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It's funny how convoluted things are. We went to Vietnam under Dem leadership, we expanded it under Dem leadership, and people begun to distrust the government during that time. The protesters, who were leftist, took to the streets to voice their distrust, even thought their own party was in the WH. The distrust continued under Nixon, and went through the roof when he was driven out. The left distrusted the government more than anyone, and yet today it is the GOP who says you should not trust the government, and if you do, you must be a leftist.
I think you might not be willing or able to give credit where credit is due...
Of course I know the difference between what Red China and the USSR represented in the way of threat then as compared to China and the world today. My point has been to question just what exactly the real threat was and how best to deal with it then, just like we must judge today. Hard to look at only "apples with apples" in any case when it comes to a forever evolving world theater.
I agree we can look at where it seems things are better today than once upon a time, but your confidence in how that could only happen as a result of what we did -- at some considerable expense -- rather than what might have been done differently or better, strikes me as awfully single or closed minded.
Some argue, for example, the USSR eventually collapsed from within because of the arms race they could not sustain. Economic problems too. That's the sort of example where building strength rather than using it, with the patience and resolve not to actually commit troops to war unless absolutely necessary, brought about more the weakening of our enemy than actually killing and being killed for the same result.
I am not an isolationist or one to miss the need to be engaged where and how it makes good sense, but given all the powers that be and influences that we all know don't always serve our interests best, I am also not one to avoid considering how America could have done better, or more importantly, how we can do better going forward, ideally to avoid war conflict like we endured in Vietnam for an awful long time before deciding on a different course.
We don't choose our enemies or their actions. All we do is react to their aggression because history only proves one thing for certain that appeasement doesn't work and that's a road for bigger wars and more deaths. It didn't work against the Nazis or the Communists during the Cold War.
Tell me how you would have handled Vietnam? Here we have South Vietnam and our troops there and they are getting constantly attacked by the communists in the North for 10 years being backed by our sworn enemies in Red China and the Soviets testing the U.S.A . Do you fight or just throw in the towel and seal the fate of our allied in South Vietnam and make a deal with the slave Masters to save our skins?........and if you throw in the towel what makes you think that would stop there? what makes you think the Soviets and Red China and their satellite countries wouldn't use the same tactics against their neighbors knowing that we are not willing to fight or that half of the people in the U.S.A will be against fighting and even use their talking points to divide the U.S. public opinion?
Only a fool would think that the Soviets fell on their own or some on the left who doesn't want to give any credit to Reagan and all our Presidents and policies since Truman that took head on the Soviet threat like we did the Nazis.
By the way, I was a sub-hunter in the P-3 Orion Squadrons in the United States Navy for 20 years during the COLD WAR. I know for sure the Soviet Union didn't fall on their own. We engage them in everything they did even if we didn't fire a missile or a bullet. They knew we answer everything they did military wise and they knew what they were dealing with. If they went bankrupt we were a big part of it and drawing the line in the sand and making sure they knew the damn consequences if they cross it with their aggression, it's the main reason we won the Cold War and WW 2 and will win future wars.
Our military and the people who served was the main reason we won the Cold War without going into a global nuclear war. The main reason North Vietnam is not a parking lot today.
Last edited by Hellion1999; 09-22-2017 at 11:38 AM..
It's funny how convoluted things are. We went to Vietnam under Dem leadership, we expanded it under Dem leadership, and people begun to distrust the government during that time. The protesters, who were leftist, took to the streets to voice their distrust, even thought their own party was in the WH. The distrust continued under Nixon, and went through the roof when he was driven out. The left distrusted the government more than anyone, and yet today it is the GOP who says you should not trust the government, and if you do, you must be a leftist.
Don't confuse traditional liberals like Truman, LBJ and JFK to the left...............traditional Liberals and Conservatives knew we had to engage and defeat communist aggression after WW2......The left who the majority wherein the colleges spreading their propaganda and the base of the Anti-War movement didn't.......nothing has changed much today.
if we had the same ANTI-WAR movement during WW 2, that would have prolonged the war....different generation(thank God)
There was a real cold war going on I remember in grade school having drills for we would get underneath our desks to avoid the flash of a nuclear bomb. The desk I climbed under was in classroom in Santa Clara California.
I'm 42, so I never was in one of those drills, but didn't anyone ever question the rationale behind crawling under a desk during a nuclear bombing?? I don't know if my parents ever took part in one of those drills either (they both grew up in rural areas of upstate NY and were out of high school by 1955 and 1957) - they never mentioned it to me.
My mom tried to watch Wednesday night's episode ("Resolve"), but she found it too disturbing. She's 80, but for some reason was never aware of the war when it was going on - she never had a TV until she got married in 1965, and then she was too busy with housework and kids to be watching the news. Plus, we didn't have any family who served that I am aware of - my dad was out of the Army by 1965, and would never have been sent due to having too high a security clearance.
It's funny how convoluted things are. We went to Vietnam under Dem leadership, we expanded it under Dem leadership, and people begun to distrust the government during that time. The protesters, who were leftist, took to the streets to voice their distrust, even thought their own party was in the WH. The distrust continued under Nixon, and went through the roof when he was driven out. The left distrusted the government more than anyone, and yet today it is the GOP who says you should not trust the government, and if you do, you must be a leftist.
If you do trust our government, you are a leftist. Only someone who is ready tou outsource their thinking functions to the subdurvience of political correct talking points can trust our government at this stage. By definition, that is what a leftist is and does.
I cried watching these parts, as much for the fact that these men went through such experiences, and for the feeling of thankfulness that my dad didn't go through them.
I remember Reader's Digest published part of McCain's memoir about his time as a POW. That was years ago, but I vividly remember reading it. Like how the POWs would come up with ways to communicate with each other even though they weren't supposed to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mofford
The dialog from soldier John Musgrave was very interesting, as he explains about the faulty M16 rifle and how the enemy was able to cut them down so easy with the far superior AK 47's. He really lays it out when he describes his battle wound to the chest that you could put a fist thru, and the bravery of his fellow marines in the way they protected him and got him to safety. Then the horror as he was passed from doctor to doctor while he was still conscious, none would do anything for him because they thought he was a dead duck anyway, until he finally got one to patch him up, that would have been a son of a B. He did a good job explaining what goes on in the mind of a soldier in battle.
Noticed they mentioned John McCain, I don't really care much for him but they really enlightened me as to the hell that guy went thru. The tortured look on his face as he was being interviewed in the hospital, that really brought it home for me what he had to endure. And the commies gave him a beating after that interview for not showing/mentioning gratitude to his captors for dragging him back to the POW camp and setting his broken arms and leg with no sedatives. Whom I feel the most sympathy for, Everett Alvarez, the poor bastard who was the first US airman shot down in Vietnam, back in 1964 and had to spend 8 years in that s-hole prison, the Hanoi Hilton.
if we had the same ANTI-WAR movement during WW 2, that would have prolonged the war....different generation(thank God)
You keep believing every war is the same. They are not. We were attacked in WW-II and the reasons for partaking in the war were understood by everyone. However, with Vietnam, the reasons were purely political and ideological, and everyone knew Vietnam posed no threat to US whatsoever. When American kids started dying there, people back home stopped believing the excuses offered by the government.
Today people from both sides agree it was a mistake.
Amazingly there are still some people like you who trust the government to a point where you think the war was a good idea and necessary.
Heck, during WW-II we stayed out of it as long as we could even when Europe was in flames. You think the US government in the 1940s would have committed American blood and treasure in a little and meaningless country like Vietnam? No way.
Last edited by Finn_Jarber; 09-22-2017 at 12:17 PM..
You keep believing every war is the same. They are not. We were attacked in WW-II and the reasons for partaking in the war were understood by everyone. However, with Vietnam, the reasons were purely political and ideological, and everyone knew Vietnam posed no threat to US whatsoever. When American kids started dying there, people back home stopped believing the excuses offered by the government.
Today people from both sides agree it was a mistake.
Amazingly there are still some people like you who still trust the government to a point where you think the war was a good idea and necessary.
Heck, during WW-II we stayed out of it as long as we could even when Europe was in flames. You think the US government in the 1940s would have committed American blood and treasure in a little and meaningless country like Vietnam? No way.
Our soldiers and South Vietnam were being constantly attacked by the communists of North Vietnam who were backed by our sworn enemies the Soviets and Red China....if that's not an act of war I don't know what is. Your solution is to surrender and cut and run and sealed the fate of the millions of people in South Vietnam. I asked you many times and you keep ignoring the question, where do you draw the line and fight against communism aggression during the Cold War?.....if not Vietnam? where? Korea? other parts of Asia? Europe? or your attitude is better red than dead?
you keep repeating the same talking points of the left and the ANTI-WAR movement that many including myself don't buy.
people die in wars, duh!....like I said, thank God we didn't have the left and the anti-war movement during WW2, that would have prolonged the war but of course, that was a good war to fight....the war against communism aggression not so much.
We don't choose our enemies or their actions. All we do is react to their aggression because history only proves one thing for certain that appeasement doesn't work and that's a road for bigger wars and more deaths. It didn't work against the Nazis or the Communists during the Cold War.
Tell me how you would have handled Vietnam? Here we have South Vietnam and our troops there and they are getting constantly attacked by the communists in the North for 10 years being backed by our sworn enemies in Red China and the Soviets testing the U.S.A . Do you fight or just throw in the towel and seal the fate of our allied in South Vietnam and make a deal with the slave Masters to save our skins?........and if you throw in the towel what makes you think that would stop there? what makes you think the Soviets and Red China and their satellite countries wouldn't use the same tactics against their neighbors knowing that we are not willing to fight or that half of the people in the U.S.A will be against fighting and even use their talking points to divide the U.S. public opinion?
Only a fool would think that the Soviets fell on their own or some on the left who doesn't want to give any credit to Reagan and all our Presidents and policies since Truman that took head on the Soviet threat like we did the Nazis.
By the way, I was a sub-hunter in the P-3 Orion Squadrons in the United States Navy for 20 years during the COLD WAR. I know for sure the Soviet Union didn't fall on their own. We engage them in everything they did even if we didn't fire a missile or a bullet. They knew we answer everything they did military wise and they knew what they were dealing with. If they went bankrupt we were a big part of it and drawing the line in the sand and making sure they knew the damn consequences if they cross it with their aggression, it's the main reason we won the Cold War and WW 2 and will win future wars.
Our military and the people who served was the main reason we won the Cold War without going into a global nuclear war. The main reason North Vietnam is not a parking lot today.
I'm not wanting to re-fight the Cold war. Participating in this forum is wasted time enough, and I've got to get on with more productive things again today, but before I sign off again today...
I get a little weary of this constant reference to beating the Nazis as "proof" that appeasement doesn't work. WWI and WWII are unique in many respects that don't apply to more current conflicts like Vietnam, or Iraq, or Iran, or N. Korea..., and "appeasement" is not the only option other than all out war.
Broaden our perspective a bit in these regards, consider ALL the options and various factors then and/or now, and we're better able to judge what is most cost effective in terms of lives not wasted and outcomes most optimal.
Can't rewrite history, but would be nice if we learned from the lessons, and we can't do that if we don't allow for critical unbiased thinking. Obviously Vietnam was no immaculate conception of a war...
All I am inclined to consider (of the many options there are to consider) is what if we had NOT fought in Vietnam? What if Vietnam were entirely communist today as a result? Would we today believe it was worth all those lives lost during all those horrible years to make Vietnam what it is today instead? Is Cambodia or Cuba or other communist -- nondemocratic countries -- the threat we once made them out to be? Might Vietnam be communist instead but also a trading partner and tourist destination like China is today?
We don't choose our enemies or actions? Perhaps true to a point, but we sure do choose what makes for an enemy and what doesn't, what threat we believe an enemy possesses or doesn't, just for starters. After 9/11, for example, we chose Afghanistan to be our enemy in no uncertain terms, enough to bomb it no holds barred. Then chose Iraq even though the 9/11 terrorists were from neither country.
Have we learned to better connect these dots that define our enemies today? Better than before? All considered, I surely have to wonder plenty about past, present and future...
I was thinking about that last night as I watched the episode. The people objecting to the war did so because they disagreed with the basics of being at war, not because of the politics of the leaders. They had been positive about Johnson's war on poverty and the fight for Civil Rights, but the results of his war were more personal - friends and family went off to Vietnam and died, so they were against that.
Over and over again we have gotten involved with a war because we wanted to replace the leaders of the other side and create a new free country. This only worked one time - South Korea.
In Vietnam there was no one to put at the head of the government we needed.
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