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Tag: Vietnam War
THIS DAY IN HISTORY – U.S. withdraws from Vietnam – 1973
Two months after the signing of the Vietnam peace agreement, the last U.S. combat troops leave South Vietnam as Hanoi frees the remaining American prisoners of war held in North Vietnam. America’s direct eight-year intervention in the Vietnam War was at an end. In Saigon, some 7,000 U.S. Department of Defense civilian employees remained behind to aid South Vietnam in conducting what looked to be a fierce and ongoing war with communist North Vietnam.
Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – U.S. withdraws from Vietnam – 1973”
THIS DAY IN HISTORY – President Carter pardons draft dodgers – 1977
On this day in 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter grants an unconditional pardon to hundreds of thousands of men who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War.
In total, some 100,000 young Americans went abroad in the late 1960s and early 70s to avoid serving in the war. Ninety percent went to Canada, where after some initial controversy they were eventually welcomed as immigrants. Still others hid inside the United States. In addition to those who avoided the draft, a relatively small number–about 1,000–of deserters from the U.S. armed forces also headed to Canada. While the Canadian government technically reserved the right to prosecute deserters, in practice they left them alone, even instructing border guards not to ask too many questions.
Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – President Carter pardons draft dodgers – 1977”
BUFFALO HUNTER
Guest Post by Fred Altum
The first time I had the privilege of walking the National Mall in 1995 I sat down under this statue. There’s a bench right next to it.
I sat and watched as people walked through the Vietnam War Memorial. I couldn’t bring the courage or the emotional strength to walk the wall. Setting next to these brothers felt safe.
My experience was nothing like the struggle these men faced.
The “Experimenter”: Understanding Why Shit Happens and How Conformity Kills
By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com
During inclement weather days, late nights, lazy weekends, and when one’s eyes tire of small print or words and images levitating in digital ether, Netflix offers a video library of sorts allowing the viewer to recline, and imbibe knowledge in a relatively easy way. Many of Netflix’s films consist of documentaries, nonfiction stories originating from books, historical retellings, or fictionalized narratives derived from actual circumstances and people. Two such films, recently viewed by the author of this post, are historical accounts, originated from books, and retold from the perspective of the actual persons who lived the events recounted therein. These two films, currently showing on Netflix, include: “First They Killed My Father” (2017) and “Experimenter” (2015).
Continue reading “The “Experimenter”: Understanding Why Shit Happens and How Conformity Kills”
THIS DAY IN HISTORY – McNamara claims that war is progressing satisfactorily – 1966
Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara declares at a news conference in Saigon that he found that military operations have “progressed very satisfactorily since 1965.”
A Vet Remembers: A Bad Mood, a Six-Pack, and a Typewriter
Guest Post by Fred Reed
This column is on lactation and isn’t going to write a damned word until half-October. People are talking about some Vietnam series by Ken Burns, I think it is .I saw the original, so I’ll pass. But if we want opinions, I’ll contribute from long ago.
Harper’s, December, 1980
I begin to weary of the stories about veterans that are now in vogue with the newspapers, the stories that dissect the veteran’s psyche as if prying apart a laboratory frog — patronizing stories written by style-section reporters who know all there is to know about chocolate mousse, ladies’ fashions, and the wonderful desserts that can be made with simple jello. I weary of seeing veterans analyzed and diagnosed and explained by people who share nothing with veterans, by people who, one feels intuitively, would regard it as a harrowing experience to be alone in a backyard. Week after week the mousse authorities tell us what is wrong with the veteran.
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Vietnam Déjà Vu
Much of America, including yours truly, has been watching the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) series, ‘Vietnam.’ Instead of clarifying that confusing conflict, the series has ignited fiery controversy and a lot of long-repressed anger by soft-soaping Washington’s motives.
This march to folly in Vietnam is particularly painful for me since I enlisted in the US army at the height of the war. Gripped by youthful patriotism, I strongly supported the war. In fact, the TV series even showed a pro-war march down New York’s Fifth Avenue that I had joined. Talk about déjà vu.
At the time, 1967, the Cold War was at full force. We really believed that if the US did not make a stand in Vietnam the Soviets and Chinese would overrun all of South Asia.
THE HORROR! THE HORROR!
I’m constantly amazed by the ability of those in power to create a narrative trusted by a gullible non-critical thinking populace. Appealing to emotions, when you have millions of functionally illiterate, normalcy bias ensnared, iGadget distracted, disciples of the status quo, has been the game plan of the Deep State for the last century. Americans don’t want to think, because thinking is hard. They would rather feel. For decades the government controlled public education system has performed a mass lobotomy on their hapless matriculates, removing their ability to think and replacing it with feelings, fabricated dogma, and social indoctrination. Their minds of mush have been molded to acquiesce to the narrative propagandized by their government keepers.
“The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.” – Thomas Sowell
With a majority confused, distracted, malleable, willfully ignorant, and easily manipulated by false narratives, heart wrenching images, and fake news, the Deep State henchmen have been able to control the masses with relative ease. The unanticipated rise of Donald Trump to the most powerful role in the world gave many critical thinking, anti-big government, skeptical curmudgeons hope he could drain the swamp and begin to deconstruct the massive out of control Federal bureaucracy.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY – U.S. withdraws from Vietnam – 1973
Two months after the signing of the Vietnam peace agreement, the last U.S. combat troops leave South Vietnam as Hanoi frees the remaining American prisoners of war held in North Vietnam. America’s direct eight-year intervention in the Vietnam War was at an end. In Saigon, some 7,000 U.S. Department of Defense civilian employees remained behind to aid South Vietnam in conducting what looked to be a fierce and ongoing war with communist North Vietnam.
Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – U.S. withdraws from Vietnam – 1973”
THIS DAY IN HISTORY – President Carter pardons draft dodgers – 1977
On this day in 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter grants an unconditional pardon to hundreds of thousands of men who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War.
In total, some 100,000 young Americans went abroad in the late 1960s and early 70s to avoid serving in the war. Ninety percent went to Canada, where after some initial controversy they were eventually welcomed as immigrants. Still others hid inside the United States. In addition to those who avoided the draft, a relatively small number–about 1,000–of deserters from the U.S. armed forces also headed to Canada. While the Canadian government technically reserved the right to prosecute deserters, in practice they left them alone, even instructing border guards not to ask too many questions.
Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – President Carter pardons draft dodgers – 1977”
Christmas in a Vietnamese Jungle
Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer
My Uncle has always been a role model for me. He was only 13 years old the year I was born so he seemed more like a brother to me than anything else. He volunteered to serve in the Army when he was 18 years old and became a paratrooper that same year. He was sent to Viet Nam in the early part of the war and I remember well how much my grandparents looked forward to each letter that he would send and how they would read them aloud at the kitchen table.
The stories he told about his friends and what they were doing always excited something in me and it was no surprise that when I was old enough I also joined the Army and became a paratrooper as well, emulating a man I looked up to my entire life. He has served as an inspiration to me, his honesty, loyalty, work ethic and character were unsurpassed and in the years since his retirement as a Federal agent he bought a ranch and has lived a lifestyle I admire and respect. He reads everything I write and always has kind words for my work.
THE ART OF PEACE
Bob Moriarty runs the 321gold website. He has been a huge supporter of TBP for years. His linking to many of my articles has driven many new visitors to the site. I check his site out daily to find interesting articles. His site is stridently anti-interventionist and against the expansion of the America Empire. He recently notified me that he had written a book about his war experiences. I was blown away after reading the introduction below. After reading this introduction, I’m hooked. The link below will take you to the book on Amazon.
The youngest Naval Aviator during the Vietnam era was another Marine pilot who had a date of rank as a second lieutenant when he was nineteen, got his wings and was flying the hottest fighter aircraft in the world, the F-4B, when he was only twenty. He became a 20-year-old first lieutenant and a 22-year-old captain in the Marines. He flew 832 missions in combat in Vietnam.
That would be me. I was a warrior.
Getting my wings at that age was an accident of timing. The legal justification for the Vietnam War was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed on August 7, 1964. My eighteenth birthday was a month later, on September 9, and I enlisted in the Marine Corps a week after my birthday. I became the youngest Naval Aviator because I started earlier.
Fifty years ago as I write, I was in primary flight training at Saufley Field in Pensacola, and a few days away from my first solo flight in the T-34B.
WAR HERO
I laughed out loud when I saw this clip of Trump talking about McCain. He’s right. McCain was a bad pilot. He had crashed his planes multiple times. He was captured and tortured. He cracked while in captivity. He’s no hero. He’s a corrupt warmongering politician who became wealthy while in office.
I love having Trump in the race. He’s hysterical.