We LOST the war in Vietnam...there WERE atrocities...

[Raven]

have the American people had a collective brain dump? We pulled out of Vietnam with desperate Vietnamese clinging to helicopters as they tried to take off and evacuate Americans from that country. There were atrocities...anyone who was there will tell you that...there were children killed by napalm...there were civilian Vietnamese killed by mistake...there were American officers fragged by their own men...lots of fragging went on over there...it was a ugly, ugly time in America...that war was very similar to what we are seeing today in Iraq. And this country is almost as torn up over this war as we were 305 years ago.

Deep in their heart of hearts, most Vietnam Vets know that what John Kerry said about this war when he testified before Congress 35 years ago was correct...they might not like to be reminded that they fought in a lousy warthat there were atrocities and that they lost years of the lives because of a lost cause...but that's just the sad fact. THE SWIFTBOAT VETS CANNOT REVISE HISTORY as they would like to do. The people who agree with them were never going to vote for Kerry anyway.

It's also a sad fact that we are now in another lousy war and that there have been atrocities committed by our own people. It is a convenient escape for people to focus on the past and grind old axes than to face what we are doing wrong today.

[blondeatlast]

1. I was still young when we pulled out, but I remember.

Sadly, I think it was such a horribly painful time for the nation (especially after the assassinations of JFK, MLK, and RFK) that many have tried very hard to put it out of their minds.

But I honestly believe that the more Bunnypants makes an issue of it, the more it will backfire. No one WANTS to remember, but it's being pushed upon them, and if we can just remind everyone that our kids are dying now in Iraq and Afghani-whatever (that was intentional), they wuill see that the one to lead us to peace is the one who was a warrior.

[kentuck]

2. I remember the first time I heard about it...

I was in the village of Ba Ngoi and was talking with some villagers and they told me that many women and children had been killed....hundreds they said. This was probably some time around March of 1968. I do not recall when it became public here in America? However, I assured them that Americans did not do such things...

But, it was a larger atrocity in a country of daily atrocities, from frags of COs, to throwing them out of planes, to carrying them like pigs strapped over poles, to cutting off body parts - every imaginable part, to burning them alive...but, for many young soldiers they thought it just a part of war...where the cruel and unusual become the norm...

[Raven]

4. Oh Kentuck! This is what I mean about all you guys having to

deal with this again and again. My husband (Will's dad) got a Bronze Star and would never talk about how he got it. He would never talk about Vietnam at all, for that matter. It is a terrible burden to carry and we are doing it again to our young people. I think that if we don't win this election, we may be lost.

[REVOLT823]

3. Read any personal account of a person in

Vietnam, and episodes of atrocities are evident. In fact, everyone I have read has had recollections of bad things.

[jonnyblitz]

5. great post raven!

:thumbsup:

[salib]

6. It makes me wonder what Kerry himself must be dealing with

Here is a man who went to war, volunteering to be a part of the carnage. Realized that it was not the just and moral that many tried to portray it as, but he acted upon his conscience and sense of duty. Then, he did so again by testifying and returning his metals, in a manner that he knew would brand him for life as a war protester, and for some as simply disloyal. What a complex and difficult set of decisions, and what a brave road he has taken. He has never backed away from those actions or convictions, and that is incredibly rare.

So, now, he has to defend his actions against gross lies, while not entirely in favor of those actions anyway. He obviously never laid a incredible amount of importance upon those medals, and I think certainly recognizes that simply because you have served or are decorated it does not make you a better person per se. It is what one does with those lessons that is important, and I think Kerry has proven himself worthy of real respect.

[Warren DeMontague]

7. And the war was fundamentally misguided and wrong.

Let's talk about Vietnam. Let's talk about the fact that Ho Chi Minh worked with the US during WWII. Let's talk about how he copied the Declaration of Independence almost verbatim in 1945 when declaring an independent Vietnam, the culmination of several centuries of Vietnamese nationalist aspirations. Let's talk about how we sold him and his people down the river to appease the French, who the GOP love so much. Let's talk about the full-country elections that were scheduled to take place in 1956, that Eisenhower and the illegitimate SVN gov't put the kabosh on, because Ho Chi Minh would have won in a landslide.

Let's talk about the lies, the deception, the blind-wrong headedness, and the fundamental misunderstanding of the people involved (all pertinent to our situation today, IMHO) and how they combined to precipitate an unmitigated human disaster.

One more thing, that is apparently lost on the Swift Boat Group and others... Criticizing the war is not an indictment of the men who fought in it. The blame for the conduct of the war lies with the people at the top. To say the war was wrong is not to say the men who fought it were wrong; they believed the lies they were told. The folks who should be held accountable are the folks who lied, and knew they were lying.