CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
Some real danger, but mostly overblown stuff. This favorite of mine has a copy hanging in our History offices at ISU:
The Vietnam War by Ken Burns on PBS
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Some real danger, but mostly overblown stuff. This favorite of mine has a copy hanging in our History offices at ISU:
For most everything after the late '60's it's easy to say contrived but right after WWII with Russia squatting on half of eastern Europe and China openly promoting revolutions it's more understandable. I get the reactions driven by Stalin and Mao regimes but not adjusting and thinking about it more was pretty unforgivable. With that in mind, so what if that whole region had gone communist? How would a communist indochina affect us one way or the other? If we had just left it alone, would it even have been hard core commie? Ho Chi Minh was more of a nationalist that a hard core communist. But, like so many wars and conflicts it comes down to a **** swinging contest without thinking that maybe not just whipping it out might be the best move.
I came up in the 1970's. One of my earliest news memories was Cronkite reporting about the fall of Saigon.
The 70's seemed like a period where people just said WTF let me look dirty as hell and listen to soft sounds in the radio.
1980 seemed like America took a bath, bought a suit and went back to work.
What would the world be today if America beat back the Russians after WWII and invaded China during the Korean war? We had that small window of complete nuclear advantage.
Missed opportunity?
because journalist in Vietnam were documenting what armies do. People saw pictures and videos of human beings suffering. The saw villages being torched, they saw kids running with severe burns from Napalm, they saw dead bodies, people roped together. It was nothing out of the ordinary for a combat zone, but to a lot of the viewing audience, it sure didn't look like a John Wayne film. Sadly, and just like in any war, there were some atrocities committed by US Forces. Plus, people didn't understand how psychologically challenging Vietnam was for the GI's, and that certainly could have been a contributing factor in some of the bad things that happened. It wasn't like other regular conventional wars we fought. Our guys didn't know who or where the enemy was most of the time. Many didn't exactly understand what we were fighting for or what the objective was. The average age of a combat soldier in Nam was 19, in WWII it was 25. Just from brain development and wiring , a 25 year old can handle war better than a 19 year old. The people that mistreated the GI's just didn't understand, they made a mistake. All of their anger should have been directed at positions , and none of it at the GIs.
I think it was in "Part 3: The River Styx" where they made a comment that I wasn't aware of. They said that during WWII the media was censored. I was stunned to hear that. But much of the distinction between wars was the role the media played.
Nobody wants to be Ford associated with the last chopper out of Saigon image.
The imperial presidency is such that, if one cannot win a war, then merely prolong it. If you cannot win, do not lose. The material and human costs of such an odious plan are meaningless relative to the immediate political advantages and how much that helps future historians and revisionists give you a pass for not being the loser. Nobody is ever going to blame the final failure of Afghanistan on Obama a this point given not much changed during his time in office.
Having lived through it, we got a lot of nerve whining about terrorism.
would it be fair to say that a lack of a cohesive and recognizably "evil" enemy such as say......Nazis would have contributed to this as well? It's easier to gloss over the burning of Dresden when you see images of concentration camps. Though as I say that I wonder why Korea didn't have the same results. Probably because it wasn't on tv.
So far it has been really good. But I am a little confused as I thought the Vietnam War was ALL Nixon and Kissinger's fault... jimlad
I can't believe these people being interviewed can talk about this so cleanly.
Can't remember which one it was, but I remember doc in college about Vietnam and the veterans in it struggled big time.
Incredible story telling and footage.
Can't remember which one it was, but I remember doc in college about Vietnam and the veterans in it struggled big time.
Incredible story telling and footage.
Eisenhower refuses to get us in deep or help the French while Kennedy, Johnson, and their East Coast liberal "best and brightest" pals go all the way with a great plan.
Still somehow the Republicans' fault, right?
and Eisenhower also warned against our economy getting to reliant on the military industrial complex. He was afraid we were creating monster. He was Republican in brand name, but a far cry from what the conservative movement is today. Also, there were plenty of Dems, against the war. Don't see many republicans against it in the list in the link below. So for you to call out one party but not the other, is not accurate when it comes to Vietnam. But there is no doubt, the war was mismanaged and ill-conceived by Johnson and Nixon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Congressional_opponents_of_the_Vietnam_War
Don't see many republican congressmen apposed to it.
Session 4 was hard to watch - apprehensive about future episodes as I was to be on the last bus drafted out of my home state. I ended up 4F due to medical (and to this day, I am bothered I did not go) my three classmates went without me. Two never made it back, the third was proud to have served until he reached the USA and was spit on and jeered upon. I ended up in jail that night fighting for my friend. And once I returned home, I received my only hug from my father, with a "Thank You". Proud to say my father served in Germany - yet never spoke a single word of what he went through. It was emotional to see the activities both war and political. I thought it was interesting to hear the quote "I did not really know much about the War of 1812, which was pretty much a draw, or the Civil War which where half of America lost, and the Korean War where we won the fist half and lost the second half - but I have been taught America never loses."
With all my heart and soul - I thank all service men and women and their families for their service and lives they have sacrificed.
With all my heart and soul - I thank all service men and women and their families for their service and lives they have sacrificed.
I think you missed some of the sarcasm there. I agree, though, that Eisenhower was a very smart cookie and a far cry from a modern movement conservative. I also think much of Congress' fecklessness in abdicating its oversight duties on war and war-making began in Vietnam with both parties. The buck has to stop with Kennedy and Johnson at some point, though.
How can you look at Vietnam and everything that brought us to war and not find fault across the board?
Hell go back to Truman not objecting to de Gaulle's want to re-colonize Indochina. Eisenhower banged the drum for the Domino Theory. The Domino Theory set the pieces in motion for the entire Vietnam Tragedy
Nixon strongly believed the US could bomb the Viet Cong into going to the bargaining table. It only hardened their resolve.
Breaking this into a D vs R issue seems to be paining with crayons when this was a complex slide into a very bad situation. The French handed us the playbook that even included the ending. America plowed ahead
I agree, it was a bipartisan fubar. That was my original point.
I once saw a documentary on the History Channel, back when they had shows about history, and they interviewed a man who was part of the North Vietnamese delegation at the Paris peace negotiations. He stated that our bombing campaigns had devastated the North to the point where they were ready to sign a deal. But when massive protests broke out in the US, Ho Chi Minh decided to wait us out instead.
The bombings were cut back, and the war raged on.
