First off my Apologies to the vets that fought the war I know there are some tough stories and lives were changed forever. However my young life was shaped around the War, my dad was drafted ,all the protest, media etc was impossible to escape. Other than sports and the space program everyone had an opinion on it but no one ever really talked about it objectively. I am interested in the history not as entertainment just in the different views because we only got the anti while it was happening. I've read every book and seen every documentary or movie about the war. In September Ken Burns does an 18 hour 10 part documentary on PBS about the war. If it's anything like his WWII doc it will be epic. "Vietnam The 10,000 day war " is the documentary standard on Vietnam it will be interesting to see if there is any bias in this one or just a straight story trough the eyes of the guys involved. Check out the link I think it will be worth the time to put it on your schedule.
I spent 4.5 year over there, 2.5 years working with the Army, living on Army base camps in III corp, and in the delta. The last 2 years I spent working with the VNAF (Vietnamese Air Force. So I have some unique perspectives.
I was not over there as a GI, but as a mercenary mechanic. Working on DOD contracts.
Not everything on PBS is tainted. Ken Burns is a great documentary maker....I am looking forward to it. Myself......back in the day.......I spit on the worthless hippies not the vets who were returning. By the time I was old enough the armed forces weren't really hiring and had busied themselves "drawing down" the military which has always proven to be a mistake.
Thanks Whitey for the heads-up - it will be on my calendar.
From the promo:
"THE VIETNAM WAR is a ten-part, 18-hour documentary film series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that will air on PBS in September 2017.
In an immersive 360-degree narrative, Burns and Novick tell the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never before been told on film. THE VIETNAM WAR features testimony from nearly 80 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides."
I was Physical Therapy and got to know a man that started his CIA career in Vietnam. Every time we were there I could get a little bit of information from him. He was also an uncle of one of the employees there. He was a shorter than average guy, very unassuming. He said coming back to the US they were encouraged not to wear their uniforms flying home. He didn't care he was proud of what he did. He was walking down a conciurse and this Shari Krishna guy came running up to him and screamed baby killer. Well his corked popped. He grabbed him by the throats and threw him through a glass window separating the concourse and seating at one of the gates. Knocked the dude senseless. So he just sat down and waited for the airport security to haul him off. In a few minutes here The came and asked him what happened. He explained he was coming back from Vietnam and told them what he just did. To his surprise the guy reached out and shook his hand, then thanked him for his service. The security officer then went over to the HK still lying on the ground and planted a foot in his backside and then escorted him out of the airport. My son in laws dad spent three tours in the marines over there. His two uncles one a Green Beret one a ranger spent 5 tours between them. They were all three over there at the same time. They tried to force one of them to leave because of the policy of not wanting three brothers in a combat zone. My son in laws dad Was a MSGT and said I'm not going and his two brothers said the same thing except in a not so nice response. Three years ago Agent Orange related cancer took my son in laws dad.
Organized "modern" armies simply cannot effectively fight guerilla warfare in rough terrain without committing horrible atrocities. Julius Caesar in Gaul, the taming of the American West, the Philippine-American War, Vietnam, and the list goes on. I think its unreasonable to ask an army to win in that kind of situation if you are not ok with human rights atrocities. The public and government should not ask the military to be there in that situation if they cannot stomach what will have to be done to win. You will literally have to kill half the population and destroy a culture if you want to actually win that kind of war.
I disagree. A modern army like ours can fight that kind of war and can win that kind of war. The politicians just need to let the generals run the show and do it.
Just like the war we are in now. Who's the enemy? One day you're sipping tea with a trained vetted Afghan police officer. The next day he shoots you. We have a grave nearby with one of our young men in it that was what happened. Conventional war you know who the enemy is because of their uniform. With Vietnam Hanoi should have been made to look like Dresden in WWII. Let the Military do what they are trained to do.
I have a Coastie buddy who was an Army platoon SGT over there. He has some good stories.
I was getting a whitetail mount done a few years back. While in the taxi's workshop, the subject of the military and fighting came up. After a bit, he pulled some photo albums out of a cabinet. He was in the Army over there. He was a shutterbug of sorts taking pics of things he seen in country. He had some pics of captured VC standing inline with their hands tied behind their backs awaiting interrogation by the interpreters and civilian guys....he thought were likely CIA. He was told not to ask questions. He said there was a Huey there that was coming and going. They would leave with one prisoner, go out and come back a short time later sometimes with no prisoner. He said the rumor was if the prisoner didn't answer the questions, it was a one-way ride. The other VC prisoners would see the helo come back empty and they would load another prisoner on and repeat that part of the interrogation to get the VC to talk. He definitely had the pics of captured VC....I seen them. IMO I suspect there is probably some validity to that story of the one-way helo interrogation ride. Some of you guys that were over there in country may have seen or heard of similar events.
Read any of David Hackworth's Books. If you don't know who that is Google his name. One bad warrior. 10 Silver Stars. Why he was not awarded the Medal of Honor baffles me. Good writer. Highest medal winner in the Korean War. He got drummed out of the Army for going on TV and saying that the US would not win the war because of how it was being handled. Very critical of the White House and the Military. This guy was a natural born killer and was good at what he did.
Used to read Hackworth's column all the time. I think this is my favorite from 08/19/1998. Yeah it's nineteen years old, but still pretty relevant.
Private Ryan, front and center Posted By David Hackworth On 08/19/1998
Mothers, before you believe the line that your daughters should serve in ground combat like your sons, brothers, husbands and fathers might have done, go see “Saving Private Ryan.”
Congressmen and Congresswomen, before you sign that bill putting more pork into your district or state at the expense of the right stuff for the troops who do the dying, go see “Saving Private Ryan.”
Generals and admirals, colonels and captains, before you allow training, discipline and the warrior-ethic to be further degraded, go see “Saving Private Ryan.”
Sergeants and Chiefs, before you execute that dumb order — ushering in another politically correct nitwit idea — from some enlightened, sweet smelling bureaucrat in a distant ivory tower, go see “Saving Private Ryan.”
Drill Sergeants, before you go along with an order to lighten up on your new recruits because you’re told the need to develop hardened warriors who’ll make it through old fashioned combat is obsolete, go see “Saving Private Ryan.”
Defense Secretary Cohen, before you again overrule a panel that has carefully studied why mixing women and men in basic entry training doesn’t work, go see “Saving Private Ryan.”
Defense contractors, before you build the next unneeded but good-for-corporate-bottom-line, gold-plated wonder weapon that gobbles up defense dollars, leaving too little money left to equip and train our men for battle, go see “Saving Private Ryan.”
Newt Gingrich, before you push through another deal in Congress to purchase $1.5 billion worth of C-130 cargo aircraft made in your Georgia district, that the Air Force doesn’t need, go see “Saving Private Ryan.”
Trent Lott, before your order another $1.5 billion carrier to be built in your hometown that the Navy doesn’t want, go see “Saving Private Ryan.”
Veterans who sit in silence while America’s military machine is being destroyed and talk about the good old days when you were young and brave, go see “Saving Private Ryan.”
And those of you who’ve bought the propaganda that women have already served successfully in combat because women soldiers liberated a dog kennel during the invasion of Panama, drove trucks or fixed planes during the Gulf War or pumped gas or directed traffic in Somalia and are thus qualified for future ground combat duty such as was fought at Normandy in 1944 or on the streets on Mogadishu in 1993, go see “Saving Private Ryan.”
Readers, before you believe the Pentagon’s Desert Storm hype that all future wars can be now won in a bloodless 100 hours by pushing buttons, launching smart missiles, maintaining smarter satellites and by a jolly fat TV general with a pointer, go see “Saving Private Ryan.”
Our military has lost its edge since Desert Storm and is terribly vulnerable. Bill Clinton, you are our commander in chief. Before you push your political agenda in any other way that further weakens our forces, go see “Saving Private Ryan.”
RYAN is raw, ugly, brutal, deadly honest and captures infantry battle as no other Hollywood film has.
Steven Spielberg says his masterpiece is an antiwar film. He’s right. Anyone with a lick of common sense that sees it will do anything possible to escape the horror of war.
But “Saving Private Ryan” won’t stop madmen like Saddam Hussein. Just before the monsters three — Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo — brought their holocaust to planet earth, a 1930s war movie “All Quiet on the Western Front” came out. It, too, profoundly affected millions of people but still didn’t stop those mass murderers from killing tens of millions of humans between 1939-45.
So films, regardless of how real and true, do influence our feelings and thoughts but don’t deter war. Only well-trained, well-equipped, well-led soldiers can stop a madman from unleashing the dogs of war. I can only pray that our future congressional leaders before they add more pork to a defense bill will see “Saving Private Ryan.”
Hopefully, “Saving Private Ryan” will jolt enough of us back to our good senses to demand a force with the discipline and sense of mission shown by those fine men who won WWII.
Don’t forget what Captain Miller told Private Ryan just before Miller died: If the sacrifices of our heroic dead are to have any meaning we’ve got to earn it.
He was big on spending money on the foot soldier and not on the latest and greatest doohickey. After all they are the ones that suffer and die. I remember guys having people here sending silly string to spray in a room before entering to detect trip wires.
When has it ever happened in history that an invading army won that kind of war with guerrilla fighters/insurgents/natives without savage butchery? It CAN be won but not without virtually annihilating the people and culture that you are fighting against. If that's you're mission than forget boots on the ground, just bomb the $#!+ out of them. In 1898 there were American troops in the Philippines trying to spread American freedom and democracy and ideals. We were building roads and schools and bringing in doctors. By the time the Americans left, there were roughly 20,000 Philippine troops and 200,000 civilians dead. I just really learned about this war yesterday. Here we are almost 120 years later still trying to do the same thing and wondering why it doesn't work. It's mind-blowing really.
I think some folks in history are/were in the isolationist mindset. If we had countries like North Korea on our northern border (vs Canada) and Syria/ISIS on our southern border (vs Mexico), would they still have isolationist leanings? Their thinking may be as long as those belligerent countries are NIMBY, why worry about them or get involved with what their leaders do? I think that is where the dilemma arises.....as long as they're not in my back yard....who cares what they do. On the flip side of the dilemma....at what point should the people say or do something about atrocities or belligerent countries a continent away? An often repeated litmus test for getting involved is....."is it in our country's interest?" If North Korea crossed the border and invaded or nuked South Korea or Japan, is that in our county's interest to get involved?
We have made alliances with countries and it usually comes back to bite us sometime. At some point he's liable to get a bullet from in his country of NK. If he decides to go into SK we have troops that are in harms way. If he ever does launch a missle at the US we should level the place. Let the rest of the world know, especially Iran, this is the consequence for launching a first strike at us. If the UN decides to put sanctions against us? Every country that has diplomats here, send them packing. Lock the doors on the UN and send them packing too. Then level it and build something useful there. If other nations come to there senses then we can allow their diplomats back. I don't believe in launching a first strike against NK. I also don't believe we should back him into a corner where he feels he has no options. We do need to work at getting China and Russia to stop helping them out. Starve them so their own military will kill him.
Only those who walked that ground can give you a honest perspective. I stand aside and let pass every Vietnam Vet I see wearing a cap. I cried a barrel of tears for those who fell and no less for those who returned. Not a good time in my life when bad news was never ending. Philadelphia sacrificed the highest causalities from any two high schools in the country barely 8 miles apart. One parochial, one public.
I read some of David Hackworth's books while still on active duty (21+ years). The things that have stuck with me 38 years after first reading him are his criticisms of the structure of our military branches.
1) Too many things are un-necessarily duplicated. Things like supply, mess services, personnel and weapons procurement. They could all be handled by a single entity working for all the branches instead of each branch spending money and manpower resources in duplicate, triplicate and even quadruplicate.
2) The biggest thing that still nags at me was his assessment of what he called ticket punchers. Those officer (especially officers) that were placed in certain situations simply to have it appear on their record so they could be more attractive to a promotion board. For instance, he points out the practice of having every Tom, Dick and Harry Capt, Maj, and Lt Col go up in a helicopter to simply view an ongoing battle from a totally safe altitude/distance so that they would qualify, and get, the same Bronze Star, Silver Star or "combat credit" that the grunts actually IN the fight were going to get. As a result, we later had a large crop of phony "leaders" with so-called combat experience and actual rank they didn't really deserve.
I'll leave it there as it's pissing me off all over again.
Old Sarge he was one of those men that I believe he thought he couldn't be killed. I remember reading one story about one his friends that was a fast runner. He would run across levees to draw enemy fire so they could find their location and kill them. He was shocked when he heard he was killed because he believed he couldn't be killed. He loved going out at night in Korea. Then in Vietnam when they came out with the infrared scopes they went crazy killing the enemy. Ate the same food as the enemy so they couldn't smell them. They smelled the same as the enemy. He was one of those guys that you could send out at night with just a knife.
