The Vietnam War

My dad (born in 1911) spent 20+ years in the Merchant Marines and Navy. He served in the South Pacific during WW II. Some of his johnnies (sailor's terms for brothers) were assigned to the Indianapolis. When my dad returned to Brooklyn, NY after the war he sought a job as a dock worker. He was told "we don't hire s_____s" (the insulting term used for Hispanics). After sacrificing 20 years of his life for his country he was still nothing more than a third class citizen. Other browns and blacks suffered the same fate and worse. That's just the way it always was.
Man, that burns my ass. I am fully aware that such things happen but when I hear about it I get angry every time. Then there's the Tuskegee Experiment where the VA Hospital allowed black veterans to die of syphilis (and apparently infect others in the meantime) without any treatment or even telling them what ailment they had just for the purpose of observing & documenting the effects of syphilis untreated. Eventually, they even started to inject people with syphilis who were healthy. They continued doing that right up until 1972. What bastards! There's more if you want to know.
 

I went out for my usual walk this morning when I came upon another man walking and wearing the familiar "Vietnam Veteran" cap. I started speaking with him and he told me about a few experiences that he had over there. He told me one story about being in Saigon one night and getting drunk and disorderly and being arrested by the MP's. He said one of them was a Sergeant and he beat the crap out of him for no reason. He said that he just started pounding on him when they got outside. I asked him what he said or did and he replied, "Nothing!"

Is he to be believed?
 
I went out for my usual walk this morning when I came upon another man walking and wearing the familiar "Vietnam Veteran" cap. I started speaking with him and he told me about a few experiences that he had over there. He told me one story about being in Saigon one night and getting drunk and disorderly and being arrested by the MP's. He said one of them was a Sergeant and he beat the crap out of him for no reason. He said that he just started pounding on him when they got outside. I asked him what he said or did and he replied, "Nothing!"

Is he to be believed?
What's to believe? What's not to believe? I experienced things during the war in Vietnam that I don't want to tell you about because you might not believe me. That guy getting the crap knocked out of him for "doing nothing" is easier to believe than the massacre at My Lai or the lie about the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin. And what does the guy have to benefit from lying about being beaten by the MP's? That's the question.
 

What's to believe? What's not to believe? I experienced things during the war in Vietnam that I don't want to tell you about because you might not believe me. That guy getting the crap knocked out of him for "doing nothing" is easier to believe than the massacre at My Lai or the lie about the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin. And what does the guy have to benefit from lying about being beaten by the MP's? That's the question.
You may be right, but he sounded very unsure of what he was talking about and it just came out different than most others I have heard. Maybe you had to be there. Some people do sensationalize their stories. It's like catching a six inch trout and making it sound like an eighteen inch Pike.
 
You may be right, but he sounded very unsure of what he was talking about and it just came out different than most others I have heard. Maybe you had to be there. Some people do sensationalize their stories. It's like catching a six inch trout and making it sound like an eighteen inch Pike.
I'm sure of that.
 
To this day, I would like to hear Lt. Calley's version of what happened during the My Lai Massacre. Not that it would matter any to me, but I often wonder if what the government presented as evidence of his wrong doings, if it was all true. My reason is because as I read the stories surrounding this event, I learned that a lot of the evidence presented was strictly hearsay testimony and even testimony from witnesses that reported on what they heard. A lot of unanswered questions for me to be able to put it to rest.
Crap was the order of the day in every one of my 367 Army days in the Vietnam War. I could turn the lights off, put a burlap sack over my head and punch out in all directions and hit a "bad guy" every time. If you were there then you know what I am talking about and if you weren't there then I can find no way to describe it for you. So ...... what could Lt. Calley tell you? Lots. But the only honest reply he can ever, ever, ever make is, "It seemed like the right thing to do at the time." Maybe he'll tell you that someday.
 
Here's the F'n "glory" we reap from war:

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Those guys in the caskets are at peace, the rest of us that went to 'nam....not so much.
Inside of those hundred boxes or so you will find every race, colour, and creed. I knew there were some awful things being committed in the US during that time ... in the name of racism & anti-Semitism ... but what really pissed me off is that there were some of us who were just as racist while in the "Nam". Obviously, America didn't educate its sons and daughters very well back then and it looks like nothing has improved even to this very day.
 
An unfortunate time, brought out a lot of the worst in the country, and some good. Not enough good to have been even close to worth it though. I was lucky, had a very high number so avoided the draft - had lots of friends and family not so fortunate.

To all the vets reading this, thank you for your service! I know for many of you its belated, but I do appreciate what you did. Putting yourself and your life on the line for the rest of us is something that needs to be recognized and appreciated. No matter the wisdom or lack of it from our leaders at the time...
 
Here's the F'n "glory" we reap from war:

View attachment 172120

Those guys in the caskets are at peace, the rest of us that went to 'nam....not so much.
It wasn't all "John Wayne" moments in the war, with bayonets between their teeth, and flags flying. It was also death, destructions, inhuman violence, and tragedy- the horrors of war that last a life time. These honored are the men, whom we never can thank enough for their service.
 
It wasn't all "John Wayne" moments in the war.....
And in real life, the sun sets in the west in Vietnam, not the East.
...... It was also death, destructions, inhuman violence, and tragedy- the horrors of war that last a life time. These honored are the men, whom we never can thank enough for their service.
By "thanking them (us) for their (our) service" I suspect that you are ignoring the people they (we) were sent to kill and whose country they (we) destroyed. Please tell me that your words were only inadvertently selective.
 
While visiting the White House, our then Prime Minister Harold Holt proclaimed that he was "all the way with LBJ", a remark which was poorly received at home. Our NSW Premier also fell over himself when Lyndon Johnson visited Sydney. The theory was (and believed) that communism needed to be wiped out and there would be a domino effect if Australia didn't watch out. So they proceeded to pull names out of a hat and our poor unsuspecting boys went off to war they didn't understand or care about.
 
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Taken from the U.S. Naval Institute after top secret files were de-classified in 2008.

Historians have long suspected that the second attack in the Gulf of Tonkin never occurred and that the resolution was based on faulty evidence. But no declassified information had suggested that McNamara, Johnson, or anyone else in the decision-making process had intentionally misinterpreted the intelligence concerning the 4 August incident. More than 40 years after the events, that all changed with the release of the nearly 200 documents related to the Gulf of Tonkin incident and transcripts from the Johnson Library.

These new documents and tapes reveal what historians could not prove: There was not a second attack on U.S. Navy ships in the Tonkin Gulf in early August 1964. Furthermore, the evidence suggests a disturbing and deliberate attempt by Secretary of Defense McNamara to distort the evidence and mislead Congress.

The historian also concluded that some of the signals intercepted during the nights of 2 and 4 August were falsified to support the retaliatory attacks. Moreover, some intercepts were altered to show different receipt times, and other evidence was cherry picked to deliberately distort the truth. According to Hanyok, "SIGINT information was presented in such a manner as to preclude responsible decision makers in the Johnson Administration from having the complete and objective narrative of events of 04 August 1964."

Subsequently, Secretary McNamara intentionally misled Congress and the public about his knowledge of and the nature of the 34A operations, which surely would have been perceived as the actual cause for the 2 August attack on the Maddox and the apparent attack on the 4th. On 6 August, when called before a joint session of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees to testify about the incident, McNamara eluded the questioning of Senator Wayne Morse (D-OR) when he asked specifically whether the 34A operations may have provoked the North Vietnamese response. McNamara instead declared that "our Navy played absolutely no part in, was not associated with, was not aware of, any South Vietnamese actions, if there were any."
Later that day, Secretary McNamara lied when he denied knowledge of the provocative 34A patrols at a Pentagon news conference. When asked by a reporter if he knew of any confrontations between the South and North Vietnamese navies, he responded: "No, none that I know of. . . . [T]hey operate on their own. They are part of the South Vietnamese Navy . . . operating in the coastal waters, inspecting suspicious incoming junks, seeking to deter and prevent the infiltration of both men and material." Another reporter pressed the issue, "Do these [patrol boats] go north, into North Vietnamese waters?" McNamara again eluded the question, "They have advanced closer and closer to the 17th parallel, and in some cases, I think they have moved beyond that in an effort to stop the infiltration closer to the point of origin."
In reality, McNamara knew full well that the 34A attacks had probably provoked the 2 August attacks on the Maddox. On an audio tape from the Johnson Library declassified in December 2005, he admitted to the President the morning after the attacks that the two events were almost certainly connected:

Back then there was no indication that the news media engaged in fakery. But the government clearly did.

By contrast, when Bush faked news of WMD in Iraq, the American media refused to publish the Downing Street Memo like the British press did. There, clearly the controlled pro war news media did report fake news in the USA. Publication of the Memo is what led to the immediate downfall of the Tony Blair regime in the UK as well as the end of Aznar regime in Spain. Had the media reported it in the USA, Bush would also have lost his position in the White House.


memo.indd (gwu.edu)

Downing Street memo - Wikipedia

That's often a difficult question to answer. The reporter. The editor. The boss. The owner. Industrial-Political coercion? We can say that I name them in reverse order of importance. Independent journalism? Where is it? Where was it? Julian Assange can tell us but he's been gaged and muzzled. The next time he surfaces I wouldn't be surprised to learn and he's had his tongue and fingers amputated.

But to answer your question as best as possible it was the Washington Post (back then, mind!!!!!) that dared print the truth while no one else did ... so you're probably right about the press being accomplices in the dirty deeds of the Whine Hose and Pentagram.

I seriously believed the America Forces were actually winning the Vietnam War with very little impact from the NVA however the constant casualty count appeared to be too well scripted. 153 Vietcong killed and American casualties were light. Never a number seemingly as accurate as the NVA body count. I wasn't there but just my take on what I read and watched.

Truth tell.

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www.democracynow.org/2009/9/16/the_most_dangerous_man_in_america

www.hudson.org/research/14134-the-tet-offensive-revisited-media-s-big-lie

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB48/supreme.html

www.time.com/4839971/trump-media-press-enemy-vietnam-war/

www.americanhistoryprojects.com/downloads/vietnam.htm

www.npr.org/2021/06/18/1007573283/how-the-pentagon-papers-changed-public-perception-of-the-war-in-vietnam

www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/pentagon-papers

www.mckendree.edu/academics/scholars/issue3/dahm.htm

www.historynet.com/magazines/mag-vietnam

www.thevietnamese.org/2019/11/the-pleasant-lies/

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1218&context=honors

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_news_media_and_the_Vietnam_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers





 
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Lots of good stuff here, thanks FastTrax

I think that we (the public) was mostly unaware of what was going on in Vietnam, or couldn't care less, until suddenly, when we finally found out by bothering to watch the news, we were furious. Today, most of us follow the world news and know what’s happening, so being able to keep us in the dark is now impossible. When countries begged America to help them from the threat of Communism, as Vietnam and Korea did, you responded, but now with the focus on Taiwan, I know President Biden is sending support in arms, but hopefully he won’t decide to send troops.
 
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That is the opinion of the politically correct right wing crowd. The reason why the criminally imperialistic war was lost was because it was colonialist, imperialistic, without any justification whatsoever, intended only for the profit of the wealthy elites who made billions in war profits while Americans bled and died, and most importantly - BECAUSE THE WAR NEVER GOT SUPPORT FROM THE MAJORITY OF THE VIETNAMESE. The majority of those people fought foreign invaders just like Americans did when the British invaded in the 1770s and in 1812 and just like Polish, Russian, Yugoslavian, and others did when Hitler invaded. The American invasion of Vietnam had no more justification than did those of Hitler. There simply is no difference whether you choose to believe it or not.
 
I don't believe the US lost the war because of eroding support at home. Initially, Americans favored the war, but after years of fighting, with no progress in ending the war, Americans realized the war was not winnable-our goals were now, "peace with honor". It was the continued carnage from the war, with little to show for it, that sparked the changed in American attitudes. I wonder if a lot of the rancor about the War is because so many felt betrayed by US military and political leaders. Just reading the posts, the War is still a white hot. painfully exposed nerve.
 
I seriously believed the America Forces were actually winning the Vietnam War ...
Let me see if I can reply to this without exploding, but please bear with me if I do.

1). Justification: Has a sufficient and logical explanation ever been given for why the US refused to allow the Geneva Conference of 1954 - stating that Vietnam would conduct Free Democratic National Elections in 1956 - to be held? Was then the American invasion, occupation, and initiation of war in Vietnam legal?
2). Weaponry/Ordinance: Who manufactured it? GM? Colt? etc?
3). Bartering: Did the producers get paid for their manufacturing of weaponry/ordinance? Was it a particularly lucrative business?
4). Payment for weaponry/Ordinance: Who foot the bill for it? The military? The government? The tax-payers?
5). Goal: What would be the purpose of "winning" the war in Vietnam? Raise your hands, please.
6). Reasoning: On what grounds do you base your answer to question nr. 5?
 
The war that shouldn't have been. And those vets didn't get the treatment nor help they deserved when they got home. It's a damned shame!
All true. But wait! In what appears to be an after-thought in 'righting the wrong' against Vietnam Veterans the American people are being encouraged to award veterans a "thank you for your service!" - sort of like a "Hi! How are you today! Have a nice day!" What does this simple nicety really mean? Think about it. Within that short statement is a whole lot of nonsense between the lines. It says 'the US was a peace-maker standing up for the downtrodden' and also "thank you" for something you've provided for the benefit of the person(s) who is greeting you. But what might that be? What thank-worthy service did we provide? We ravaged an innocent country and its inhabitants that was no threat to the US. In fact, Vietnam admired the US and had considered the US a fine model of justice up until the US sabotaged the free national elections set to be conducted in 1956, an election that had been internationally approved of and praised by the United Nations as an event of great humanitarian-political achievement that had hitherto been denied the Vietnamese people by the Japanese and the French. So, Vietnam was to be further held hostage by a string of "bad guys" in turn: Japanese - French - and now Americans.

In conclusion, thanking Vietnam veterans [in that simple manner] is a fluff-off of the guilt many Vietnam veterans feel for what we did in Vietnam, both as individuals BUT MOSTLY for what we did as representatives of American treachery. I cannot speak for everyone, naturally, but it is having been an active participant in the ravage of the innocent men, women, and children of Vietnam that I have had to deal with, and "thanking me" for it makes the guilt worse. What then should be said if not "thank you for your service"? I don't know. Is there a way to express sympathy without getting mushy? How about a hand-shake without words? Yes, I like that. In actual fact, whenever I meet someone who fought for the NVA or the NLF (derogatorily called 'Vietcong') rather than words they take my hand in both of theirs'. That's all, but the emotion they impart is one of brotherhood and "I understand". Those are the only moments in my life when I feel compassion for my experience in Vietnam. And think of it ..... from my former so-called enemy! 🌞
 
Let me see if I can reply to this without exploding, but please bear with me if I do.

1). Justification: Has a sufficient and logical explanation ever been given for why the US refused to allow the Geneva Conference of 1954 - stating that Vietnam would conduct Free Democratic National Elections in 1956 - to be held? Was then the American invasion, occupation, and initiation of war in Vietnam legal?
2). Weaponry/Ordinance: Who manufactured it? GM? Colt? etc?
3). Bartering: Did the producers get paid for their manufacturing of weaponry/ordinance? Was it a particularly lucrative business?
4). Payment for weaponry/Ordinance: Who foot the bill for it? The military? The government? The tax-payers?
5). Goal: What would be the purpose of "winning" the war in Vietnam? Raise your hands, please.
6). Reasoning: On what grounds do you base your answer to question nr. 5?

I thought I made it very clear in my post that I wasn't in Vietnam during the war but my post reflected my take on the information that was available to me at the time. Either way I seriously apologize for any offense you may have taken from my contribution to the Military Veterans Subforum. I will never interfere on this Subforum posting inaccurate and/or inflammatory information. You have my word on that. Good day all.
 


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