You served your country in tumultuous and chaotic times when it was not popular to serve our nation. 68% of you enlisted.
You were the best educated fighting force our nation had ever sent to combat. Seventy-two percent of you had a high school diploma or better. Virtually no College athletic teams have that ratio.
You grunts served more time in combat than any soldier of any war. The average infantryman in Vietnam saw about 24o days of combat engagement during a twelve or thirteen month tour of duty. The average infantryman in the South Pacific during World War ll saw approximately 44 days of combat in four years.
Your service in Vietnam developed the air mobile concept–the extensive use of helicopters for transport, logistical support, medvac, reconnaissance and fire support. Your service in Vietnam also assisted in the development of new tactics, weapons and means of communication, and new and improved procedures in emergency medicine that saved lives. Less than 1% of Americans wounded, who survived the first 24 hours, died. As a result a modern day soldier can be triaged faster that most local hospitals.
Your service in Vietnam defeated the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army major offensives during Tet of 68 and 69. You won.
Your service prevented Communism from taking over all of Southeast Asia. Ho Chi Minh was a Nationalist more than a communist. Some say he was ingenious enough to use them. They are now business partners and the source of precious resources including one of the best kept secrets in the world….oil off the South China sea shores. The Phillipines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore (our creditor) and Thailand stayed free of Communism. You WON the war to save most all of South East Asia.
In December of 1972, the massive bombing of North Vietnam, ugly and necessary, compelled the North Vietnamese to sign the Paris Peace accords in January of 1973. You WON the war then.
Saigon was overrun by the North Vietnamese Army on April 30th, 1975, two years after the U.S. Military left Vietnam. As the saying of Nam Vets goes..”we were winning when I left.”
You kept your wits about you when a nation shunned you and doled out some pretty shabby treatment.
You are now the light at the end of tunnel and some of the most refined leaders America has ever known. You know things that can save us.
You are all Heroes of the highest order for you service in Vietnam. Welcome Home!
Happy Veterans Day.
statistics provided by Colonel Joe Abodeely U.S. Army Retired.
I don’t think ever before in history have we seen veterans whimpering and complaining because they got a little bit of poison on them while they were dumping a million tons of it on innocent civilian populations.
But I guess that’s “heroes” by someones standards
Agent Orange kills. The dumping was a bad thing, a very bad thing. Yet I hardly see the medical issues consequent to exposure to Agent Orange as a whimpering matter. Ischemic heart disease and a variety of cancers are hardly a subject for derision. Many of our veterans travel to North Vietnam to this day, to help treat the Vietnamese people.
I enlisted, during the vietnam era, served with many angry dratee’s who did not volunteer and who did not want to be in the military! I remember distinctly how angry some of them were and how they told me I was crazy for being where I did not have to be! The good thing about old age, it sometimes brings reflection and wisdom on ones life, I bought the lie, deception our leaders were selling during that time “stop them asia or a domino effect would occur”, no domino effect occured, look what we have today, we trade with vietnam & send tourist junkets to the country, their weapons & money suppliers of the time China today is our banker, creditor and trading partner! Imagine if one could have known all this would happen how many would have so eagerly went to die and be maimed for nothing! I hate historical revisionist’s, vietnam was a mistake, a lie, deception put on the american public, much as today this middle east crisis is, stop them over there or they will invade us here, now I know the 9/11 thing terrifies folks, its a drop in the bucket coming since its not if but when a nuclear bomb goes off in america or a deadly contagious bio-weapon is used, when one goes around the world demanding everyone obey us, kow tow to us, one only has to look what happened to the last empire which did that the “Roman’s” them barbians they mocked as less than them chipped away at their great empire and eventually ended it! The only thing I learned about vietnam is a bible quote I read quite often “if you live by the sword so shall you die by it”! Our founding fathers warned us about becoming a empire and interfering in other nations affairs, apparently our leaders will not listen to us who don’t want this colonial american empire nor will they heed history which another old saying comes to mind, those who fail to “heed history will be doomed to repreat it”! Where are all the great empires of bygone eras? England/United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, Dutch etc. etc. etc, gone faded the countries still exist but not the colonial empires!
Agree – I have the utmost sympathy for veterans who served and suffered – but not so much for those who continue to pretend that it was an “honorable” war
Be suspicious of anyone sporting a hat with claim they are a vietnam veteran, or sporting them cute stickers on their autos, I don’t wear any hats, put any stickers on my vehicle, nor do I brag about war, killing! A famous ole civil war general once said it was a good thing that war was so horrible or we might grow to like it to much! Vietnam damaged some mens bodies, but many came back with tormented minds, some damaged beyond repair, who had grown to like killing to much, prisons are where many of them ended, many ended homeless unable to live normal lives, some turned to god! During vietnam folks saw bloody news of actual combat, wounded, dead nightly, it helped bring the reality horror of war to americans, sadly we have the youth of today who have no idea, and many of the old warmongers of today dodged vietnam, hiding in college, enlisted in the national guard, some ran to Canada some went to prison rather than go! That famous ole civil war general had no idea unmanned drones would come, war would be censored, cleaned up as nice neat videos with shadows being hit by gunfire, missiles, civilian deaths would be spoken of as merely cost of doing business nothing to feel guitly about just inevitable collateral damage! I wonder will these folks who glory in war be so arrogant on judgment day when jesus faces them and they have to answer for their earthly sins, one had best have repented or a eternity in a not so pleasant place awaits!
I often imagine if we spent all that money wasted on fighting in foreign lands such as Vietnam, Korea which in my view were and will always be mistakes, how much we could have improved and benefited america! The only justified war I will even concede is world war II…..now that one left us no real options Hitler would have in time gotten the nuclear bomb, had no qualms at using it to exterminate his enemies, I don’t even see world war I as worth while, no monsters existed, just greedy nations wanting to dominate and colonize! One day when we are all deceased our ancestors will write of us like they write of many no longer existing empires what really happened, we went to war for false reasons in middle east, for oil, world resources which are dwindling in a world with 7 billion hungry human beings! Who knows what the world will look like in a hundred years, one can only speculate, folks fear nuclear weapons, but the thing they ought to fear the worst is biological warefare, once released it cannot be stopped, controled and if one is a terrorist in asoe remote cave they can create it with a fermentor the size of a commercial coffee pot one sees in any gas station…., it would be biblical, apocalyptic in effect, one cannot imagine a disease with no cure, no vaccine ravaging the world, uncontroled realeased by mad men angry at us for invading their homelands, killing their loved ones, “if one lives by the sword so shall he die by it” sounds corny, silly but that is what vietnam taught me, only god knows what mankinds future is!
I wear no VN Insignia clothing nor broadcast via vehicle stickers or blow a horn, but I do enjoy a brew or three along with some conversation with my fellow war vets as as full member of every VFW I visit. Full membership only comes with proper paperwork!
The only VA organization I am a advocate for is DAV….., one see’s these politicians being exposed as phoney’s with alleged combat service, in fact some fellow fooled a bunch of folks he was a former admiral, one was doing public speaking engagments as a veteran and never served in any branch of any service! One noted case right here in Tucson a fellow minure man member named “Bush” no relation to them Texas Bushes was claiming to be a US marine veteran, went by on line name gunny, murdered some poor little 9 year old hispanic girl by blowing her head off as she pleaded for her life, but when her wounded mother shot him, fled like the cowardly dog he was, and now sits on death row with his female commander, another self professed patriot, former prostitute, both criminals with nothing to their honor but evil! With computers, printers, copying machines, xerox machines, I am not to impressed with “papers” we got a country with 20 million illegals living here with some form of papers which on surface might appear legitimate, I always question folks need to feel proud! Proud of what? I feel only pride in my two sons, have no vain need to hang out with any old war horses real or fake, what they think of me will not do me one wit of good on judgment day when I face the only one whom I fear Jesus! Now you go on and do what makes you happy, is that not what america is all about, freedom, ability to do what one wishes? I choose to believe what I wish, and live my life as I wish too, I feel earned it, as did any veteran!
The very reason, I wrote the sentence. “you know things that can save us.” Just trying to be polite on Veterans Day.
I am a 100% disabled veteran from combat in the Vietnam War. I know of all the things these commenters speak of .. I know them well.
I too am 100% disabled vet, vietnam era, agree wisdom is good, polite is even better I do believe with old age one either becomes senile or wise! Some in fact find bliss in the hitting that second child hood to forget maybe some things better forgotten! Folks will never agree on the righteousness of war & peace, but I truly believe in that ole saying blessed be the peace maker, we have too many war mongers today who have never went to war, who have never seen the horrors of it, and that is sad to me, I use to remember the old corny sayings of my youth, old men make wars and the young men fight them, etc., I think I am more of a spectator today on the world events but truly I see a Deja Vu moment in this middle east conflict, but worse yet many don’t realize we are making the same mistake the Russians did, and they bankrupted themselves both economically and in blood trying to dominate the world by force! The biggest lie, myth told is Reagan brought down the iron curtain, he merely was in office when Soviet Union defeated itself by political/ecoomic suicide in Afghanistan the grave yard of many a great empire!
Well said JD. The cost of the undeclared war, along with the mercenaries and the staggering cost of disabilities that are permanent, is going to bring down the tent. The weapon of mass destruction may well be traumatic brain injuries who survive and will need care for life.
As for the Soviet Union, you are spot on about the piggy bank going dry. And the Pope had a small part in that moment in history too.
Wish you well friend, one thing for sure the world is on a course none of us can predict, one would hope it gets better, but for the religous among us am not holding my breathe, for the atheist’s or other belief’s war sometimes occurs for reasons beyond anyones control such as world war II, the only war in my recent memory I can see if we did not go we might be speaking german/japanese today and have no rights and the issue of race and culture would be a moot issue since it was Hitler’s design to commit genocide on anyone not white, and even then one had to have a special white blood! What will be will be, at best we can pray on it! I like your blog, more honest than some and definitely interesting! Good luck!
Thanks.
I consider the American soldiers involved in the American invasion of Vietnam to be every bit as much the victims of the same conspiracy as the equally courageous peoples of Vietnam. This was a big blind spot for us on the left at the time; not to recognize the victimization of soldiers, but rather paint them as the perpetrators of the crimes. I think we have learned that lesson. Sadly, the left and much of the population of the US were equally as short-sighted and ignorant of history as we have always been to believe that the imperialists would learn their lesson and stop engaging in wars of aggression.
So, it is always with mixed emotion that I see Veteran’s Day celebrated and here people say things like “Thank you for your service”. On the one hand, I do not want to see the veterans ignored and forgotten, for they have suffered much. They have been victims of the same enemy every bit as much as the people all over the globe they were sent to kill. On the other hand, I despise all the damn flag-waving and phony uber-patriotism that I believe only sets us up for the next war, when young people will again be sent somewhere to be killed, to kill, to be permanently maimed psychologically and physically to no end other than to enrich defense contractors and maintain American hegemony.
In the greatest irony of all, the heroic people of Vietnam and the American soldier in Vietnam both had the same enemy, yet for years they engaged in a monumental slaughter of one another.
“I despise all the damn flag-waving and phony uber-patriotism that I believe only sets us up for the next war”
I have rarely encountered anyone who applies this sentiment consistently. They actually love this stuff, just not who’s doing it.
I am not one to give advice, but two types of personalities exist Type A…which tends to be angry, upset, unhappy, miserable 24/7…tend to have premature cardiac arrest issues or at minimum high blood pressure and various health issues least of which is physical, some go off the deep end and do like that poor fellow did up in DC museum shooting, at end of his life in 80’s, raging at the world, angry, bitter his agenda as a white supremacist blogger failed, angry at social security for reducing his benefits, charged into the DC museum shot/killed some hapless black security guard, died in prison waiting trial, now the second category is Type B…tend to not be so angry, miserable, unhappy and tend to have less health issues, my last check up was told by the nurse and have been told this quite often in past as well I have the blood pressure of a 20 year old, I don’t attribute this to anything I do, but merely the luck of the draw that I got one of them Type B personalities!:-) One can find angry, unhappy Type A’s on any political spectrum right, left or middle, don’t believe politics applies its how folks deal with life!:-) Being angry will not change the world, if that was the case it would have been changed centuries ago…!
Vietnam was doomed endeavor for many reasons least of which we supported tyrants who the common people hated, despised, when one puts puppet regimes in power merely because they were friendly to our political interests we are not supporting democracy but merely extending our colonial empire by proxy! We did it in vietnam and we are doing it in Iraq/Afghanistan and it cannot go well for us, when one fails to heed history one is doomed to repeat it! I spent veterans day with my sons, the only good thing I ever did in my life, the only thing I am truly proud of! God bless all and we all have to seek our own paths, some will choose the wide and easy ones some will choose the narrow hard ones!
PS…yes anyone can join these VA organizations with submission of their DD-214, not knocking any of them, if they serve the veterans with no charges, no fee’s as most do not charge anything I am ok with them, just not a very extroverted person, don’t feel the need to hang out with anyone, guess I am just getting old and tired and don’t think I need to do the things I did when I was full of myself and my youth!;-) Some old men & women obviously think other wise!:-) I am reminded of another old corny saying “to each their own or different strokes for different folks”! Now I do like a bit of humor! Always said I would rather laugh than cry!