Tag Archives: Vietnam War

military news

I’m older, but still confused

There once was a time when I was full of piss and vinegar, and when the United States of America was involved in a faraway war that seemed to have no end in sight.

You know what? I wanted to get into that fight if only to understand why we were fighting it and learn a lesson or two about life in real time. I got my wish and in the spring of 1969 I shipped out to Vietnam. I returned later still confused about what the hell we were doing there.

Bombs were falling and men were dying when I arrived. It all was happening when I returned home.

I’m an old man now. Too old to fight. We’re involved in yet another war, this time with Iran. Donald Trump decided to send in the bombers and, along with Israel, decided to inflict maximum damage to Iranian military command and control.

I am still confused. More so than before. I keep waiting for the POTUS to talk to me and to the nation. He is putting men and women in harm’s way. Some of theåm have died and the commander in chief has yet to acknowledge openly their deaths. He’s talked about the heavy damage U.S. and Israeli forces are inflicting. He says Iranian air defense is gone, along with its offensive capabilities; he says Iranian leadership in a state of chaos.

But … we have no stated exit strategy. No stated goal. No mention of regime change. Or a change in government. Capt. Bone Spurs declares we could be in this fight for a while.

Why? To what end?

Talk to us, Mr. POTUS. I’ll beseech you once more to simply tell us the truth behind why you have committed our young warriors to a war without an apparent end in sight.

national news

Interesting times? Ya think?

Can it be that we all are living in an era that is producing a political climate none of us ever saw coming? I believe that is the case.

Ponder for just a moment a short series of events:

We elected an an individual to the presidency with zero public service experience and whose notoriety was forged on a reality TV show in which he fired make-believe businesspeople.

This individual has insulted a Vietnam War hero, a Gold Star family, a reporter with a physical challenge, and all the men and women who have chosen to wear the uniform of the nation’s military.

He lost an election, declared it — without an ounce of proof — to be a fraud, then instigated an insurrection against the very government he once swore to protect and defend.

He ran a third time for the White House vowing to be the “retribution” of those who cling to his cockeyed views. And he has delivered mightily on that promise.

Donald Trump then vowed to purge the nation of undocumented immigrants and deployed a poorly trained, heavily armed, masked-up army of agents who have killed American citizens on the street, arrested thousands of others wrongly.

What has all of this produced? Chaos, misery, grief, anxiety, heartbreak … and any other sort of emotion one can define.

I am disgusted beyond all measure by what is transpiring in real time in this nation I love with all my heart.

The Chinese proverb about “living in interesting times” doesn’t come within a country mile of defining what we’re enduring these days. It’s frightening, but I’ll say it once more that we have plenty of constitutional weapons we can deploy to fight this hideous trend.

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Vets get overdue respect

High Plains Blogger has called attention over the years to my favorite veteran … that would be my Dad, a World War II Navy vet who saw his share of hell on Earth during his years fighting fascists.

I occasionally speak a bit about my own military experience, which pales in comparison to what Dad endured.

Today, I want to discuss the growing up of the nation, which this week celebrates the millions of men and women who have served in the military. It took a war that we didn’t win on the battlefield for Americans to stoop to new lows in the way it treated its veterans. Many of my colleagues came home to actual scorn from Americans because they followed lawful orders and committed — in the uneducated eyes of their fellow citizens — crimes against humanity.

Baby killers? My ass …

This year veterans are bound to feel love and respect they were denied when we came home from the Vietnam War. I won’t dwell on what happened in the bad old days. Instead, I will call attention to the respect coming from TV commentators who, two generations ago, likely would be leading the jeers intended for the returning veterans.

Whatever. We’ve all grown up. We are more mature these days. I will accept whatever thanks that could come my way as we celebrate those who suit up to defend this nation and protect the rights we all enjoy.

military news

Museum honors men of honor

As a rule, I don’t do reviews of sites I see on this blog, but I visited an exhibit in Arlington, Texas, over the weekend that clearly deserves a mention and a few words of the highest praise I can deliver.

My brother-in-law and I toured the National Medal of Honor Museum across the way from AT&T Stadium. To say it was an experience the likes of which were new to me would do it a terrible injustice. The museum grounds are spectacular, but more importantly the stories they tell visitors are gripping beyond measure.

The museum honors all 3,600-plus recipients of the nation’s highest award for military valor. It is resplendent in pictures of the recipients, some of the pictures showing them in combat. There is a limited amount of text accompanying the photos, and if I had one criticism of the disiplay, I would prefer to read more about the events that resulted in these men being honored with the Medal of Honor.

A quote attributed to one of the recipients tells how he was honored for taking action “on the worst day of my life.” I have seen countless quotes from men who, when asked what propelled them to act with such mind-blowing valor, would say, “I just knew I was going to die so I acted to save the lives of my friends.”

The museum has a virtual reality exhibit in which visitors can sit in a UH-1 Huey helicopter simulator, don glasses and be placed in a medical evacuation mission, or “dust off” flight, to rescue personnel wounded in action in Vietnam.

I am proud to have made the acquaintance of two Medal of Honor recipients, Navy SEAL Mike Thornton and Army Ranger Bob Howard. Their exploits are the stuff of legend. And one of the recipients, Army Lt. Audie Murphy, indeed achieved legendary for his exploits in saving a French village from Nazi troops near the end of the World War II. I mention Murphy because Farmersville, where I work on occasion as a freelance reporter, honors its “favorite son” Murphy every year with a day commemorating his untold heroism.

I was thrilled to see the exhibit and to honor the men who fought so valiantly on so many battlefields to defend our democratic way of life.

Wow!

national news, political news

Shades of earlier intraparty battles

I am amazed at the level of surprise expressed by the talking heads over the growing rift between the MAGA wing of the Republican Party and the rest of once-Grand Old Party.

Why, they just cannot believe the party that is so loyal to Donald J. Trump would turn on itself over whether to go to war with Iran or to resolve the growing problem with immigration.

Really? You cannot believe it? Those of us of a certain age remember another time when another great American political party damn near tore itself to shreds over the conduct of the Vietnam War.

The Summer of Love was anything but amorous when I graduated from high school in 1967. Democrats tore at each other’s throats over the war. It was the Doves vs. the Hawks. A lot of young men were torn about whether to join the war effort or dodge the whole thing. I didn’t get caught up in the struggle. Uncle Sam called on me the following summer and I did my duty.

The nation was torn asunder by the rebellion within the great Democratic Party. The Hawks followed the dictates of President Johnson, who had his allies in Congress. The Doves became smitten first by Sen. Eugene McCarthy and then Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

That was then. The MAGA wing is angry with others within the Republican Party. This time it’s MAGA vs. The Establishment Wing of the GOP.

Where am I going with this? I don’t know, eaxcept to remind you that the country’s internal makeup is strong enough to withstand these internecine battles. The TEA Party once rose to challenge the GOP establishment. My goodness, the very nation declared war on itself in the 1860s over the issue of slavery and it survived once the killing stopped.

I don’t give a crap about the MAGA dipshits who have aligned with our nation’s adversaries in Moscow and who think the current POTUS is a man of character and achievement.

However, none of this new to the nation that was founded on the principle of dissent and seeking “redress of grievances.”

military news

Trump’s parade falls flat

Well, kids, it turns out Donald J. Trump didn’t get nearly the birthday wish he wanted for himself with the military parade through Washington, DC, falling flat on its face.

I intend to explore briefly why that happened.

First of all, it well might be that most Americans finally — finally! — have caught on to Trump’s inauthentic and insincere reverence for the military. He evaded being drafted during the Vietnam War, citing those mysterious bone spurs. Now he’s commander in chief of the world’s mightiest military, so he wanted to stage a parade that coincidentally fell on his 79th birthday.

He said he wanted to salute the Army’s 250th birthday. You and I know the real reason. He wanted to call attention to himself. And that, I suggest, likely didn’t get past the hundreds of thousands of no-show Americans who stayed away from the event.

Trump reportedly lashed out at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for the failure of the parade. No problem there. Hegseth can’t find his ass with both hands as he tries to run the Pentagon. The failure of this event goes far beyond Hegseth’s incompetence. It goes straight to the guts of the man at the top.

Trump only recently said he cannot stand the sight of wounded warriors and said he didn’t want them present for presidential photo ops. He called a Vietnam War hero, the late Sen. John McCain, a loser because he got captured — and was tortured — by the enemy. He has denigrated a Gold Star family because they are Muslim and even though the couple’s son died in combat wearing an Army uniform.

The parade was the kind of thing seen in Moscow or Pyongyang. Except that it never materialized in anything approaching the manner that Donald Trump envisioned.

I am going to hope for all my worth that Americans finally are awakening to the charade that the president of the U.S.A. has been leading.

military news

Honoring the fallen warriors

First, a touch of family history as we prepare to commemorate a holiday to honor those who have fallen in combat.

My Dad and one of my uncles endured the horror of combat during World War II. Dad served in the Navy and my uncle served with an Army aviation unit. Another uncle went through the same while leading an Army infantry company during the Korean War. Many of us from the high school class of 1967 in Portland, Ore., went to war during Vietnam.

Despite all of that, I lost no one close to me during all that exposure to enemy fire. So, Memorial Day, while important and significant to Americans as we honor those who have paid the ultimate price to service to the country, is not an event that sends me spiraling into personal grief.

I have written before on this platform about a young man I knew in Vietnam who did pay the price. His name was Jose DeLaTorre. He hailed from Fullerton, Calif. In July 1969, he mounted a UH-1 Huey helicopter, strapped himself into an M-60 machine gun and ferried some troops to what they all thought would be a routine drop-off. It wasn’t.

The enemy was waiting for our guys at the landing zone and they opened fire with intense fury. Jose died that day. I didn’t know him well. In fact, I knew him only well enough to congratulate him on the orders he had gotten that would send him home after spending about 20 months in Vietnam.

So, I will honor the day by remembering Jose’s service and his sacrifice along with all the many thousands of other Americans who died in service to the nation they — and we — all love with every fiber of our being.

media news

End of war … under dispute

It was 50 years ago this week when a war we thought might never end actually concluded.

The end of the shooting in Vietnam occurred on Aptil 30, 1975 when Bui Tin reportedly accepted the surrender of forces commanded by Durong Van Minh, also known as “Big Minh.” I guess the gentleman was much larger than your average Vietnamese man.

Why bring this up? Well, in November 1989, I had the high honor of meeting Bui Tin in a dingy Hanoi conference room. I was touring Vietnam with fellow journalists and we arranged for a meeting with Bui Tin and heard his first-hand account of what happened the day North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon, captured the enemy government, renamed the city after “Uncle Ho” Chi Minh and began to rebuild the nation torn asunder by decades of war against the Japanese, the French and, finally, the Americans.

Bui Tin eventually fled Vietnam and lived in France for the rest of his life. He died there on Aug. 11, 2018.

He was an unpretentious man, as I recall. He spoke matter-of-factly — through an interpreter — of when he accepted Big Minh’s surrender. His version of events has been disputed by the Vietnamese government in the decades since the end of the war.

For me? I’ll go along with Bui Tin’s story. I recall at the time that he sounded credible and I don’t recall any of my colleagues questioning the veracity of the story he told us.

Many of us among the journalists who made that journey are Vietnam War veterans and for those of us who returned to Vietnam after serving there during war, the whole return was an event that changed many of our lives.

It damn sure changed mine!

The U.S. war effort had ended in January 1973. We brought our remaning troops home, left the embassy in Saigon under fire and began to rebuild our own nation’s life once American blood stopped flowing.

Vietnamese continued to suffer from what we left behind. It’s been quiet there since 1975 and Vietnam is now an ally … of sorts. Yes, even the bitterest of enemies can make it right between them.

national news

RFK is spinning in his grave

Robert Francis Kennedy ran for president of the United States seeking to heal a nation torn apart by divisions over the Vietnam War and over continuing tension among Americans divided by race.

An assassin ended RFK’s bid to heal a nation. They buried the U.S. senator and former attorney general, where he has rested since June 1968.

Now comes his son, RFK Jr., serving as health and human services secretary in an administration led by the most divisive, boorish narcissist imaginable.

I long have wondered what Daddy Kennedy must think about the turn his son has taken.

Bobby Kennedy would turn 100 years old later this year. I believe that were he able he would rise from his grave and throttle his son.

national news

New morality defined

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Republicans have redefined morality, creating a version of the term many of their elders wouldn’t recognize.

The Grand Old Party that once campaigned for public office on a “character matters” platform and once went after a Democratic president hammer and tong because he messed around with women other than his wife now stands foursquare behind a president that has done far, far worse.

And no one seems to care.

Donald Trump has been called a man who builds his relationships on a “transactional” basis, in that he always is looking for something in return for his “friendship.” Let’s say his followers believe in a “transactional morality,” meaning that it doesn’t matter that the man is a slug as long as he adheres to public policy to their liking.

We have elected twice an individual who has denigrated a legitimate Vietnam War hero, mocked a handicapped New York Times reporter, admitted to serial philandering on all of his wives, acknowledged he has sexually assaulted women by grabbing them by their private areas, admitted he never has sought God’s forgiveness, been impeached twice for high crimes and misdemeanors, convicted by a jury on 34 felony counts, been found liable for the rape of a woman … and on and on it goes.

What’s the problem, the MAGA cultists ask. He selects judges who will toss aside a woman’s right to control her body, he does nothing to stem gun violence and vows to be “your retribution.”

Yes, we have entered a new era of morality in which we no longer judge a candidate on his behavior but only on whether he is a good fit politically.

This is a sad time for our still-great country.