Jump to content

Canadian Vietnam War Veterans Remembered


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 72
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Yes, we're clearly amongst the most hapless victims in history aren't we?

Nobody knows the troubles we've seen

Nobody knows our sorrow

:lol:

There's myth and there's actual history.

US advisors had been in South Viet-Nam since the late 1950s. But US combat troops arrived at the invitation of the South Vietnamese government as the result of the North Vietnamese/Viet Cong attack on the airbase at Bien Hoa on Nov. 1st, 1964. These to guard the air bases (at first). Not some other reason...and they didn't invade. They were greeted on the beach at Da Nang by young girls handing out flowers.

Their numbers and purpose in-country grew from there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bien_Hoa_Air_Base#B-57B_Canberras

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19641103&id=kN8jAAAAIBAJ&sjid=hCcEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6178,1919241&hl=en

Edited by DogOnPorch
Link to comment
Share on other sites

...

Viet-Nam fell to the Communists...re: Domino Theory. The UN passed Resolution 413 to rubber stamp the conquest. Saigon was renamed and the South ethnically cleansed by the North. Nobody cared.

Nobody cared? On the contrary. The US won the Cold War and the Soviet Union is no more.

Without America's resolve in Vietnam, I wonder whether this world we know now would even exist.

====

Nowadays, we face car bombs and theatre bombs. Then, we faced nuclear bombs.

Edited by August1991
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On the contrary. The US won the Cold War and the Soviet Union is no more.

Without America's resolve in Vietnam, I wonder whether this world we know would even exist.

Nobody particularly cared that North Viet-Nam conquered the South. The UN certainly didn't. No flotillas for South Viet-Nam.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, we're clearly amongst the most hapless victims in history aren't we?

Nobody knows the troubles we've seen

Nobody knows our sorrow

:lol:

So, history is simply about victims? And is that your definition of morality or ethics? Victimhood?

===

Here's another measure of good (Mandela style): It is "good" if overall, people benefit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, history is simply about victims? And is that your definition of morality or ethics? Victimhood?

No, I'm mocking the way the west has defined it's place in history that way.

Here's another measure of good (Mandela style): It is "good" if overall, people benefit.

I prescribe to the Dalai Lama's measure: Do no harm.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's myth and there's actual history.

US advisors had been in South Viet-Nam since the late 1950s. But US combat troops arrived at the invitation of the South Vietnamese government as the result of the North Vietnamese/Viet Cong attack on the airbase at Bien Hoa on Nov. 1st, 1964. These to guard the air bases (at first). Not some other reason...and they didn't invade. They were greeted on the beach at Da Nang by young girls handing out flowers.

Their numbers and purpose in-country grew from there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bien_Hoa_Air_Base#B-57B_Canberras

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19641103&id=kN8jAAAAIBAJ&sjid=hCcEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6178,1919241&hl=en

Damn. I'm always impressed when people don't even understand their own links.

On 26 December 1961, Washington issued new regulations directing that all Farm Gate missions would include at least one South Vietnamese national on board every aircraft. McNamara further amplified this requirement by stating that the Vietnamese would fly in the backseat position. Americans, with Vietnamese aboard, were soon flying to destroy Viet Cong supply lines and forces. Flying from Bien Hoa and air bases being improved up-country at Da Nang and Pleiku, T-28 and B-26 operations emphasized "training" for reconnaissance, surveillance, interdiction, and close air support missions.

Are you used to dealing with people who don't bother to read your links? Because yours directly contradicts the bullshit you just wrote.

The commandos were to maintain a low profile in-country. The aircraft were painted with VNAF insignia, and all pilots wore plain flight suits minus all insignia and name tags that could identify them as Americans. They also sanitized their wallets and did not carry Geneva Convention cards.

So, since they weren't properly identified as American soldiers, technically, they were, what, spies?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And you ReeferMadness, are so impoverished by these "big players in the arms industry", that you have time and money to post on this Internet forum.

I think that you are complaining, Barbra Streisand style.

Oh, so no complaining allowed unless people are "impoverished"?

Duly noted for the next time you right wingers whine about taxes. Which happens about ever 30 milliseconds around here. I'll send them to talk to you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Damn. I'm always impressed when people don't even understand their own links.

Are you used to dealing with people who don't bother to read your links? Because yours directly contradicts the bullshit you just wrote.

So, since they weren't properly identified as American soldiers, technically, they were, what, spies?

Those were US advisors. The T-28s were South Vietnamese.

Note SVN markings on the T-28s.

02.jpg.jpg

I get my information from sources like the 10,000 Day War and similar histories. Where do you get yours from?

Edited by DogOnPorch
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow. I don't know what wingnut school taught you history but you should definitely get a refund.

I follow a "wingnut school of history"?

The Soviet Union is no more. The US won the Cold War. Why? Because many ordinary Americans fought in Vietnam, among other battles, and showed their resolve to defeat the Soviet Union. Thank God, the Berlin Wall is no more - and no one else in any modern city wants to create arbitrary walls.

ReeferMadness, thank the 50,000 Americans who died in Vietnam for, at least, this freedom of Berliners, and others in other countries to cross streets freely in a city ...

Edited by August1991
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hold your delusions close - they'll keep you safe from any nagging reality.

Yet the fact is: the Soviet Union is no more. Russia nowadays, even under Putin, has a freely convertible ruble. Russians travel abroad, or have no fear to go to a rebuilt church.

Reefer, I won't talk about Deng Xiaoping and hundreds of millions of people who live better now than in 1975.

=====

Make no mistake: All this happened because ordinary Americans had the will in the 1960s to fight in Vietnam, just as Dunkerque showed the resolve of the British in 1940.

Edited by August1991
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow,, this debate ends up them vs us and I'm surprised someone didn't bring up the war of 1812-13-14 or the civil war were many died. No one wins in a war and I wish MAN would learn how NOT to get into one if possible.

I agree in general, Topaz. Love is better than war.

But faced with someone such as Paul Bernardo or Moms Boucher, sometimes "war" (ie. police/prison) is the only solution.

===

Now, imagine if a Bernardo or a Boucher could dictate the laws of a country, or even a religion?

Edited by August1991
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yet the fact is: the Soviet Union is no more. Russia nowadays, even under Putin, has a freely convertible ruble. Russians travel abroad, or have no fear to go to a rebuilt church.

Make no mistake: All this happened because ordinary Americans had the will in the 1960s to fight in Vietnam, just as Dunkerque showed the resolve of the British in 1940.

So, you can believe that there is some link between the destruction of Vietnam and portions of Laos and Cambodia in the 1960s &70s (with the attendant deaths of 2 million+ people) and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. There is no evidence for it and as such it is no different from the belief in a supernatural being in the sky who rewards people for living right and punishes them for living wrong. Irrational beliefs can result in bizarre and even dangerous behavior and that's why intelligent people believe it's wise to separate church and state.

So, carry on with your irrational, bizarre religious convictions.

Reefer, I won't talk about Deng Xiaoping and hundreds of millions of people who live better now than in 1975.

Oh, is that like the butterfly flapping its wings causing a hurricane?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, you can believe that there is some link between the destruction of Vietnam and portions of Laos and Cambodia in the 1960s &70s (with the attendant deaths of 2 million+ people) and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

....

Your numbers, not mine.

But yes, I see a direct connection between the Vietnam War and the freedom of kids today to go to Poland and Prague.

ReeferMadness, do you know how many kids fly into Krakow nowadays and stay at a youth hostel? Krakow is beautiful, a preserved vestige of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

Kids these days are free to travel. Thank God, and thank those American guys who fought in Vietnam.

Edited by August1991
Link to comment
Share on other sites

With history its easy to look back from the perspective of hindsight and see things the people of the actual day did not or could not see.

Hindsight. Makes geniuses out of sofa spectators. We all become the best coaches, general managers and world messiahs because of it.

Looking back at Vietnam the French in Indochina were rudely defeated by the Viet Cong. At that time France had been experiencing a lot of embarassements in North Africa already.

The Soviet Union and China were much more aggressive then their regimes today. Korea was fresh in everyone's mind. In fact most people saw Vietnam as a repeat of Korea, period.

We almost saw the world end in Korea. McArthur went rogue and he and Air Foce General Curtis Lemay wanted to introduce a nuclear war and it was Truman who stopped it.

Curtis Lemay went on in Vietnam to push Kennedy and then LBJ to use nuclear weapons and both had to reign him in. We had gone through a crisis over Korea and Cuba. The world was at war between so called democracies and peoples' republics.

Curtis Lemay was the basis for Dr. Strangelove. He ran with George Wallace the Democrat Governor of Alabama in a bizarre 3rd party option advicating out and out racism before Wallace was shot and turned the other way into a reonciliator with black Americans.

Vietnam arose at a time when the Societs, Chinese and Americans were involved in an uncertain cold war where both took over countries using proxy puppets. Both sides had equal numbers of puppet regimes they played their game of hegemony through..

Ho Chi Minh of North Vietnam was as much a puppet of the Soviets and Chinese as Nguyen and Lee and others were in South Vietnam.

China to this day never has gotten along with North Vietnam. The friction between China and Vietnam dates back centuries and when China backed North Vietnam it did not make them trust one another. They were just as master to puppet as the US was with South Vietnam.There were the Chinese supporting Ho Chi Minh while in China Vietnamese were treated like scum and Chinese in Vietnam were treated like scum. It was a complex time period.

In revisionist history only Americans are portrayed as colonialists. No one states the role of Russia and China doing the exact same thing on the other side.

Bottom line-North Vietnam, not China, not Russia, in spite of both won using Viet Cong guerilla tactics. They mixed attacks at night with booby traps and the dumping of cheap but super strong hash hish and heroin on inncer city poor blacks and whites drafted into the US army to defeat them.

The US army was full of poorly trained underclass people.

Its Marines and Green Berets were lethal. Its regular army outside the Rangers was useless and even the Rangers had limited or little effect in jungles. Its Air Force Phantoms ruled the air with napalm.

The US lost the war because of public relations. If it wanted to it could have flattened its enemy and created another Korea stalemate.

What it did not fully understand was the race war it tiggered back home when Mumhammed Ali, Martin Luther King and other prominent blacks re-scripted the p.r. narrative to describe the war as racist, not commie v. democrat. Once that happened the US could nof find the popular support to sustain its war.

As well another phenomena lost the war for the US-it was the nightly reports of the number of dead broadast by Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, that played like a gruseome football score and brought home the immediacy of American lives being lost.

P.r. took down the US as well as basic, guerilla-psychological terror tactics of the Viet Cong magnified by the effects of sleep deprivation and drugs.

The Soviets and Chinese were just as culpable of the Americans for interfering and to blame it on the US solely is a crock

I have friends who served in Vietnam; Canadian, Australian and American. The Australians and New Zealanders who fought in Vietnam for the most part have a totally different perspective. They saw communism coming there way. Canadians and Americans who fought were vilified, treated like scrum when they returned.

I honour them as I would any soldier. They hate what they did and how they are hated and misunderstood. I defer in silence to them and say not a word. I just listen if they say something.

I understand some were drafted and had no choice and others went to fight what they thought was a battle to keep Vietnamese people free from communism.

Soldiers did not go to Vietnam to rape and pillage. Some became that way no differently than Viet Cong did. War turns people into bad people depending on the theatre and the conditions. War has always been about rape, pillage, the break down of civility. When conventional armies come into contact with civilians, and terrorists may be hiding within the civilians, bad things then happen. That is an over simplification. You put uneducated people in positions of extreme power over others, if they do not have the right psychological temperament, they also can become rapists and killers quickly. All it takes is one or two. Most in he unit will stand down, but the bad ones dominate.

The regular US army had officers untrained to handle inner city people. It was a clash of middle and lower class in the ranks coming from two different perspectives on life and it did not make for a cohesive army.

There was bitter divisions between volunteers and conscripts, professionals and call ups, officers and non com officers.

Vietnam was also distorted by hash hish, heroin, alcohol, lsd. It was a war where drugs polluted the minds of soldiers late at night jumping on the slightest sound in the jungle as they waited for an attack and suffered sleep deprivation, malaria, and all kinds of illnesses from the lack of hygiene ranging from lice, mites, ratbites, cholera, typhus, diaheria, skin rashes, feet rot, tooth decay, eye infections, on and on..

Its not something any of you would wish to stay awake for and go days without sleep over.

The napalm strikes burned allied soldiers who breathed it in even from a dstance. They would inhale it and stay alive and years later some would be told to keep smoking cigarettes so there lungs would not burn.

There but for the grace of God go these soldiers. its not for me to judge them.

As for the people of Vietnam, today the irony is they work as cheap labour for Nike, Adidas, Coca Cola.

The so called people's government uses them as cheap labour just like the Chinese does their people.

Their government will sell kids from orphanages to wealthy Europeans.

Life goes on. Its cheap. Nothing changed for anyone.

Ironically this was a place of Buddhism. How such a peaceful way of life was invaded and destroyed by two cultures (West and Communist) is the irony.

Edited by Rue
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Tell a friend

    Love Repolitics.com - Political Discussion Forums? Tell a friend!
  • Member Statistics

    • Total Members
      10,714
    • Most Online
      1,403

    Newest Member
    wopsas
    Joined
  • Recent Achievements

    • Venandi went up a rank
      Explorer
    • Jeary earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Venandi went up a rank
      Apprentice
    • Gaétan earned a badge
      Very Popular
    • Dictatords earned a badge
      First Post
  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...