Tag Archives: Vietnam War

International news, military news, Uncategorized

We 'lost' the war … 40 years ago

In a couple of days, many Americans are going to look back four decades at the end of a chapter that turned terribly tragic, not just for the United States, but also for an ally with whom we fought side by side for seemingly forever.

Saigon fell to North Vietnamese Army troops on April 30, 1975. They rolled into the capital city of South Vietnam, took down the defeated nation’s flag at the presidential palace and raised the flag of North Vietnam.

Twenty-five years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Bui Tin in Hanoi, the man who accepted the surrender of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. He was in the tank that had smashed through the gate at the presidential palace and accepted the surrender of South Vietnamese president Duong Van “Big” Minh.

I was among a group of journalists touring the country and Bui Tin was among the dignitaries we got to meet. He told us his memories of the end of the Vietnam War.

Bui Tin, of course, was on the winning side.

His memory is different from that of some of the journalists who questioned him that day. A handful of us had served in Vietnam during the war. But what a marvelous encounter it was to talk candidly with a key player in that long and tragic struggle.

I wrote a blog for Panhandle PBS, which tonight broadcast a special, “The Last Days in Vietnam.” It tells the story of the end of that war. It was inglorious for our side.

http://www.panhandlepbs.org/blogs/public-view-john-kanelis/last-days-in-vietnam-recalls-true-heroism/

For our former enemy, well, it meant something quite different. The “American war” had ended. The enemy outlasted us, even though military historians have noted for decades that we actually prevailed on the battlefield. We inflicted far more casualties on them than they did on us. We scored military victory after military victory against the NVA and the Viet Cong.

Talk about losing the battles but winning the war.

They had the patience we didn’t have.

I ran across this quote, from North Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, who in December 1966 said this to New York Times reporter Harrison E. Salisbury:

“How long do you Americans want to fight? … One year? Two years? Three years? Five years? Ten years? Twenty years? We will be glad to accommodate you.”

Yes, they were glad.

It was being fought on their ground, in their homes … and on their terms.

And we haven’t gotten over it yet.

political news

Be careful with war references, politicians

Listen up, politicians.

Whether you’re running for president of the United States, any seat in Congress, the statehouse or a seat at City Hall, take care when referencing any military experience.

There will be folks out here who are listening to your every word.

Roy McDowell is running for mayor of Amarillo. He’d been referring in public statements to his military service “in Vietnam.” Turns out McDowell didn’t serve in-country, but served during the Vietnam War era.

Why bring this up? Because some of us who actually did serve in Vietnam are keenly aware of these things and want to be sure that all vets — whose service is honorable — portray their service honestly.

Is this a deal-breaker? Probably not, but McDowell and other politicians need to be acutely aware that the world is watching and listening.

He’s not the first politician to fudge a little. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., did a doozy of a job mischaracterizing his own military service before being elected to the Senate. He, too, said he’d served in Vietnam when he hadn’t. Bad call, senator.

This also reminds me of a young man whose acquaintance I made some years ago. He told my wife and me he “flew helicopters” in Bosnia and Kosovo in the mid-1990s. When he said he “flew,” I assumed immediately he piloted them. We would talk about his experience “flying” Apache choppers for the Army. I assumed, of course, that he either was a warrant officer or was commissioned. He well might have flown aboard the choppers, but perhaps as a crew member.

Why make that leap? Well, years later, I happened to be browsing through his office and discovered his discharge certificate on a wall. It listed his rank as private, E-1. What? How could he have “flown” helicopters if he’s a mere enlisted man — and a buck private to boot?

Take great care, politicians. If you fudge on your service record, you can be caught.

 

national news, political news

Did Kerry 'mock' protester? I don't think so

The media are reporting that Secretary of State John Kerry “mocked” a young woman who shouted during his testimony at a congressional hearing that the United States should stop killing innocent people while striking out against the Islamic State.

I believe the media have it wrong. The link attached to this brief post is of Kerry’s response to the protester.

Kerry mocks protester during ISIS hearing

I didn’t hear a mocking tone in his stern lecture to the individual about the damage that ISIL is doing all by itself to innocent victims.

The Hill also takes note of Kerry’s own anti-war protests during the Vietnam War, in which he served heroically as a U.S. Navy swift boat commander. He came home to take up the cause for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and he testified eloquently before Congress about why the United States should get out of that terrible conflict.

OK, so he protested once. He then went on to serve in the Senate and in 2004 ran as the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.

He knows war. He knows the damage it does. He knows of its insanity. And he most certainly understands the rights of citizens to protest against U.S. policy.

He didn’t “mock” the protester.

 

military news

Some expressions become meaningless

People extend greetings or offer certain expressions that at times — all too frequently, actually — seem like clichĂ©.

“Have a nice/blessed/wonderful day.” “How ya doin’?” “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Those three have become trite and, frankly, hackneyed.

A New York Times essay tells of veterans who don’t like people saying, “Thank you for your service.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/please-don%e2%80%99t-thank-me-for-my-service/ar-BBhPFEn

Why is that? According to the Times, vets feel that the expression of thanks from non-veterans rings shallow, tinny, insincere. As one vet told the Times, those offer such expressions “don’t have skin in the game,” meaning they haven’t seen war in Afghanistan or Iraq.

I kind of understand the feeling here. Thanking someone for their service does sound like something one is supposed to say — even when the expression of thanks comes from the heart of the person offering it.

Matt Richtel’s article states: “To these vets, thanking soldiers for their service symbolizes the ease of sending a volunteer army to wage war at great distance — physically, spiritually, economically. It raises questions of the meaning of patriotism, shared purpose and, pointedly, what you’re supposed to say to those who put their lives on the line and are uncomfortable about being thanked for it.”

One of the vets Richtel interviewed had an interesting take on these expressions: The idea of giving thanks while not participating themselves is one of the core vet quibbles, said (Michael) Freedman, the Green Beret. The joke has become so prevalent, he said, that servicemen and women sometimes walk up to one another pretending to be ‘misty-eyed’ and mockingly say ‘Thanks for your service.’

“Mr. Freedman, 33, feels like the thanks ‘alleviates some of the civilian guilt,’ adding: ‘They have no skin in the game with these wars. There’s no draft.’

“No real opinions either, he said. ‘At least with Vietnam, people spit on you and you knew they had an opinion.’”

I never got spit on when I came home from Vietnam. But I’ve discovered that a particular expression does resonate with Vietnam veterans. It’s a pretty simple statement that we didn’t hear much back then: Welcome home.

As the vets interviewed by the Times said, they appreciate hearing from those who’ve been there. Those who haven’t, well, those expressions of thanks at times make today’s vets bristle.

As Richtel writes: “(Hunter) Garth appreciates thanks from someone who makes an effort to invest in the relationship and experience. Or a fellow vet who gets it. Several weeks ago, he visited one of his soul mates from the mud hut firefight, which they refer to as the Battle of the Unmarked Compound. They drank Jameson whiskey in gulps.

“’We cried in each other’s arms until we both could tell each other we loved each other,’ Mr. Garth said. ‘We each said, thank you for what you’ve done for me.’”

 

 

national news, political news

Rudy talks himself out of relevance

Two of the smarter pundits — one a liberal, the other a conservative — have found common ground on the remarks delivered recently by former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani.

Mark Shields and David Brooks agree that Guiliani’s assertion that President Obama doesn’t “love America” are unacceptable and the Republican Party to which Guiliani belongs needs to call him out.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/02/21/david_brooks_giulianis_comments_unacceptable_incumbent_upon_republicans_to_police_the_party.html

What “America’s Mayor” seems to be doing — if the GOP follows through on the advice — is talking himself out of becoming a relevant voice in the nation’s political discourse.

Brooks, who writes a right-leaning column for the New York Times, told the PBS NewsHour that Guiliani’s remarks are “self-destructive” and are just plain wrong.

Guiliani spouted off during a political event honoring Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. It took place in New York City. He prefaced his remarks by acknowledging it was difficult to say, but then he said the president doesn’t love the country he governs.

This is a shameful act of demagoguery.

Shields, whose column tilts to the left, brought up a fascinating element to Guiliani’s doubts about Obama’s patriotism. It was that Guiliani received six draft deferments to get out of serving in the Vietnam War and persuaded a judge to get him reclassified to 2A specifically to keep him from going to war. Are those the actions of a patriot? Shields asked.

Shields also noted: “I go back to John McCain, who in 2008, when this was a hot issue, had the courage to confront a Republican audience in Lakeville, Minnesota, when they made this charge and said, no, that is untrue. President Obama is an American. He cares about this country. He loves this family, and I like him, but I disagree with him on the issues.”

If the mayor is setting the tone for the upcoming GOP presidential primary campaign, then the developing field of candidates talking about entering the race need to switch to a new song sheet.

NewsHour moderator Judy Woodruff did note that several Republican officials denounced Guiliani’s remarks. They were correct to do so.

Brooks responded: “It’s incumbent on Republicans to do that, just to police the party.”

 

military news

Hey, how does 'conflict' sound?

A good friend of mine has an idea about how to deal with the word games being played over what we call the current war we’re waging with international terrorists.

My pal Jim, who lives in Arizona, writes: “Let‘s call it a conflict. Didn’t we use that term before to soften the impact?”

Boy, howdy! We sure did.

Remember the Korean conflict? Or the Vietnam conflict? The “conflicts” in Korea and Vietnam turned into  “wars” eventually, but many headline writers and journalists writing about Vietnam often didn’t capitalize the “w” in “war,” as if to suggest that it wasn’t really a war.

Perhaps this sidesteps the issue. My earlier blog post noted the discussion about whether the Obama administration is right to avoid using the term “Islamic terrorists” to describe the enemy with whom we are at, um, war. My point is that we need not quibble over what to call the enemy, but we should instead concentrate our efforts solely on actually fighting these monsters.

Whatever we call the enemy, or the fight in which we are engaged, it’s a war by any known definition of the word.

I’ve noted before that we’re in a form of a world war, although it doesn’t resemble the two previous world wars in which we fought — Nos. I and II. Those wars involved nations declaring war on other nations. It involved mass mobilizations of men, who then were sent to battlefields to fight men from other nations that had done the very same thing.

Our wars since WWII, though, have materialized differently. We’ve had no formal declaration since President Roosevelt asked Congress on Dec. 8, 1941 to declare that “a state of war has existed” between the United States and Japan.

But we’ve fought actual wars. The men and women who’ve died in battle have been killed just as dead as they were in World Wars I and II.

I told my friend Jim that I’ve always hated the term “conflict” to describe war.

Instead, I prefer to call these fights what they are. And what we’re fighting today is no less gruesome and deadly than any war we’ve ever fought.

 

political news

'Born in the U.S.A' hardly a campaign theme

Bruce Springsteen makes great music and some of his songs have become American anthems — of sorts.

Should politicians running for public office use a particular song, “Born in the U.S.A.,” to somehow proclaim the nation’s greatness?

Highly debatable. Yet former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who’s thinking of running for president next year, strode onto a stage to that particular song.

As the blog attached by John Fea notes, Perry needs to think carefully about using this song as a campaign theme.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/02/14/why_rick_perry_should_think_twice_before_he_makes_born_in_the_usa_his_theme_song_125604.html

It’s not exactly a love song to the United States of America, as Fea points out.

The lyrics tell a story of a Vietnam War veteran’s heartache when he returns home and can’t get a job. His country didn’t take very good care of him. Springsteen sings about his “brother” who died in battle and how the love of his life is left with just a picture of him.

Fea notes that President Reagan in 1984 sought to wrap himself in the lyrics of the song, apparently believing they paid tribute to our great nation. They don’t — at least not in any traditional sense.

But as the blogger notes, Republican presidential candidates are going to pattern their own themes after The Gipper, perhaps even mimicking President Reagan’s misplaced salute to song lyrics that don’t mean quite what they think they mean.

Be careful, Gov. Perry.

It’s a great song, to be sure. Is it the stuff about which you should frame your campaign? Think again.

 

military news, national news, political news

Take care in defining 'combat veteran'

It didn’t take Joni Ernst long to make a name for herself in the U.S. Senate.

The Iowa Republican is now defending her military record in which she defines herself as a “combat veteran.”

I would caution her to speak very carefully when using such terminology.

At issue is her service in an Iowa National Guard transportation company in Iraq and Kuwait in 2003 and 2004. She calls herself a “combat veteran” even though she didn’t face enemy fire during her deployment in the Middle East.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/joni-ernst-says-she-earned-the-right-to-call-herself-a-combat-veteran-despite-never-seeing-combat/

Sen. Ernst defends her record, saying that because she drew hazardous duty pay while deployed, she has earned the right to call herself a combat vet.

“I am very proud of my service and by law I am defined as a combat veteran,” Ernst said. “I have never once claimed that I have a Combat Action Badge. I have never claimed that I have a Purple Heart. What I have claimed is that I have served in a combat zone.”

Technically, she is correct. But it is a technicality that can be misconstrued. She needs to be careful how she uses such language in the future.

I understand where she’s coming from. I, too, served in a war zone for a time. The Vietnam War was raging when I arrived in-country in the spring of 1969. I received hazardous duty pay while serving as a U.S. Army aircraft mechanic and later as a flight operations specialist at the I Corps Tactical Operations Center in Da Nang.

Do I refer to myself as a “combat veteran”? No. I didn’t see direct combat — except for having to run for cover while the Viet Cong lobbed mortars into our position on occasion.

Sen. Ernst is rightfully proud of her service in Iraq and Kuwait, as I am of my service many years ago during another armed conflict.

But be careful, senator, when using terms such as “combat vet,” especially around those who’ve actually seen the real thing.

 

national news, political news

Second thoughts on 'scum' comment

We’re all entitled to having second thoughts, aren’t we?

I put a tweet out there a few days ago in response to Sen. John McCain’s angry comment at protesters who were holding up signs while several former secretaries of state were testifying before McCain’s Senate Armed Services Committee.

He called them “low-life scum.” I said they were entitled to protest.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/02/01/mccain-im-still-outraged-by-kissinger-protesters-at-hearing/?tid=sm_tw

Well, McCain’s anger was justified in one important sense.

One of the former diplomats they were accosting in the hearing room was 91-year-old Henry Kissinger, who served Presidents Nixon and Ford and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating an end to the Vietnam War. Also testifying with Kissinger were Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice.

Yes, the demonstrators had a right to protest. They should have demonstrated at least a bit of decorum and kept their distance from Kissinger, Rice and Albright. Kissinger in particular was actually threatened physically by the demonstrators, who were carrying signs that declared Kissinger to be a “war criminal.”

McCain made no apologies for his outburst. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have apologized, either.

“Of course, I was outraged, and I’m still outraged. It’s one thing to stand up and protest. It’s another to physically threaten an individual,” Chairman McCain said.

You were right to be angry, Mr. Chairman.

 

national news

Snipers are not 'cowards'

Michael Moore’s assertion that snipers are cowards comes apparently from his father’s experience during World War II.

Therefore, the filmmaker asserts that snipers are cowardly because they don’t fight “fair.”

http://www.people.com/article/michael-moore-explains-snipers-tweets-american-sniper

His comments came as a critique of “American Sniper,” the film about the late Chris Kyle, whose exploits as a Navy SEAL sniper in Iraq have become the stuff of military legend.

I’ll just add that snipers are as brave as frontline grunts — infantrymen who walk the point and expose themselves to enemy fire. They are heroes because they, too, expose themselves to the enemy the moment the muzzle flashes or the sound of the weapon echoes.

Moore sought to walk some of his comments back by praising the Oscar-nominated performance by Bradley Cooper as Kyle. But then he took off after director/producer Clint Eastwood, who — according to Moore — conflates Iraq with Vietnam. He mentions the use of the word “savages” to describe the Iraqis.

Well, that’s the kind of language warriors use to refer to the enemy, Michael.

I, too, saw the film over the weekend and for the life of me, I do not see any confusion between those two wars. Eastwood told a compelling story in riveting fashion.

As for Michael Moore, I believe I’ve heard enough from him on this topic.