The Vietnam War

[tcsenter]

DO you think the common man in the rice paddy wanted us there? No, the people who had something to loose if the country fell to the north wanted us there, those who had money and power wanted us there. The common man just wanted to live....

lol! Stop with the Communist "common man" mantra already. You sound like a Michael Moore groupie for crying out loud.

Which 'common men' might those be? The two million 'common men' [and women and children] who fled Cambodia and Vietnam to escape Communism after the fall of Saigon? The one million 'common men' who were rounded-up at gun point and sent to Communist 're-education' camps to make sure they got all those zaney anti-Communist ideals out of their system like desiring freedom and a better life? The thousands of 'common men' who 'mysteriously disappeared' because they had been deemed enemy collaborators or sympathetic with the West?

 

[oLLie]

Originally posted by: Brutuskend

Originally posted by: tcsenter

The majority of Vietnamese did NOT want us there. One of the reasons we lost is because no matter how many VC we killed, there were always plenty more people willing to step in and fight for their country.

lol! That's a nice way to phrase it, since about 70% of the combined population of North and South Vietnam at the time lived in the communist North. Among those living in the more sparsely populated South, a significant percentage indeed wanted the US there.

The combined knowledge of the Vietnam War possessed by the AT collective would fit in a thimble. Vietnam was about "tires"? Good grief!

And I thought I had heard them all...

DO you think the common man in the rice paddy wanted us there? No, the people who had something to loose if the country fell to the north wanted us there, those who had money and power wanted us there. The common man just wanted to live....

Does that explain the mass exodus of South Vietnamese into the United States after the war? All of them were not "common" Vietnamese?... but people who had money and power invested in a non-communist Vietnam? I don't think that explanation cuts it. Then again, I can go less than a mile down the street to Little Saigon and ask any number of real refugees themselves.

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

Originally posted by: oLLie

Originally posted by: dartworth
That child, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, was burned from a Napalm run on her village.

I believe we are all in agreement about that. I'm curious as to what the professor said was the source of the attack, and what the woman herself said on PBS (and how she would have known the origin of the attack).

I thought someone posted a source in P&N recently that stated South Vietnamese pilots dropped the napalm after being warned not to by U.S. officials.

If her name is googled there are lots of links.

She did marry and has a son. She spoke at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Veterans Day,1996.

Our government at the time our vets were coming back from that war was like a neglectful parent. No effort was made to help these guys get back into living life in the USA. Most of the public in So Cal scorned the vets and the anger that should have been directed at the Feds was dumped on the vets. Too many are gone now but the K2 program at the V.A. used to be filled with these guys.

The jokester is right it IS about the money. Iraq=try and stabilize the middle east, never happen. Afghanistan= Caspian Sea oil line to Pakistan. We do not want to run a pipe through China, to long a run and its China. Its going to be great fun when the Pakistanis have their hands on the valve that supplies India. Just my rant.........

Thank you, ALL veterans..I'll be going to dad's grave Tuesday,27 years Navy.:sun:

 

[alkemyst]

Iraq sadly is nothing like Vietnam....Vietnam was a 'policing action' ie read as an excuse for a lot of american's to get rich or more rich.

Iraq also unfortunately may be the wrong target, and an excuse for a lot of american's to get rich or more rich.

The Kent state image for those that don't know, was when the US government opened fire on students protesting the war in Vietnam.

 

[thunderhorse]

How many of you have been to war?

Vietnam- you couldn't see more than 20 to 30 yards in any direction, unless you were in a rice field. If you needed an air strike, sometimes it could be hours. Getting supplies was slow in the front. Getting a vehicle in was next to impossible, everything came in or went out by chopper. Soldiers and civilians died by the thousands.

Iraq- you could see for miles in all directions. Air strikes were almost immediate. Supplies were nearly being rammed up their butts. Vehicles were everywhere. Soldiers and civilians died.

The closest comparison, soldiers and civilians died. A country prospers when it is at war, because, everyone is working to feed the war machine. Well the government says the economy is going up, what ever thats worth.

My mother had a saying that keep my brother and I from getting into trouble- Sooner or later you have to go to sleep. Profound statement.

Now before the flaming starts let me warn you that it won't bother me. My worst time was when I was spit on and called a baby killer. Now fire up your keyboards and go to work.

Oh, one last statement before my execution. Ladys and gentlemen, girls and boys "they know where we live."
Remember 9/11.
Thank you for you time.

 

[tcsenter]

Does that explain the mass exodus of South Vietnamese into the United States after the war? All of them were not "common" Vietnamese?... but people who had money and power invested in a non-communist Vietnam? I don't think that explanation cuts it. Then again, I can go less than a mile down the street to Little Saigon and ask any number of real refugees themselves.

Who woulda thunk South Vietnam had millions of millionares in the 1970s? I guess the boat people were hiding their millions in the only items they were carrying with them - their children. I didn't know children made such great money smugglers. And you have to give them props for 'dressing down' like they did. I couldn't tell them apart from filthy peasants!

I'm glad I come to AT, learn something new every day.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: jumpr
My history class at the U of M (titled 20th Century American Wars as Social and Political Experiences) is currently covering the Vietnam War. On Thursday, the lecture featured a slide show of the most influential images from the war and the events surrounding it. There were three images in the slide show. They were:

Murder of a VietCong by Saigon Police Chief
Kim Phuc
Kent State

I'm pretty sure that most everyone in the 300-person class was strongly affected by these images. I didn't know much about the war before this class, but I now find it horrible that people are comparing our current war in Iraq to the Vietnam situation. Vietnam is a travesty in our American history, and I don't think this nation is capable of something like it ever again. It's horribly sad, and definitely tragic, but I feel we've learned from our mistakes in the Far East.

It's so sad.

Did they mention that the people at Kent state were asked to disperse several times? Did they mention that the people at Kent State threw rocks and other things at the national guardsmen? I don't give a flying fvck who you are or what you believe in, if you throw rocks and bottles at soldiers then you bloody well deserve to get shot at.

War is fvcking WAR! It's is NOT PRETTY! WAR IS HELL! And the more hellish we make it for the other side, the faster it's over. The real travesty with Vietnam is that valient soldiers came home only to have a bunch of arrogant young pukes spit on them and call them baby killers. Personally, I think we should have brought out the nukes.

You, jumpr, have just bought into the over-riding liberal revisionist history that is all too often taught in our colleges today. I'd go so far as to say that after that class you will know less about the war than when you started. You'll know a lot more revisionist propaganda though.

ZV

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
Did they mention that the people at Kent state were asked to disperse several times? Did they mention that the people at Kent State threw rocks and other things at the national guardsmen? I don't give a flying fvck who you are or what you believe in, if you throw rocks and bottles at soldiers then you bloody well deserve to get shot at.

Kent State was their school, not the National Guardsmen's.....there was absolutely no reason to physically disperse them, yet alone open fire on them.

I think many soldiers hide behind their service thinking it gives them free reign, much like many police officers. On another board I had to serve up a marine to his CO due to the a$$hole threatening me left and right (about a stupid car post), he may have been a marine but I'd have snapped him like a twig, yet he wanted to keep it going and going thinking I may go hide somewhere and disappear as he threatened me....he's was one of these pierced and tattooed to hell and back guys about 130lbs and 5'9" thinking now they are a marine their life changes. I seriously don't even know how he made it in.

Anyways he decided to mention his 'outfit' and how they were going to be waiting for me one night soon and I'd be a memory, but not before I suffered the worst possible torture only marines know how to give ... then he went on about semper fidilis or whatever....nice thing about the net, looked his outfit up, found his CO, sent him the information first and told him to drop it, he told me I was dead so I forwarded the log and emails...haven't seen him around since This is exactly the kind of hot head/unstable jerkoff you don't want to hand a gun and power to control a situation. I didn't even realize they'd have so much free time.

Another 'soldier' type I hate are the guys serving during an action, but never saw combat or were remotely in danger, yet they ride the coat tails for their fellow soldiers as if they did it all and bitch how they should be decorated.

I don't know about you, but technically our soldiers should be defending our right to protest and assemble and even throwing rocks at them if as a nation we decide to (that would be farfetched, but that's the idea). They are soldiers, working for us as a people, not against us for their own agendas, or a private companies agenda....however this seems to be what's happened with our military lately, going to the highest bidder...maybe you can ebay a small platoon one day, just expect to be raped on the shipping.

 

[tcsenter]

Kent State was their school, not the National Guardsmen's.....there was absolutely no reason to physically disperse them, yet alone open fire on them.

lol! I absolutely love when the tin-foil hatters give us a glimpse into the inner-workings of their mind. It is positively frightening...and yet you can't stop looking!

It was "their school", so they can do whatever they want. Wow. I'm wondering if this was the logic shared by Michigan State rioters when they were burning cars and smashing windows; this is "our city", we can do whatever the hell we want.

I do know there were some communities in Mississippi during the 1950s that employed this logic (this is "our town" and nobody is going to tell us that we have let n-ggers into our schools or in our neighborhoods).

 

[Brutuskend]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
Did they mention that the people at Kent state were asked to disperse several times? Did they mention that the people at Kent State threw rocks and other things at the national guardsmen? I don't give a flying fvck who you are or what you believe in, if you throw rocks and bottles at soldiers then you bloody well deserve to get shot at.

Kent State was their school, not the National Guardsmen's.....there was absolutely no reason to physically disperse them, yet alone open fire on them.

I think many soldiers hide behind their service thinking it gives them free reign, much like many police officers. On another board I had to serve up a marine to his CO due to the a$$hole threatening me left and right (about a stupid car post), he may have been a marine but I'd have snapped him like a twig, yet he wanted to keep it going and going thinking I may go hide somewhere and disappear as he threatened me....he's was one of these pierced and tattooed to hell and back guys about 130lbs and 5'9" thinking now they are a marine their life changes. I seriously don't even know how he made it in.

Anyways he decided to mention his 'outfit' and how they were going to be waiting for me one night soon and I'd be a memory, but not before I suffered the worst possible torture only marines know how to give ... then he went on about semper fidilis or whatever....nice thing about the net, looked his outfit up, found his CO, sent him the information first and told him to drop it, he told me I was dead so I forwarded the log and emails...haven't seen him around since This is exactly the kind of hot head/unstable jerkoff you don't want to hand a gun and power to control a situation. I didn't even realize they'd have so much free time.

Another 'soldier' type I hate are the guys serving during an action, but never saw combat or were remotely in danger, yet they ride the coat tails for their fellow soldiers as if they did it all and bitch how they should be decorated.

I don't know about you, but technically our soldiers should be defending our right to protest and assemble and even throwing rocks at them if as a nation we decide to (that would be farfetched, but that's the idea). They are soldiers, working for us as a people, not against us for their own agendas, or a private companies agenda....however this seems to be what's happened with our military lately, going to the highest bidder...maybe you can ebay a small platoon one day, just expect to be raped on the shipping.

You really have to have served in the Marines to truly understand the mind fvck they put you through. I was in for four years, and with the exception of one time, the only trouble I had, was with OTHER Marines. Most of them are borderline NUTS. They have the pre disposition (most of them) of being that way, but by the time they get out of boot camp, many of them are DANGEROUS. If they are GRUNTS, then even more so. Nothing like being trained to fight and not being ABLE to fight. Many of them make up for it (and blow off steam) by going out into town and kicking the crap out of people. Including other Marines. I still carry around a sever neck injury I received from a fellow Marine and two of his pals. Semper Fi.

 

[freegeeks]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

Kent State was their school, not the National Guardsmen's.....there was absolutely no reason to physically disperse them, yet alone open fire on them.

lol! I absolutely love when the tin-foil hatters give us a glimpse into the inner-workings of their mind. It is positively frightening...and yet you can't stop looking!

It was "their school", so they can do whatever they want. Wow. I'm wondering if this was the logic shared by Michigan State rioters when they were burning cars and smashing windows; this is "our city", we can do whatever the hell we want.

I do know there were some communities in Mississippi during the 1950s that employed this logic (this is "our town" and nobody is going to tell us that we have let n-ggers into our schools or in our neighborhoods).

I can't belief this

you and Zemmervolt are defending soldiers who shot at students.
get it
STUDENTS

you 2 better go live in N-Korea. You'll fit nicely in.

 

[CanOWorms]

Why were soldiers even deployed at Kent State? Why did they need to be there? I don't seem to remember.

 

[Acanthus]

im sure thats exactly how it happened, they just walked up and shot 4 people for no reason whatsoever.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
im sure thats exactly how it happened, they just walked up and shot 4 people for no reason whatsoever.

Well I can tell you that they weren't shot because they posed a physical threat to the the Guardsmen, most who were kids like like those protesting.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: thunderhorse
. My worst time was when I was spit on and called a baby killer. Now fire up your keyboards and go to work.

So you were one of the handful that were spit upon? Man since it was my generation that fought that war I personally knew dozens that actually served there, a few who were wounded and one who was killed . The funny thing is not one ever mentioned getting spat upon. I'm not saying that it didn't happen because it did and it was shameful. I think what really perpetuated the notion that a lot of Soldiers were being spat upon and called Baby Killers is that there were a few instances of that happening that were caught oppn Camera and beamed into the household of Millions of Americans. If I recall correctly these televised instances all happened at Huge Anti War Protests and Rally's were tensions and tempers were running high. The soldiers who were spat upon just weren't going about their business , they were engaging some of these asswipes (those who would resort to such despicable actions) in heated debate and were helpless from retaliating because they were greatly outnumbered by the Protestors. To paint a picture though of Soldiers being spat upon as they just went about their business when they returned home though is not the norm and probably extremely rare. Like those who I knew who served, I bet if you were walking down the street and some punk spit on you he would have received a Royal Asskicking, one that would have been greatly deserved.

 

[ThaChemist]

I know we've wandered a bit, but for those who think that the civilian toll in Iraq is not comparable to that in Vietnam (or horrific, in any case), just a brief fyi:

The civilian casualties didn't begin with the start of this war. They started in 1990 and have continued to this day. All those intervening years of sanctions on basic supplies has cost the lives of over -1 million- children according to Red Cross estimates. Moreover, the depleted uranium that we use in our bullets/shells/etc. has caused birth defects, leukemia, and other cancer rates to skyrocket to unprecedented levels. The birth defects are so grotesque that they have never observed before. We might forget because we don't hear about it on a daily basis, but the Iraqis that lived with it on a daily basis won't forget.

There's a reason they want us out of their country - Bush's "compassionate" speeches aren't fooling anyone there!

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: ThaChemist
I know we've wandered a bit, but for those who think that the civilian toll in Iraq is not comparable to that in Vietnam (or horrific, in any case), just a brief fyi:

The civilian casualties didn't begin with the start of this war. They started in 1990 and have continued to this day. All those intervening years of sanctions on basic supplies has cost the lives of over -1 million- children according to Red Cross estimates. Moreover, the depleted uranium that we use in our bullets/shells/etc. has caused birth defects, leukemia, and other cancer rates to skyrocket to unprecedented levels. The birth defects are so grotesque that they have never observed before. We might forget because we don't hear about it on a daily basis, but the Iraqis that lived with it on a daily basis won't forget.

There's a reason they want us out of their country - Bush's "compassionate" speeches aren't fooling anyone there!

And there goes the thread.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: freegeeks

I can't belief this

you and Zemmervolt are defending soldiers who shot at students.
get it
STUDENTS

you 2 better go live in N-Korea. You'll fit nicely in.

Are they both marines or guardsmen? That is the one service always bringing up this kind of stuff...esp at the bar and clubs and it's funny when they get called out by another soldier that actually did what the lying soldier claimed they did.

I guess the Kent state students were all destroying cars and burning the school down as they walked to their next classes.

For the record the Kent State Massacre story in cliff note form

 

[Banana]

Originally posted by: Kenazo
If Iraq goes much longer, the same stories of atrocities will come out... The US soldiers there will get more and more desperate . . .

I hope you're wrong, but lets admit it--Everytime we hear of US troops killed in ambushes, how many of us say or think "Lets bomb the whole area!" or "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out!"

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

This thread should be permitted to sink into the quicksand of OT.
The tension of those times can not be understood unless you were there.

Last post in this thread!

 

[Oakenfold]

Vietnam was not a war, I may be incorrect here and someone step in and advise me if I am, I thought Congress never declared War during the conflict?
I don't know why history always teaches it as a war, maybe I missed something in history class one day?

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: Oakenfold
Vietnam was not a war, I may be incorrect here and someone step in and advise me if I am, I thought Congress never declared War during the conflict?
I don't know why history always teaches it as a war, maybe I missed something in history class one day?

Tell everyone who was over there, and the familes of those who are still over there, that it wasn't a war.

 

[tcsenter]

I can't belief this

you and Zemmervolt are defending soldiers who shot at students. get it STUDENTS

Belief what you want.

Where have I 'defended soldiers who shot at students'?

Why were soldiers even deployed at Kent State? Why did they need to be there? I don't seem to remember.

Because anti-war protestors had a nasty habit of setting things on fire, forcing campus security to flee because they were outnumbered, breaking into the offices of campus officials then refusing to leave, ransacking the place, taking dumps on the desks, etc.

As demonstrated by recent video footage of violent 'anti-globalization' protestors in Seattle and Sacramento, and articulated in various written forms over the decades, Communists and Marxists have been masters at 'staging' ploys designed to provoke a reaction from riot police in their own defense, and the news cameras turn just in time to film the police response but rarely ever what the police were responding to.

For the record the Kent State Massacre story in cliff note form

You gotta love those 'official' accountings of historical events found on websites like a Geocities personal webpage. Always good stuff.

On edit: Hey that one actually is ok. A rather objective accounting of the events.

 

[Brutuskend]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: Oakenfold
Vietnam was not a war, I may be incorrect here and someone step in and advise me if I am, I thought Congress never declared War during the conflict?
I don't know why history always teaches it as a war, maybe I missed something in history class one day?

Tell everyone who was over there, and the familes of those who are still over there, that it wasn't a war.

You are right, it wasn't a "war" in as much as congress never declared it was one. One result of it not being declared a WAR was that during a declared war, solders are IN it until it's over. In Nam solders did a tour of duty and then were rotated home. This resulted in the having the guys that knew what they were doing constantly being replaced by guys that were fresh out of training and didn't know how to fight the enemy. Which is another reason why so many were killed and one of the reasons that the war was un winnable as it was being run.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Brutuskend

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: Oakenfold
Vietnam was not a war, I may be incorrect here and someone step in and advise me if I am, I thought Congress never declared War during the conflict?
I don't know why history always teaches it as a war, maybe I missed something in history class one day?

Tell everyone who was over there, and the familes of those who are still over there, that it wasn't a war.

You are right, it wasn't a "war" in as much as congress never declared it was one. One result of it not being declared a WAR was that during a declared war, solders are IN it until it's over. In Nam solders did a tour of duty and then were rotated home. This resulted in the having the guys that knew what they were doing constantly being replaced by guys that were fresh out of training and didn't know how to fight the enemy. Which is another reason why so many were killed and one of the reasons that the war was un winnable as it was being run.

Hell they were grabbing kids right out of High School, giving them a couple of months training and throwing them into the horror of war. These weren't young people who joined so they could get a good education after their service, these were mostly kids who didn't have the grades or means to go to college. They had two choices, either get drafted and go fight or refuse the draft and go to prison. It was really fscked up!