGTON — Vietnam war veterans were among the hundreds who gathered at the war’s memorial wall Thursday — National Vietnam War Veterans Day — to honor those who served. Pat Shanahan, deputy defense secretary; Thomas Bowman, deputy secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs; and Elaine Duke, deputy homeland security secretary, spoke at the event. The secretaries thanked the veterans for their service and paused to remember more than 58,000 service members who never made it back. They laid a wreath at the wall during the ceremony, and all observed a moment of silence to remember those who paid the...

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam’s state oil firm PetroVietnam has ordered Spanish energy firm Repsol to suspend its “Red Emperor” project off the country’s southeastern coast following pressure from China, the BBC reported on Friday. {snip} The block lies near the U-shaped “nine-dash line” that marks the vast area that China claims in the sea and overlaps what it says are its own oil concessions. The field can produce 25,000-30,000 barrels of oil and 60 million cubic meters of gas a day, Vietnamese news provider Cafef.vn reported last month. Repsol spent around 33 million euros ($41 million) on exploration in Vietnam...

According to Mr McMahon's claims, the wreckage of the flight is located 16km south of Round Island, which is 22.5km north of Mauritius, in an area of the ocean that has not been searched before.

This is the continuation of my first story The DarkI posted a couple of days ago. These events took place in April, 1967.

As winter's cold grip loosens on Hanoi, the city has been named one of the ideal travel destinations for March by American-based Business Insider. (please see the link, for the full article)

Some of you asked me to write some more about my experiences all those years ago. This one is about a close call and my memories of it.

On May 24, 1973, President and First Lady Nixon hosted American Prisoners of War held captive in Vietnam for the largest dinner ever held at the White House. 40 years later, the Richard Nixon Foundation hosted what was perhaps their last reunion gathering. The following is a collection of television and print news coverage.

Democratic Governor Jerry Brown once fought to keep out South Vietnamese refugees from being delivered to his state during his first stint as governor of California in the 1970’s. Although he remains silent on the crisis that is happening on the southern border of his state, Brown’s position via legislation previously signed regarding illegal immigrants from Mexico Central America and South America is more favorable than the cool response he gave to the Vietnamese refugees who had escaped the tyrannical Viet Cong.

Just an addendum: The carrier is now in Danang. -- In the next few days, a U.S. aircraft carrier will make a port call in Vietnam's coastal city of Danang for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War. Though the move has long been in the works and is just a single engagement, it nonetheless bears noting given its significance for U.S.-Vietnam ties, U.S. defense policy, as well as the region more broadly. The idea of a U.S. aircraft carrier visit to Vietnam has been in the works since last year and first surfaced publicly in the...

Is America Preparing for a Nuclear War with China? Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin unveiled several new nuclear weapons last week in a replay of the Cold War. China, meanwhile, is continuing a similar buildup of high-technology strategic nuclear forces that remains largely hidden from view. Chinese secrecy about its nuclear forces and their use was a major theme of the Pentagon’s recently completed Nuclear Posture Review that outlined a new “tailored deterrence” policy for China. The new plan is aimed at persuading Chinese leaders to avoid military miscalculations – like provocative actions in the South China Sea, or hostile activities...

A US aircraft carrier arrived in Vietnam on Monday for the first time since the end of the war, as the former foes bolster military ties in the face of Beijing's build-up in the disputed South China Sea. (Please see full article, at the link)