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I know two people who were probably celebrating,...John Kerry (winter soldier) and Hanoi Jane Fonda. If Walter Cronkite were still alive he'd probably be the guest of honor.
I know two people who were probably celebrating,...John Kerry (winter soldier) and Hanoi Jane Fonda. If Walter Cronkite were still alive he'd probably be the guest of honor.
I always marveled about the hypocrisy of people like Hanoi Jane, who claimed to care so much about the Vietnamese people during the war, but never acknowledged that the communist 'peace' killed more people than the anti-communist war. They never had the slightest compassion for the people who were killed and tortured in re-education camps, or who drowned out on the high seas trying to escape the unbearable hell that communist Vietnam was for them.
As Ngyuen Cao Ky said "time to get over it". While we lost Vietnam it was a giant step toward the collapse of world communism
Several years after the fall of Saigon my dad and I were going into a Target store in Anaheim, CA. There was a very thin, Asian man standing next to the entrance door smoking a cigarette. I recognized him and started to tell my dad who he was but my dad had already noticed him. As we walked past my father saluted him and said, "General." The man stood at attention and returned the salute. It was Ky.
He owned a liquor store in our area but lived a very low-profile life.
I know two people who were probably celebrating,...John Kerry (winter soldier) and Hanoi Jane Fonda. If Walter Cronkite were still alive he'd probably be the guest of honor.
All Walter Cronkite and John Kerry did was tell the truth.
I always marveled about the hypocrisy of people like Hanoi Jane, who claimed to care so much about the Vietnamese people during the war, but never acknowledged that the communist 'peace' killed more people than the anti-communist war. They never had the slightest compassion for the people who were killed and tortured in re-education camps, or who drowned out on the high seas trying to escape the unbearable hell that communist Vietnam was for them.
I always marveled at how communist North Vietnamese soldiers and their sons and daughters would willingly sacrifice their lives to repel a foreign invader, be they French or American, while ARVN soldiers rarely fought with the distinction and valor of their countrymen to the north.
I always marveled at how communist North Vietnamese soldiers and their sons and daughters would willingly sacrifice their lives to repel a foreign invader, be they French or American, while ARVN soldiers rarely fought with the distinction and valor of their countrymen to the north.
I think that was a problem the U.S. did not grasp from the beginning. Like it or not, many North VN were deeply inspired by their ideology and their leaders.
In the south, an oligarchy of elite, many Roman Catholics, who were only a small minority, lorded it over the mass of people who were far less Westernized and Confucian and Buddhist in orientation. They did not inspire love nor loyalty. It was a tremendous obstacle to the successful pursuit of a war against the VC and the North.
I think that was a problem the U.S. did not grasp from the beginning. Like it or not, many North VN were deeply inspired by their ideology and their leaders.
In the south, an oligarchy of elite, many Roman Catholics, who were only a small minority, lorded it over the mass of people who were far less Westernized and Confucian and Buddhist in orientation. They did not inspire love nor loyalty. It was a tremendous obstacle to the successful pursuit of a war against the VC and the North.
Maybe that was because South Vietnam was truly a "fake" country, created by the US to avoid a free and open election we knew Uncle Ho would win.
I always marveled at how communist North Vietnamese soldiers and their sons and daughters would willingly sacrifice their lives to repel a foreign invader, be they French or American, while ARVN soldiers rarely fought with the distinction and valor of their countrymen to the north.
Despite popular belief, the South Vietnamese did have some excellent individual units; ARVN Rangers, ARVN Special Forces, RVN Marines, RVN Navy SEALS, and some of the ARVN airborne units were just as good as their counterparts in our military. They performed very well at An Loc, Ban Me Thout, Xuan Loc, Easter '72, Cambodia '70, etc. Even our own guys in the Pentagon were suprised at how well they performed in the 1972 Easter Offensive.
As for the PAVN, there is nothing willing about human wave charges and chaining your own troops to their trucks and armored vehicles. They won only due to the weight of numbers (the typical Commie bodies vs bullets strategy). They were decimated in Tet '68 and lost everything they seized. Like the US and RVN forces they were also mostly conscripts.
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