Vietnam War: Top secret US papers published

[The Gadfly]

Originally posted by The Gadfly
Jose, who the hell died and made you the High Priest of Whatever?

Originally posted by BulldozerI
Since when did you become Jesus Christ?

LOL, Gadfly/BulldozerI!!

I'm a "J" but definitely not a "JC".



I had a tumultous adolescence in which I brought great sadness to my parents and they forgave me (of course they did, they're my parents...). So I believe everybody, even Vietnam veterans, must be given every chance and opportunity to express sincere remorse for what they did to Vietnam...

And if they do repent it's as if they never left America. But if they don't I'm not afraid to say they deserve a giant, spiky dildo up their asses while they're still alive and all the fire of Hell after they die.

For such a moralizer, you are a perverted little thing, aren't you, Jose? Damn, you are one sick, twisted little puppy; rather imaginative with the torture routines for someone who claims to abhor the nasty side of war, if you ask me. I'll leave the ethnic insults to others, because I couldn't care less what your background happens to be; I prefer to concentrate on you as an individual.

Is that picture of dead VC combatants supposed to make anyone weep? Sorry, but no. I know what would, though, a picture of the innocent women and children VC just like these raped and tortured to death in village after village, just to keep the peasants they were supposedly "liberating" compliant. No one else here deserves to have to look at the pictures of that I have burned into my brain, but YOU should; you ought to have to look at what your precious little "freedom fighters" did, not to "foreign invaders" but to their own people. You ought to have to look at it, smell it, and hear the screams of those somehow still alive (but dying) after being subjected to it. You ought to have to face the reality of what and who you are praising and mourning for. You ought to have to face it, because they were doing that, long before any American soldier set foot in Vietnam. You ought to have to face it, because the American soldiers you hate so much did NOT go into villages, and torture the inhabitants all night long, the way the VC did. Those dead VC you're asking people here to feel sorry for are the REAL murderers, torturers, and baby-killers of Vietnam, and I mean that in the most literal sense! I wish every sanctimonious bastard like you had to look at that horror. Then you might understand just what we were fighting against. You ought to have to pull the bodies of infants out of the fire they threw them into, the fire they were using to heat the bamboo slivers they tortured everyone from toddlers to the aged with. You ought to have to see every female, from little girls to old women, raped and violated in ways I refuse to even describe here. You ought to have to look at the stuff still imbedded in their bodies. You ought to have to look at women and kids who had every bone in their bodies broken, look at them mutilated in ways so vile you couldn't imagine it, even in your sick fantasies. You ought to have to look at all of it, because until you have, believe me, you only THINK you know what evil truly is. Then again, between your twisted mind, and your hatred for American troops, you might actually get off on it, so long as you could imagine some way to blame us for it. Go crawl back under your rock, you demented hypocrite!

 

[The Gadfly]

LOL, Gadfly/BulldozerI!!

I'm a "J" but definitely not a "JC".



I had a tumultous adolescence in which I brought great sadness to my parents and they forgave me (of course they did, they're my parents...). So I believe everybody, even Vietnam veterans, must be given every chance and opportunity to express sincere remorse for what they did to Vietnam...

And if they do repent it's as if they never left America. But if they don't I'm not afraid to say they deserve a giant, spiky dildo up their asses while they're still alive and all the fire of Hell after they die.

For such a moralizer, you are a perverted little thing, aren't you, Jose? Damn, you are one sick, twisted little puppy; rather imaginative with the torture routines for someone who claims to abhor the nasty side of war, if you ask me. I'll leave the ethnic insults to others, because I couldn't care less what your background happens to be; I prefer to concentrate on you as an individual.

Is that picture of dead VC combatants supposed to make anyone weep? Sorry, but no. I know what would, though, a picture of the innocent women and children VC just like these raped and tortured to death in village after village, just to keep the peasants they were supposedly "liberating" compliant. No one else here deserves to have to look at the pictures of that I have burned into my brain, but YOU should; you ought to have to look at what your precious little "freedom fighters" did, not to "foreign invaders" but to their own people. You ought to have to look at it, smell it, and hear the screams of those somehow still alive (but dying) after being subjected to it. You ought to have to face the reality of what and who you are praising and mourning for. You ought to have to face it, because they were doing that, long before any American soldier set foot in Vietnam. You ought to have to face it, because the American soldiers you hate so much did NOT go into villages, and torture the inhabitants all night long, the way the VC did. Those dead VC you're asking people here to feel sorry for are the REAL murderers, torturers, and baby-killers of Vietnam, and I mean that in the most literal sense! I wish every sanctimonious bastard like you had to look at that horror. Then you might understand just what we were fighting against. You ought to have to pull the bodies of infants out of the fire they threw them into, the fire they were using to heat the bamboo slivers they tortured everyone from toddlers to the aged with. You ought to have to see every female, from little girls to old women, raped and violated in ways I refuse to even describe here. You ought to have to look at the stuff still imbedded in their bodies. You ought to have to look at women and kids who had every bone in their bodies broken, look at them mutilated in ways so vile you couldn't imagine it, even in your sick fantasies. You ought to have to look at all of it, because until you have, believe me, you only THINK you know what evil truly is. Then again, between your twisted mind, and your hatred for American troops, you might actually get off on it, so long as you could imagine some way to blame us for it. Go crawl back under your rock, you demented hypocrite!

How lucky the Mexican must be not have nightmares about World War 1, World War 2, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, etc.,,,What a clean conscience just to blame Americans for all the stuff they are denying those poor Latino illegals.

I don't give a damn if Jose is Mexican, American, Russian, or anything else. This should not turn into a Latino bashing; this is about ONE individual, and the garbage he spews through his keyboard; let's keep the focus on that, because that is where it belongs. Some of the Americans who served in Vietnam were Mexican-Americans. They fought as bravely and honorably as anyone else. Before you start trashing them all, because of this fool, I want you to look up the Medal of Honor citation for MSgt. Roy. P. Benavidez. I want you to read it, and then, I want you to reflect on the kind of courage it takes for any man to do what he did. Roy was a Mexican-American, and if he was not a hero, we had no heroes.

 

[Trajan]

"They won every battle" because "they" was a military behemoth pounding a flea.

If the vietnamese people had anything remotely similar to the US military machine the US army wouldn't have lasted a week.

I would have to disagree with that.

If the Vietnamese had waged a conventional war they would have been beat severely.

Because that type of war is what America does best.

Disagree all you want, Sunni.

It doesn't change the fact that with similar military hardware and proper training they would have crushed the US army in less than a year because their motivation was 1000 times greater than that of american troops.

thats like saying with the proper trng and equipment the Yankees could beat the blackhawks on a grass field...hello...

They were fighting for home not for American interests in a foreign country they couldn't even find on a map of southeast Asia.

the north was fighting in the south for their homes?

 

[José]

How lucky the Mexican must be not have nightmares about World War 1, World War 2, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, etc.,,,What a clean conscience just to blame Americans for all the stuff they are denying those poor Latino illegals.

I don't give a damn if Jose is Mexican, American, Russian, or anything else. This should not turn into a Latino bashing; this is about ONE individual, and the garbage he spews through his keyboard; let's keep the focus on that, because that is where it belongs. Some of the Americans who served in Vietnam were Mexican-Americans. They fought as bravely and honorably as anyone else. Before you start trashing them all, because of this fool, I want you to look up the Medal of Honor citation for MSgt. Roy. P. Benavidez. I want you to read it, and then, I want you to reflect on the kind of courage it takes for any man to do what he did. Roy was a Mexican-American, and if he was not a hero, we had no heroes.

This guy is a lost case, Gadfly... bat shit crazy.

He thinks about and sees evil Mexicans who are out there to get him 24/7... It's so extreme, it can't even be called a paranoid obsession. He blames Latinos for everything bad that has ever happened to America, from the first death in Jamestown to the Wiener scandal.

You don't know him because illegal immigration is not one of your favorite topics.

Anyway, he's a fellow veteran. You're a veteran of the Vietnam War and he's a veteran of at least 80% of all US mental institutions.

 

[The Gadfly]

How lucky the Mexican must be not have nightmares about World War 1, World War 2, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, etc.,,,What a clean conscience just to blame Americans for all the stuff they are denying those poor Latino illegals.

I don't give a damn if Jose is Mexican, American, Russian, or anything else. This should not turn into a Latino bashing; this is about ONE individual, and the garbage he spews through his keyboard; let's keep the focus on that, because that is where it belongs. Some of the Americans who served in Vietnam were Mexican-Americans. They fought as bravely and honorably as anyone else. Before you start trashing them all, because of this fool, I want you to look up the Medal of Honor citation for MSgt. Roy. P. Benavidez. I want you to read it, and then, I want you to reflect on the kind of courage it takes for any man to do what he did. Roy was a Mexican-American, and if he was not a hero, we had no heroes.

This guy is a lost case, Gadfly... bat shit crazy.


He thinks about and sees evil Mexicans who are out there to get him 24/7... It's so extreme, it can't even be called a paranoid obsession. He blames Latinos for everything bad that has ever happened to America, from the first death in Jamestown to the Wiener scandal.

You don't know him because illegal immigration is not one of your favorite topics.

Anyway, he's a fellow veteran. You're a veteran of the Vietnam War and he's a veteran of at least 80% of all US mental institutions.

I'm not into racial or ethnic bigotry, Jose; all I care about, is what kind of American you are, not where your parents or grandparents came from, or what color your skin happens to be. That said the subject at hand is the hatred you spew from your keyboard.

Personally it's not anything I haven't heard before, starting when I got back from 'Nam. Frankly, I've been called worse, and I'd have let it go as the rantings of just one more delusional peacenik, if you had directed it only at me. As it is, you have insulted every American who served in Vietnam, living and dead, and their families. There are people here reading this who lost loved ones in Vietnam; they don't need to hear the trash you express. Those are their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons you are dishonoring and calling war criminals. Those are real people who haven't done a damn thing to you or anyone you sympathize with, and they don't deserve to see the memories of real people they once loved trashed or stained by you, or anyone else. I'll be damned if I'll sit here, and let you have a free shot at defaming the memory of my 58,000 dead brothers, who are no longer here to defend their loved ones, and their own honor, from your hateful garbage..

There are also Vietnam veterans reading this, who are still bearing the burden of that war. Some of them will never walk again, some are blind or missing limbs, some are dying from the effects of Agent Orange, some have wounds you can't see. I'm one of the lucky ones; I may have to live with my PTSD but it has not destroyed my life. Not one of them went to Vietnam because he wanted to slaughter innocent people, Jose, not one. ALL of them deserve better, than to be judged, slammed, and kicked to the curb by people with your views. While you cry over the Cong, maybe you could save a little of that phony "compassion" of yours for them; after all, they are your fellow Americans, aren't they? Or is that too much to ask? In any case, if they did anything wrong, they have been hurt enough, and neither need nor deserve another gratuitous kick in the ass, nor any more demands that they "repent".

You are one more of many who have twisted the doctrine of "Only following orders not being a defense". That was never meant to apply to anyone who had not committed gross and obvious violations of the Laws of War, or genocide. If it had been, we'd have had to try every single German soldier as a war criminal. We didn't do that, not only because it was not practical, but also because it was not right. We directed that concept specifically at those who themselves followed and gave orders they knew were far beyond what is normally done in fighting a war. No one ever meant for that idea to apply to every soldier who simply fought on what someone perceived as the "wrong" side of any conflict. It was never intended to apply to the soldier who otherwise lawfully killed his combatant foes (I notice no one suggested trying the entire Serbian army, either), even in a war the victors decided was "unwarranted aggression". The Allies recognized after Nuremberg that some of what had been done there was problematic justice at that, which is why they were a lot more selective in charging Japanese soldiers as war criminals. Failure to appreciate that, is leading you to actually trivialize words like "war criminal" and "crimes against humanity"; like any fanatic, you paint with too broad a brush.

The vast majority of American troops in Vietnam did not give or carry out orders to commit atrocities; the few who did, were tried for it by the U.S. military; those convicted, went to jail for it. We were neither ordered nor allowed to simply run amok in Vietnam; we had orders, regulations, and rules of engagement to prevent that, and the vast majority obeyed those. Suggestions to the contrary are simply not true. In any event, those of us who are left are old (I think we are all past sixty now, and will answer to the Supreme Commander soon enough, for what we did or didn't do). Incidentally, some of our brothers are homeless, and living on the street; forgotten, forsaken, and kicked to the curb, in large part because people like you convinced America they were just the worthless scrap left over from a failed war; where the hell is your "compassion" for them?

 

[Trajan]

respect? while all the major networks refused coverage of Winter Soldier's washington protest?

debatable that....

I guess then you didn't bother to investigate/read so as to discover thst there was some serious bullshit being peddled ala winter soldier? wow, imagine my surprise.

 

[Trajan]

What Admin lied? JFK's?
I can't imagine that. He was one cool dude.
We need someone like him today. Doubt if he lied to anyone.... He always looked out for what was BEST for America.

God help us when we ever let a president hire his own brother to be Attorney General. Bobby thought he was secretary of state and his crazy fixation on Cuba might have caused the death of JFK. At any rate the brothers were out of control. They authorized the CIA to raise, feed, train and equip a little army of Cuban exiles and abandoned them at the Bay of Pigs. It was LBJ who lied about the Tonkin Gulf crisis and he set the rules in VietNam so that America couldn't possibly win the war even though they won every battle. Just when the US was poised to finally wear out the V.C. after TET Walter Cronkite decided to enter the war and tell Americans that the hard won victory of TET wasn't a victory at all but a stalemate. LBJ quit in front of the whole world and the VC had a new lease on life.

Kennedy took office on JAN 20TH 1961

The Bay of Pigs happened about 90s days later... mid April 1961

There's no way in Hell that operation was something JFK had time to get together. He inherited that mess


Eisenhower authorized $13 million and Department of Defense ... Essentially, the operation called for the training and equipping of a the ex-patriot army of Cubans.

Kennedy's mistake was trusting the CIA's judgement.

Of course, Castro knew everything about the plan and slaughtered that invading force on beaches.

uh huh...sooo does bush get the same leeway for an op 7 months, 3 weeks later ?

 

[Trajan]

Originally posted by Sallow
but the Veterans of the war were doing what their nation directed them to do.

And by doing so they commited a crime, Sallow, they became as criminal as the government that ordered them to do it.

People, get this into your skulls:

America didn't have any CASUS BELLI (reason for war) to interfere with Vietnam's internal affairs. No vietnamese aggression against the US, no nothing... NADA, ZERO, ZILCH. Therefore american soldiers didn't have any right to stomp an ant in Vietnam let alone kill the vietnamese people (combatants or non-combatansts, the distinction is irrelevant when there's no casus belli to speak of)!!

A vietnamese stray dog killed by an american G.I. in an remote, obscure vietnamese village in March, 21, 1965 was a crime!!

Due to the absolute absence of anything remotely resembling a legitimate casus belli, each and every act of violence perpetrated by american soldiers in Vietnam was a crime!!

Imbeciles who "thank Vietnam vets for their service" are actually thanking criminals for the crimes they committed!!

I'll never understand this obsession that exists in America and that seems to be the country's favorite national pastime to give a free pass to the very same people who actually killed hundreds of thousands of vietnamese.

Take a good look at the scandalous double standards with which you judge criminals in civilian and military clothes, Sallow:

When people are paid by a civilian to kill someone else you don't even think about putting all the blame on the person who hired them.

But when they are paid to kill innocent people on behalf of the United States in an unjustified war of aggression you do just that!!

It stands to reason that everybody involved in the Vietnam war is guilty of waging an unjustified war against that country (from the US president who gave the orders to the lowest of grunts who carried them out).

Super-patriotic american clowns build an absurd, mentally insane protective shield around US soldiers to deflect criticism from the individuals who actually carried out that war of aggression!!

You blame 19 arabs who demolished two skyscrappers in America without provocation on behalf of Al-Qaeda but thank thousands of Americans who destroyed the entire country of Vietnam on behalf of the US government in an equally unjust war.

How depraved is that, Sallow?

Q- was there a ' Domino effect' to worry about? .

 

[Sunni Man]

I suggest everyone put Bulldozer III on ignore.

Then he will get frustrated because nobody talks to him and will go away.

 

[José]

Originally posted by Trajan
the north was fighting in the south for their homes?

Trajan, you can find a more detailed answer to your question below but to make a long story short, South Vietnam was an artificial country created by colonial France. As a totally illegitimate country its defence could not be invoked as a pretext to interfere in Vietnam's internal matters.

Originally posted by Trajan
Q- was there a ' Domino effect' to worry about?

I'm willing to bet you wouldn't approve of a coalition of countries invading America in the early 1800's to end slavery, ravaging the country and killing american citizens by the thousands, would you Trajan?

But as a good american super patriot you have no problem with America doing the same in Vietnam to fight communism.

 

[José]

Gadfly,

I read your previous posts yesterday morning and I’m addressing them now. Yesterday I just had the time to warn you about Bulldozer, the mentally deranged poster : )

I just read your most recent message (very thoughtful, very serene post) and will reply as soon as I can. The result of this delay is a somewhat truncated debate but there’s nothing I can do about it (bear with me cause I have severe time constraints).

 

[José]

Gadfly, the main problem here is your total inability to see the Vietnam war through the eyes of the Vietnamese people (that happens to be the "real" perception since it was THEIR country):

You said elsewhere that North Vietnam was a soviet puppet regime:

Originally posted by The Gadfly - The Vietnam War according to José
I was fighting the expansion of Soviet communism, by fighting against a Soviet puppet regime (which North Vietnam certainly was), and its soldiers (the VC, and the NVA).

Let's see what History tells us about the legitimacy of North and South Vietnam:

The State of Vietnam (that would become South Vietnam) had partial autonomy from France as an associated state within the French Union. Some regarded the State of Vietnam as a puppet state of the French Fourth Republic.

Following the referendum's results the State of Vietnam ceased to exist in 1955 and was replaced by the Republic of Vietnam - widely known as South Vietnam.

State of Vietnam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What do you have to say about that, Gadfly?

The french colonial power, not vietnamese nationalists, created and ruled directly the Provisional Government = State of Vietnam (that became) South Vietnam.

An artificial country created by a colonial power that never possessed any public support and that's precisely why the entire history of South Vietnam was an endless succession of feeble, pathetically weak political "leaders" and their doomed governments.

A (puppet) "country" doesn't get any more illegitimate, shambolic than this.

Let me "transplant" the scenario of the creation of South Vietnam to the american reality so that people in the US can have a better idea of how illegitimate South Vietnam really was. Just imagine that soon after the founders issued the declaration of independence in 76, Britain, in a desperate effort to save at least part of its 13 american colonies, creates a new country from Maryland to Georgia, rules them directly for 2 years and then carefully selects loyalists to govern it.

Which country would you consider more legitimate?

The one founded by the heroes of the american independence struggle (Washington, Jefferson, etc..) or the one created by Britain? If you reject Britain's puppet as totally illegimate why do you incoherently support South Vietnam, a puppet state created and initially ruled directly by France in the exact same circumstances?

Because, unfortunately, you are a super patriotic american clown who never saw a US ally you didn't like (no matter how illegitimate)?

I thought so.

 

[José]

Let's compare the illegitimacy of South Vietnam with the state founded by the Viet Minh in 45:

On 2 September 1945, Ho Chí Minh read the Declaration of Independence of Vietnam, under the name of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. France accepted Ho's government in March 1946, but at the same time set up a puppet government for the South in Saigon.

Ho Chi Minh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Do you notice the complete absence of foreign powers behind the creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Gadfly?

No chinese communists (they took power only in 49), no soviets (in 45 they were too busy fighting the nazis), ONLY VIETNAMESE NATIONALISTS, Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap etc, etc... the true heroes of the decade-long fight against french and japanese colonial domination.

After France refused to recognise Ho Chi Minh as the most representative vietnamese nationalist leader and began setting up the puppet state of South Vietnam, and specially after America's criminal intervention in the internal affairs of Vietnam the nationalist leadership was forced to accept russian and chinese help but that's a whole different story.

To even suggest that Ho Chi Minh was a russian or chinese stooge because of that help is as absurd as suggesting that the american revolutionaries were french stooges because of the help they got from France.

You have to come to terms with the fact that the vietnamese people COULDN’T CARE LESS whether Ho was a communist, a capitalist or a feudalist, Gadfly.

He was their national independence hero and that was all they cared about.

 

[José]

To add insult to injury, here's the puppet country of South Vietnam recognising their own lack of legitimacy and the fact that Ho was indeed the most legitimate nationalist leader:

The Geneva Conference specified that elections to unify the country would be scheduled to take place in July 1956, but such elections were never held.

American policymakers thought democratic elections in Vietnam would result in an 80% vote for Ho Chi Minh and therefore blocked elections in the south of the country.

Background to the Vietnam War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[José]

Originally posted by The Gadfly
Is that picture of dead VC combatants supposed to make anyone weep? Sorry, but no. I know what would, though, a picture of the innocent women and children VC just like these raped and tortured to death in village after village, just to keep the peasants they were supposedly "liberating" compliant. No one else here deserves to have to look at the pictures of that I have burned into my brain, but YOU should; you ought to have to look at what your precious little "freedom fighters" did, not to "foreign invaders" but to their own people. You ought to have to look at it, smell it, and hear the screams of those somehow still alive (but dying) after being subjected to it. You ought to have to face the reality of what and who you are praising and mourning for. You ought to have to face it, because they were doing that, long before any American soldier set foot in Vietnam. You ought to have to face it, because the American soldiers you hate so much did NOT go into villages, and torture the inhabitants all night long, the way the VC did. Those dead VC you're asking people here to feel sorry for are the REAL murderers, torturers, and baby-killers of Vietnam, and I mean that in the most literal sense! I wish every sanctimonious bastard like you had to look at that horror. Then you might understand just what we were fighting against. You ought to have to pull the bodies of infants out of the fire they threw them into, the fire they were using to heat the bamboo slivers they tortured everyone from toddlers to the aged with. You ought to have to see every female, from little girls to old women, raped and violated in ways I refuse to even describe here. You ought to have to look at the stuff still imbedded in their bodies. You ought to have to look at women and kids who had every bone in their bodies broken, look at them mutilated in ways so vile you couldn't imagine it, even in your sick fantasies. You ought to have to look at all of it, because until you have, believe me, you only THINK you know what evil truly is. Then again, between your twisted mind, and your hatred for American troops, you might actually get off on it, so long as you could imagine some way to blame us for it. Go crawl back under your rock, you demented hypocrite!

And I'm still waiting for your answer to this question, Gadfly:

How could the Vietnam War, with all its massacres from both sides, indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas, dirty counter-insurgency operations (Phoenix), criminal use of chemical agents that still cause cancer in Vietnam, etc, etc,...

How could all those brutalities ever happen without France's criminal decision to create a pseudo country in the southern half of Vietnam and America's equally criminal decision to protect that western puppet?

Again and again, you have failed to find anything similar to a reasonable answer and I don't blame your debating skills... you can't find an answer because there is none. Because the whole conflict stems from that colonialist decision to disrespect Vietnam's sovereignty.

If you ask me how the Civil War could have ocurred without the North's decision to maintain the Union I won't be able to find a legitimate answer either. Simply because there is none.

You don't want to confront the fact that you use the violence generated by YOUR CRIMINAL PRESENCE in Vietnam as an excuse to justify YOUR CRIMINAL PRESENCE in Vietnam, Gadfly.

This is the only way you have to avoid doing what's right:

Getting down on your knees and begging the vietnamese people for forgiveness for all the pain and misery that you and America brought to them.

 

[José]

THE HISTORY OF VIETNAM is telling you this, Gadfly.

Isn't it enough all the suffering France and America imposed on that country? Do you really have to add insult by raping their history?

Stop making up excuses to obfuscate the 3 main points of that war:

1 - South Vietnam was a completely illegitimate, demoralised, shambolic puppet state, artificial country created by colonial France.

2 - The true vietnamese nationalists under the leadership of Vietnam's greatest national
independence hero, Ho Chi Minh, founded the legitimate state of Vietnam in 1945 way before China or Russia began helping them.

3 - South Vietnam recognised its own lack of legitimacy by refusing to hold national elections to determine the future of the country.

 

[José]

Originally posted by The Gadfly
Then you might understand just what we were fighting against.

No, Gadfly, it's you who now understand what you were really fighting against in Vietnam. You fought to suppress the genuine desire of the vietnamese people to be ruled by their most legitimate leader, Ho Chi Minh.

I know it's extremely painful for you to recognise that you wasted so many years of your life supporting a puppet state and inflicting unimaginable suffering on them but you have to face the facts of the History of Vietnam. You desperately cling to any “noble” reason you can find to justify the Vietnam War so that you don’t have to confront this fact.

Sometimes recognising our own mistakes demands more courage than anything you can do on a battlefield. And you don't even need to travel to Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh to do it.

If you, in the silence of your home, kneel down and ask the people of Vietnam for forgiveness it would be your greatest act of heroism, IMHO.

 

[Sunni Man]

Son, that all took place four decades ago.

It's basically ancient history.

And is now just a subject talked about in the War College and University history classes

All the Vets I know put it behind them a long time ago and are not seeking atonement.

So your pseudo Vatican proclamations are basically a bunch of idiotic illusions of grandeur.

Time to get a grip and move on into reality

 

[editec]

Thousands of Americans and millions of Vietnamese died for what, exactly?

It sure in hell was NOT to prevent any dominos from falling, was it?

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5520.html

 

[tonystewart1]

This thread scares me to death. Have we as a people lost our will to live that if we where attacked today we would roll over and take it. People like Jose have never had to defend anything or anybody. I never served, my dad was in Vietnam. Thats all I know about it. He doesnt talk about it and we dont ask. One thing he taught us was that this was a great country and worth defending at any cost.

I am afraid that if WWII happened today we would lose. Genreations of Americans grow up being told that they have the right to free speach without knowing how we got and keep it.

No vetern of any war has any responsiblity to appologize for anything they done. Being in service to your country is a hard sacrifice judging by the haunted look in my fathers eyes whenever the subject of war is brought up. I thank each and everyone that had the love for country to do it.

If you think US service men owe anyone an appology then by all means pack your bags and go over there and appologize and dont bother coming back.