Vietnam & After

A Final Mission: USS Kirk, 1975

 
USS Kirk loaded with refugees on the way to Subic Bay, May 1, 1975.

Great New Journalism about the End of the Vietnam War:

NPR has produced a great three-part series about the role of the U.S. Navy at the end of the war.   The series features audio, images and video recounting the role of the USS Kirk in evacuating "20,000 to 30,000 Vietnamese refugees" from South Vietnam to the Philippines in 1975.  

It is interesting to read this story about our ragged exit from Vietnam at a moment when our President is discussing the withdrawl of combat troops from Iraq.

Strange Ground

"Maybe I was being unfair, because there were many things reorted about the Americans and SOuth Vietnamese that were never reported about th VC and NVA. The NVA would attack small hamlets at night. They'd just kill, watonly kill. One example really hit me because I was there on the day before the attack. I was playing with a couple of little children, about three or four years old......I got there the next morning at about eight o'clock and the very same little kids I was playing with were dead. A hand here, a leg there. Mothers shot up. It was like a massacre."

    When I began reading the packet, I thought it would be another reading. As I got into it I was more emotional. The stories these people tell, the information they give and all the vivid details they provide reallly hit home. I knew the wars were bad and children were among those attacked without question but to read the details and have the image in your head is unbelieveable. I have a four year old brother and all I could think about reading this section was him and how I would feel if I saw him dead and in pieces. Watching the movies, it seems as if the fighters have no emotion or any feelings while doing it. There is no remorse or no second thought, not that it should be like that but to turn around and read this makes you see the troubles and their true feelings. I once wanted to be in the army but I dont think I could ever do the killings they did and live with myself.

Domino effect.....on Vietnam

"You have a row of dominoes set up; you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is that it will go over very quickly."(Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954)

   When I first saw this quote it reminded me of the essay that I just wrote about Vietnam. I found this very interesting because the domino theory is really how communism is spread.From understanding it goes from one country to another helped me better realize why countries wanted to help contain the spread of communism. This quote is showing how it was a disease that was not easy to contain and keep from spreading throughout the world. It also shows how communism was something that many countries feared. It was hard to stop once the country became involved with communism. Many governments fought for this to not attack their country, including the United States.

   Did the U.S. tragically miss the chance in 1945 to help IndoChina claim it's independence and avert 30 years of war?

  THE INDOCHINA WAR, 1945-1975

   After World War II ended the world was in turmoil. The great world powers Great Britain, France, Russia, China,the United States and other countries either wanted their pre-war dominions back or wanted to expand their existing territories.

  Great Britain tried to regain her Commonwealth. Russia expanded her territory into Eastern Europe. And France wanter her pre-war territory of Indo-China back.

The French wanted to regain the wealth Indo_China offered them. After almost 6 years of war they were broke. Indo-China offered her a way to regain her wealth.

  However, not just the French, British, Chinese, Russians(only slightly) and the U.S. had fought the Japanese. In Indo-China the indigenous peoples fought the Japanese as well. In Vietnam a leader who had fought the Japanese very hard arose. His name was Ho Chi Minh.

  When the French returned and tried to reclaim Indo-China many people resented it. After all hadn't we fought the Japanese as well?  Many Vietnamese resented it as well. Thus started a conflict which would end in Vietnam becoming a nation again. A free independent nation after almost a 1,000 years of being conquered . To achieve freedom the Vietnamese led by Ho Chi Minh, drove the French from Indo-China and then fought another war with the U.S.

  During the war with the French Indo-China war the U.S. supported her ally, France. One has to wonder why? The French were weak and had lost Indo-China to Japan. The people of Indo-China fought hard against the Japanese.

It is my opinion that the U.S. made a great mistake at this time. She supported her ally without knowing a great deal about her allies, adversary. That lack of knowledge about the people of Vietnam and her leader, would lead the U.S. into a horrible and terrible conflict with Vietnam. That lack of knowledge about the people the U.S. was fighting would continue throughout the Vietnam war and after. One simply has to wonder why? 

It took them 30 years to achieve their goal of Independence. .

 

 

The Realities of the Vietnam War

    Many wouldn't and many didn't expect it but within every war, the cold and harsh realities of that war stay concealed. Exposing these events should only show the public that war shouldn't be taken likely. This includes the Vietnam War and the "My Lai Massacre" that occurred on March 16, 1968 where citizens was beaten, tortured,  raped, maimed, and hundreds of others were murdered. When exposed, much of the world was shocked and outraged and in time reduced support for the United States in the Vietnam War.
    "In the course of three hours more than 500 Vietnamese civilians were killed in cold blood at the hands of US troops. The soldiers had been on a "search and destroy" mission to root out communist fighters in what was fertile Viet Cong territory."

    "When the story of My Lai was exposed, more than a year later, it tarnished the name of the US army. Most Americans did not want to believe that their revered GI Joe could be a wanton murderer."
    "My Lai was the sort of atrocity American patriots preferred to associate with the Nazis."
    As the Vietnam War continued events such as random killings, cases of rape, and torturing civilians still continued but at a much smaller scale. It's hard to believe that tales told at such graphic contents would be true but in terms of today little is expected when it comes to war. Very little.

Tom O'Hara: Insensitive & Callus to Fellow Vets

In Patriots, pages 325-327 Tom O'Hara tells his story of spending a year in Vietnam. The problem i have with his story is that he expresses zero tolerance for Vietnam Veterans that have not been able to put Vietnam past them and move forward with life.

O'Hara explains the class war situation and who got what according to wealth and power. O'Hara was a life support specialist in the 177th Tactical Fighter Group. He drive pilots to and from planes along with all the proper equipment and it is at this point when i realize he is shamming.

"I didin't want to be there, but it was a completely mindless routine that i was capable of coping with. My strategy was to sleep ten to twelve hours a day. Figured i was cutting my time in half."

O'Hara was at Phu Cat Air Force base near Qui Nhon. His three square mile piece of U.S.. Whatever O'Hara saw within this piece of land between Danang and Saigon didn't phase him. he states "the entire year there i never established a relationship with a Vietnamese." Basically he was just doing his time. This i believe was how people survived mentally in the war. Although i should say that his view on the rest of the Vietnam Vets is atrocious.

"Why don't you just stand up and say, "" I don't want to spend two years having some asshole berate me and go over and get shot at." that makes sense, but don't couch it in all this moral shit. So i was pissed off coming and going."

He is talking about anitwar protestors and his bitterness towards having to leave Rutgers University to carry pilots back and forth to the air strip in Vietnam. While i can understand his bitterness i think he is severely lacking gratefullness that he came home in one piece and to some respect was sheltered within the war. At the end of his story he blatanty bashes other Vets and their problems which is selfish on O'Hars part to assume everyone experienced his circumstances.

He writes, "Maybe some percentage of those people have legitamate post-traumatic stress syndrome and are legitamate Vietnam victims, but the rest, in my opinion, would be sitting somewhere weeping about something even if they had not gone to Vietnam. I have low tolerance for Vietnam Vets who blame everything that's happened to them in the last thirty years on the twelve months they spent over there."

This statment he makes is absolutely close minded and ignorant. He does not nor will anyone ever experience the situations that have changed men forever. He had it easy and instead of being grateful he expresses intolerance for others less fortunate then himself coming out of the war.

In his last sentence he states the exact opposite to general belief.

"So when i read these things it just irrirates the shit out of me because it fosters the notion that somehow this war has traumatized a generation of American men. I'm sorry, but it hasn't."

He is referring to incidents with Vets who has PTSS. The statement itself is outragous to me. The Vietnam war may not have touched every young man at the time personally but it sure did change the generation of young men. Of all the reading of peronal stories about Vietnam i was surely shocked to read O'Hara's. I was actually disappointed in his character for reacting the way he does about Vietnam Vets. To bad for him cause he sounds like one of those people he describes whining about life. Yes i find him a hypocrit and many other things. He sounds like people who say the Holocost didn't really happen, "Vietnam yeah that wasn't anything at all really" is exactly what i got from O'Hara and i find it gross.

Talking about "BLOODS"

Reading this oral history book makes me feel like I'm right there in the midst of all the things that took place. Now that i have started to read the book, i don't want to stop because it's very interesting and i want to see whats going to happen next. One significant part i came across was when the guy said he caught his 1st up close kill. He was very tired after a long day. He thought he saw a dog running. The next thing you know a guy was running up towards him. He said there was nothing you could do but shoot. He had a 20 round clip and he gave the guy the whole thing! Ouch that must of hurt! After the 20 rounds he still wasn't dead. He was making noises in misery. The noise was very hard to stand so another shot was put into his head. The person had a grenade in his hand and i guess he was gonna do like a suicide bombing kind of thing.. It's kind of crazy that in war, sometimes you either kill or be killed.

Death Toll Still Rising. . . .

"War Era Shell Explodes Killing 2, Injuring Others In Southern Vietnam," Sin Chew Daily, Malaysia - Sep 11, 2007

The Associated Press reports that two more people have been killed in the Vietnam war:

"The men had been searching for old ordnance to sell as scrap metal. They discovered an M72 mortar shell from the Vietnam war, and it exploded when they tried to open it, said Doan Van Tri, a police officer in Binh Duong province."

Here's second story from AP published in the Malaysia Star, Malaysia -  on Aug 21, 2007:

"Three killed in artillery shell blast in Vietnam

HANOI (AP) - A Vietnam War-era artillery shell exploded when a man attempted to smash it open for scrap metal, killing a family of three including a 3-year-old boy, police said Wednesday. 

Pham Van Thang, 30, was trying to break the shell into small pieces when it exploded in Duy Xuyen District in Quang Nam province, said district police officer Le Van Sang.   

Quang Nam is about 850 kilometers (530 miles) south of the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi. 

The blast killed Thang and his 28-year-old wife and son, who were standing nearby, Sang said. 

Duy Xuyen was a stronghold for communist forces and was often bombarded and targeted by artillery fires by American and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War. 

Unexploded ordnance from the Vietnam War has killed about 38,000 people since the conflict ended in 1975."

Here's another article about the continuing death toll published by the BBC in 2000.

Still Dealing With The Aftermath: Hmong Refugees

The International Herald Tribune reports that the U.S. senate has approved an amendment to the patriot act which will make life easier for our Hmong and Montagnard allies forced to flee Vietnam after we pulled out of Vietnam in the 1970s.   IHT reports that as of 2000 there were about 170,000 Hmong living in the U.S.. In an tragic twist, the Hmong and Montagnards had been given the legal status of terrorists under a provision of the Patriot Act because they "fought with a foreign army against an established government":

"Under provisions of the USA Patriot Act and the Real ID Act, both passed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Hmong who fought alongside Americans in the "secret war" against communists in the 1960s and 1970s in Laos are considered "terrorists." That disqualifies them for asylum or green cards, which denote permanent residency."

The Senate amendment exempts our former allies from this designation.   One of the senators who sponsored this amendment, Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman commented that "Since the Vietnam War, Hmong refugees have dedicated their service to this nation, and to be classified as terrorists is simply unacceptable."